Relieved that he was moving, Ella guided him toward the keep’s main door. Then her foot slipped on a patch of mud. She cried out, but before she fell to the ground, Calum scooped her up. He held her close against his chest, his arms solid supports across her back and behind her knees. Sudden heat coursed through her, whether from Calum’s body or her own embarrassment, she couldn’t say.
“Are ye hurt…Janet?”
Heart pounding, she shook her head, then remembered to speak. “Thanks to ye, Calum, nay. Ye saved me from falling. How did ye ken where I was?”
“I always ken where ye are.” He started walking forward, still carrying her.
Ella shivered at the deep undertone of his voice rumbling through his chest and into her ribs, intensifying as it slipped deeper into her body. His words seemed to carry a promise she hoped for but dared not name.
But nay! Thanks to her altered voice and scent, he thought she was Janet, not Ella. How true was his love for her if he could speak so of Janet? She thought he loved her and her alone, yet it seemed he was no better than any of the men in her life. Faithless. Determined to have their way with any woman in reach. “Ye can put me down,” she told him, guilt and anger stealing her enjoyment of his nearness. She must lookridiculous, being rescued by a blind man, no matter how good it felt to be held secure in his arms. No one else would know that angst filled her, but anyone could see them. Even now, the quiet bailey was too public a place for such a display.
“Are ye certain ye can remain standing?”
His tone was teasing, but his touch betrayed his concern, his hand on her back stroking up and down. He meant to soothe her, she knew, but his touch set her blood to singing. Yet he was flirting with Janet, not her. She fought down the feeling and took a breath. “Long enough to get inside, aye.” Where she would find more onions.
He stood her on her feet and took her arm without further comment, but with a frown that made her fear that he’d been affected by holding her, too. Needing a distraction, she hurried them up the steps to the keep’s heavy door and let him pull it open. Once he closed it behind them, his shoulders slumped and she realized he dreaded being confined indoors yet again.
She led him to the entrance to the great hall and paused. There was no one nearby. No one to call her by her name. She could remain Janet, at least for now. She didn’t know what she would do if someone did forget their ruse and call her Ella. Admit to it, she supposed, and deal with Calum’s reaction as she must.
“Take a breath,” she told him. So soon after being in his arms, it might be a risk to emphasize his sense of smell, but she was confident the festival preparations would cover her scent. “Tell me what ye sense.” His broad chest rose and fell, and watching him made her hungry to be held against it again. Even if only as Janet.
“People and hounds,” he said, his fierce expression smoothing into enjoyment. “And for the Marymas, bannocks. Lots of them.”
“And more?”
“The hearth fire burning, and…” He lifted his head, nostrils flaring while he took another breath.
He looked proud, strong and confident, despite the healer’s bandages covering his eyes and wrapping around his dark head. “Roasting meats, aye, and tarts from the kitchen,” he announced.
“I canna smell the pies, but all the rest, aye.”
“Ye said my senses are undimmed. And I told ye, I notice everything.” He turned his face to her. “I ken that Ella has been in my chamber, no’ ye.”
Ella froze. Nay, she’d been careful to keep the healer’s herbs on her any time she tended him. Then she realized he did think of Ella and Janet as two different women and warm relief flooded her, easing the ache in her chest.
“I ken her scent. I told the healer I didna want her there.”
“Perhaps ye only imagined…or something of her scent remains in the chamber from before the healer called me to ye.”
Without the bandages over his eyes, she expected his gaze would be locked with hers and her worries returned. Was he trying to tell her he knew—or at least suspected—who she really was? Could he truly find her scent among all the others in the keep?
“Perhaps.”
Yet, as he held her safe in his arms, he’d hesitated before calling her Janet. Was he playing with her? That, she would not allow. She’d been through too much to be any man’s plaything ever again.
“If she has been in yer chamber, ’twas not when I was present. And surely, she only means to help ye.” She summoned a chuckle. “What man would object to another beautiful lass caring for him?”
Calum’s mouth thinned and his fists clenched. “What good is beauty to a blind man? Can ye tell me that?”
His words hit her like a dirk to the heart. Was that all she meant to him? He saw only her beauty, but not who she was inside?
Nay, she would not accept that. His fear and frustration had set those resentful words spewing from his mouth. He’d pursued her from the moment he’d met her. He cared for her. He’d made his feelings for her plain. She had held him off, certain that she was not ready to be close to any man, even one who interested her, and who pursued her as consistently as Calum did.
Perhaps it was time to end this pretense. This false face she wore around him. She wanted to tell him the truth, but the great hall was no place for this conversation. This confrontation, if that was what it would become. She could not let him fall in love with Janet. It would hurt her too much. She knew that was selfish. She’d denied his advances again and again, but she did love him. She couldn’t bear to lose him. He might be angry at her deception, but the Calum she knew would soon get past it.
Or would he? After succumbing to such a terrible injury, was he still the Calum she knew?
Who would Calum become if, as he feared, he’d lost half his sight? If he could not be the warrior he was before Harlaw, would he still be the man she loved? Friends had warned her he might be changed. Different. But she believed, deep inside, he would be the same man he’d always been, and he would adjust. Iain would see that he had an important place in the clan, no matter what. She would help.
