After hearing his reason for giving such a gift, she couldn't insult him. “I find I cannae refuse ye, sir,” she told him and allowed him to drape the ribbon across her palm. The color drew her eye, but when she touched it, she could not bear to relinquish it. The velvet felt as soft and plush as she’d imagined it would. “I will think of yer kindness, always, when I wear it. And yer wee daughter. What is her name?”
“Emma.” His smile softened. “She is the joy of my life.” Then he held out a hand. “I can ask only one boon more, milady.”
Aftyn nearly handed the ribbon back to him, fearing he was about to demand a kiss or something more in payment.
“Simply tell yer ladies to visit my stall. MacGarrity is me name.” He laid his hand over his heart and inclined his head. “Will ye do that?”
“Of course,” she agreed, relief filling her that he’d not made an improper demand. But he wouldn’t. His tale and his demeanor as he told it convinced her he was sincere. She could keep the ribbon as a token of gratitude, as he’d intended. She smiled, grateful to be acknowledged, something that happened rarely. “Do ye come to market often?”
“I’ll come more often now that I ken such lovely lasses are to be found here.”
Neve giggled.
Aftyn wished him and his family well as she rolled up her treasure. She tucked it into her basket, out of sight, then she and Neve took their leave of MacGarrity.
Neve begged off of seeing the rest of the market, claiming she was tired, and left Aftyn to wander on her own. Only after Neve disappeared into the crowd did Aftyn think to have her take the basket back to the keep. It wasn’t heavy, but it made moving through the crowd awkward.
She hadn’t gone far when a familiar shape appeared ahead of her. She could not mistake Jamie Lathan, even though his broad back was to her. His dark auburn hair glinted red in the sunlight. When he wasn’t castigating her, or wrung out from tending to Niall, his deep brown eyes drew her, his high cheekbones, full, firm lips, and even white teeth made her want to gaze at him forever. And the rest of him she’d seen in his bath. She’d never met a man who fascinated her as much.
While the other Lathans were also tall and well formed, he moved through the crowded market so confidently, most people parted before him, making way as if for royalty.
But not all. Some, facing stalls and intent on the items on offer before them, jostled each other into his way as they moved along. Reflexively, many held up a hand, making contact with his hand or wrist.
Those fleeting contacts raised Aftyn’s hackles and made her watch him even more carefully as she followed along behind him. As though another person’s inadvertent touch annoyed him, or angered him, his shoulders would tense as he glanced down and aside with a frown at the clumsy villager, or adjusted his stride to avoid the next person coming too close to him.
Ahead and to his side, a cluster of women and girls bargained with a different stall keeper over brightly colored ribbons. Younger girls moved around them, laughing and plucking at the colored baubles their mothers held up for inspection. An older woman stood to the side, leaning on a cane, her expression disapproving. She stepped around the cluster of women, meaning, Aftyn thought, to leave them to their haggling and make her way to another stall. Jamie tried to give her room, but the crowd of villagers at the stalls on his other side hemmed him in, and she was so bent over her cane, likely she only saw the ground at her feet, not the big man doing his best to avoid her without bumping into anyone else.
The old woman’s elbow brushed his arm. She paused and touched his hand, seemingly in apology, as she passed. Jamie twitched so slightly that only someone watching him as closely as Aftyn would have seen it. Then he turned his head to regard the old woman’s halting progress. He pivoted and lifted a hand toward her, then clenched his fingers into a fist and drew it back to his side.
Aftyn sidestepped behind a pair of men to avoid being seen as Jamie’s gaze raked past her and followed the old woman. She carried on her halting progress, angled away from Aftyn’s vantage point. She could see Jamie over the shoulder of one of the men, but he failed to notice her.
Before his expression cleared and he turned back to continue through the market, his lips compressed and his gaze dropped.
Did he feel sympathy for those he could not help? Did that failure anger him? Or was there more she did not yet know, did not yet understand? Thinking back over his reaction to the old woman’s touch, she realized there was another explanation.
He’d flinched as though in pain.
It would be simplest to attribute his reactions to the unavoidable press of bodies around them. Aftyn wasn’t fond of crowds, herself. But nothing about Jamie Lathan seemed simple, try though he might to convince her otherwise. And she’d seen him limp out of Niall’s chamber and nearly collapse. Yet he didn’t limp now. Surely he touched the ill and injured who came to him for help. Surely brief contact with fairgoers would make less of a demand on him.
There must be some other explanation. Did he fear cutpurses in a crowded fair? Nay, that couldn’t be the reason for his strange behavior. Who would dare a man like Jamie Lathan?
* * *
Jamie didhis best to avoid the crush in the market of villagers and folk from the keep. He would not be here at all, but he hoped to find an herb he needed to make a stronger poultice for Niall’s wound. He could manage without it, true, but the sooner Niall was fit to travel, the happier Jamie would be, and the herb would help in two ways. First, because Aftyn would expect to see poultices applied to the wound, and second, they would help disguise the healing effect of Jamie’s ability. Though at the moment, he’d happily dispense with his talent.
Every person who touched his skin set off a reaction in his own body. The villagers were rife with pain, injuries, malnutrition, or like the ancient woman who’d passed him a few minutes ago and touched his hand, the infirmities of old age. If he didn’t find the herb seller soon, he’d be too weak from battling his discomfort and fighting to keep from using his healing energy to continue. He would have to find the most direct way out of the market and back to the keep, or at least to a place where he could rest undisturbed for a few minutes.
Getting through this market was akin to anything from being stabbed with an embroidery needle to hit with a mallet, again and again, in his hand, his shoulder, and the length of his spine, his belly, then hip or knee or foot, never knowing when or where each blow would land in his body, depending on what troubled that person. The touches were as unrelenting as they were unintended, and the fatigue from them would soon bring him down. He missed the battle-lust that kept him from feeling anything, even his own pain.
Ah, there. He’d found what he sought. Jamie stepped up to the cart, out of the way of passersby, and inspected the bunches of fresh herbs, leaves, and roots, each tied securely with string, ready to be hung and dried if that was the use they’d be put to. He glanced up at the seller. Did Aftyn know this man? Jamie looked around, hoping to see her in the press of market-goers, but not really expecting to.
Yet there she stood. As soon as he noted her, she turned aside to inspect the contents of a merchant’s stall. Jamie had the strong feeling she’d been watching him, and he’d caught her at it.
She was as lovely as the first time he’d seen her, crossing the great hall. Even more so, with the sunlight gilding her dark hair, making it shine like silk and making Jamie want to touch it. He longed to unravel her braid with his fingers and let the soft strands slip over his palms. She wore a simple homespun kirtle of deep blue. Not a healer’s color, but still, it suited her. She smiled at the merchant showing her his pottery, and jealousy suddenly spiked through Jamie’s belly. He wanted her smile for himself.
She glanced in his direction, but quickly turned back to the potter. So she had been following him. Without thinking, he took a step toward her. If she wanted to see what he was doing here, she could do so at a closer remove.
“A moment, if ye will,” he paused and told the farmer before he strolled to Aftyn’s side, giving her plenty of time to glance his way again and see him coming. She didn’t, but if her skin prickled at his nearness like his did at hers, she fought to keep her gaze on the potter’s wares.
