“Oh, my lady.” Mags’ face was glowing and her mouth was full of the pink meat. “Is nae ham good? So very, very good.”
“Aye. Now chew well and slowly. We want the ham to go down and stay down.”
Mags chewed obediently but after she had swallowed, she said, “I willnae waste a morsel of this precious ham, I promise, my lady.”
Helen opened her own mouth as she watched Mags take another bite. Then she closed it.
Aye. We willnae give the ham back yet.
Helen opened the door of the keep onto a sunny, warm morning. Unseasonably warm. She should start the shearing, and she had no help. Duncan, the blacksmith’s son, was away, buying iron for his father’s forge. But the lambs would come with the spring, and when the ewes made milk, their wool suffered. Best to shear now.
She went back into the keep and put on her breeches as Mags made her a ham sandwich. Helen wrapped it carefully in her only handkerchief and put it in her coat pocket. A rare treat to eat at midday.
She took a bucket and a rope, and she and Luran led the sheep out of the paddock and up into the foothills of the Benrancree mountains. There was a stream there which went down into her own deep loch where sheep had been known to drown. With luck, she might get all the sheep washed today in the stream, and she could shear them tomorrow after their fleeces had dried. Maybe Duncan would be back by then. And she could sell the wool in Cumdairessie and make enough to pay back the pound Jack Pike had lent her.
She got the rope around a ewe’s neck and led it to the stream. The water was ice cold, as could be expected since it was melted snow. The ewe liked the cold water as little as Helen did, and it complained and tried to climb out of the stream bed. But she held it as fast as she could and used her bucket to scoop water up and over the sheep’s back to loosen the filth and dried mud there.
After the first ewe, she was soaking wet and smeared with sticky yolk. Thank goodness the sun beat down on her and warmed her as she worked.
By midday, she had washed a dozen sheep.
She stood up and stretched her back.
“Ho there, boy, whose sheep are these and where are you taking them?”
It was Jack, standing ten yards above her on the far side of the stream, grinning at her. The sun hit his blond-brown hair and it glinted like gold. He was in a shirt and breeches just like she was, his coat slung over his shoulder.
But how magnificent he looked in his shirt and breeches. His wide shoulders, his narrow hips, that place where the tops of his legs folded into his torso, and the bulge there which she knew was his manhood.
She felt dizzy. She closed her eyes. She opened them. No, he was as heartbreakingly glorious as ever. Not that her heart was invested in the scoundrel. Not even a little bit.
“You look quite fetching, Helen. And not nearly as hungover as I would have expected.”
He backed up a bit and took a flying leap over the stream, his boots slipping a little on the bank. But he didn’t fall in the stream, and he laughed as she gave him a hand to help haul him up.
“Oh, oh. Nearly got a ducking myself. My lady, you are very wet.”
She looked down. Her shirt was soaked and clinging to her breasts. Her nipples were clearly visible through the wet cloth. She had not worn a chemise or some other undergarment because she had thought she would be alone with Luran today. Quickly, she pulled at her shirt, moving it away from her body.
She looked at Jack, but he was not looking at her breasts. His eyes were fixed higher up, on her hair. Yes, what interest could her small breasts hold for him? She let go of her shirt and put her hands to her hair, brushing back some of the wettest bits which were hanging down around her face.
“I am washing sheep, Jack Pike. To shear tomorrow.”
“Alone?”
“I have Luran.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Luran is the dog’s name?”
“Aye.”
Jack reached out toward Helen’s head. She held still and held her breath. He pulled a burr from her hair and threw it on the ground.
“The last time I checked, a dog can’t wash sheep.”
“’Tis his job to keep them from wandering.”
Jack spread his coat over the boulder next to Helen’s own coat.
