Smooth as silk, they took their leave and headed through the bailey to the back side to the castle, Lilah and Aaron trailing behind her like a shield.
“Thank you,” she whispered to Lord Loughton. “I began to feel like a spectacle.”
“But that never bothers you,” he returned as he looked down at her. “Why now?”
He didn’t understand. “It doesn’t bother me in London where I am one of thousands of people all rushing to their own life. The country is different where everyone knows everyone else, and the smallest detail is examined and criticized.”
“You feel that way because you do not know them. If you did—”
“I will still have to watch my words, my attire, and my purchases to see that I offend no one.” She sighed. “It’s exhausting.”
“Because they don’t know you and you don’t know them. In time—”
“It will remain the same. As it does in all villages where the souls number less than 300.”
“And here I thought you bold enough to make your own way no matter what the biddies say.”
She winced. He was right. She had long since declared herself free of other people’s thoughts. She made her own way and be damned to them. But in this, she found she wanted Liam’s people to like her.
She was still chewing on this revelation when they made it to the glass factory. It was an open air building and on the far side, she saw a blacksmith doing a brisk trade. Of all the Scots, this man was huge with a meaty fist that wielded his hammer like a Norse god. The clang rang in her ears and Clara was grateful that they were led to the opposite side of building. Though on this side, she was blasted by the heat coming from a blazing hole in a furnace.
A man stood nearby with gnarled hands and skin puckered with burn marks up and down his arms. He was short, but his face remained serene as he drew a glowing blob of glass out of the furnace. The glass was attached to a long pole, and a teen boy immediately began to blow through the pole while the short man used pads then tongs to shape the glass into a rectangular bottle. It was fascinating to watch despite the heat, and Clara’s hands itched to try even though she knew she hadn’t the strength to do what even the boy did. The heat alone would defeat her.
Lord Loughton stood beside her describing the process of blowing glass as the master worked. It took ten minutes for the bottle to be completed and another fifteen to shape a stopper as a wolf’s head. Then the bottle was set inside a cabinet to cool. And beyond that was a large bench of shaped glass bottles, most exquisitely made.
When the bottle was finished and set in the cooling cabinet, Lord Loughton made introductions. The short man with thick-set muscles was Master MacAdaidh. He glanced at them, dipped his chin once with a curt grunt, then returned to his work. The teen boy was Tas Dubh, and he stood tall and strong beside Lord Loughton, though his gaze remained lowered in respect.
“Mr. Dubh,” Clara said as she held up the blue bottle she’d purchased. “Are you the creator of this fine piece of glass?”
The boy looked up and flushed a fiery red. His gaze hopped to Lord Loughton and then to Master MacAdaidh who snorted loudly.
“No’ that piece of trash,” the master said. “Tas made those.” He pointed to a shelf of bottles behind them that she hadn’t seen. Large round bowls like basins only with wings on the back to hold towels and the like.
“They’re beautiful,” she breathed, and Lilah echoed the statement. But she still wanted to know about the one she held. “Who made this piece?”
No one answered her. Instead, Lord Loughton unhooked the clasp at his shoulder and wrapped his kilt firmly around his waist. As the others in the building were equally undressed, it should not have surprised her. And yet, it did. Clara was used to seeing laborers without a shirt, but this was Lord Loughton. He was an aristocrat who debated politics with Aaron and discussed nutrition with Lilah. He was well-educated, and yet he now stood before her with his entire upper body outlined by the light from the furnace.
And what a sight he was. His body stood taller than the master and more mature than the teen. Though he didn’t have the bulky power of the master, his muscles were longer, more fluid, and more beautiful by Clara’s reckoning. She stood transfixed with awe as he began working a blob of molten glass. She watched the sweat bead on his face and wet his torso. She stood transfixed as he set his mouth to the blow tube and the glass expanded. His chest swelled to a stunning degree and then his belly tightened, seeming to draw up into his ribs which in turn pulled together through his taut neck all to be expelled into glass turned molten gold.
As she watched, she remembered the way his lips had moved across her own mouth and her neck. And now she saw what he could do with molten glass.
He replaced the glowing blob into the bright furnace several times, and each time he pulled it out to expand it further. Before long, he handed the pole to the teen who supported it while he took pads and blocks to force it into a rectangular shape. And then, he dropped copper onto it, crafting it as finely as any great painter would with a brush.
And when he tapped the piece off the rod, the master looked it over with a dismissive grunt.
Lord Loughton sighed. “I’m out of practice.”
“Aye,” was all the man said.
He didn’t look out of practice. He looked like a Scots warrior of old. She had no love of warriors rushing into bloody battle. The sight of weapons gripped in sweaty fists did little to spark her interest. But here was a man as powerful as any fighter putting his strength to the creation of something beautiful.
It awed her.
“Try the stopper,” said Master MacAdaidh. “See if you remember how to sculpt.”
Lord Loughton nodded and began the work again. Lilah and Aaron had backed away from the heat, but Clara wanted to go closer. She didn’t care that her face was flushed, and her dress wet with sweat. She watched again as he heated the glass then sat on a bench as he used tongs to stretch and pull it into shape. She kept watching his hands—strong fingers to grip the tongs—and the muscles of his forearms as they bunched and twisted the glass to his will. Several times she thought the glass would break. Indeed, the teen had started his own work and the boy cursed loudly when his creation shattered on the floor.
She looked at Lord Loughton’s face. His concentration was fierce, his brows knitted as he worked. Even his back rippled with the strain of forcing molten glass to his will. Then under his hands, a wolf’s head appeared. The glass dimpled into eyes, the jaw extended into a howl. Drips of glass became teeth, and pinches became ears. He even carved fur into the glass until he sat back with a pleased grunt.
