But the words didn’t come so easily.
Tongue-tied.
He’d actually been rather speechless when he beheld her for the first time in a week. Whatever he felt for her, or whatever he thought he felt for her, hit him full-bore and all he could do was smile. And now, they were having a conversation of superficial words when what he really wanted to do was tell her everything he’d considered over the past week, of his inability to push her from his mind.
But he simply couldn’t do it.
He promised himself he would never disrespect the woman and were he to speak what was in his heart, he couldn’t guarantee that he would keep that promise.
“I must say, it does look quite different here,” he said, looking around the neat kitchen yard with its animal pen and chicken house. “Did my carpenters do all of this?”
Maitland was looking at what had his focus. “Aye,” she said, lifting a hand to shield her eyes from the sun. “They built the chicken house first to protect the fowl. Then, they built the pens for the goats.”
Thomas could see two small girls and one small boy as they milked the nanny goats. They were working very hard at it as thebaby goats moved around them nervously, trying to get to a teat that hadn’t been milked. He grinned.
“The children look as if they know what they are doing already,” he said. “Did you teach them to milk the goats?”
Maitland nodded. “I did,” she said proudly. “But they learned quickly. Come over here. Let me show you what we are doing with the milk.”
He turned away from the goats and followed her over to the repaired kitchen area, looking around with some surprise.
“This does not look as it did when last I saw it,” he said. “The hearth was broken and the bread oven had no door. And there was certainly no roof.”
He was pointing to the cover that had been repaired. The kitchen was an open one, with a hearth and chimney built into the enclosure wall, a bread oven that looked like a beehive, and a covering overhead to keep out the elements. It was really nothing more than an open stall, but now it was neat and organized and clean, and smelled divinely of baking bread.
“Your carpenters fixed the shelter,” Maitland said, looking up at the covering. “They also fixed the bread oven and unclogged the hearth. Truly, the men you sent have worked miracles. This is not the same place you left.”
Thomas lifted his eyebrows in agreement. “That is for certain,” he said. Then, he noticed Artus, the two small twin boys, and the tiny little girl all standing at the kitchen table where they were working on what looked like curds. He pointed. “What are they doing?”
Maitland was quite proud of her production line. “Making goat cheese,” she said. “I told your mother I was going to teach the children how, and it is really very simple. See the hearth? Tibelda is bringing goat’s milk to a boil, and when it is nice and hot, she brings it over to the table where Renard and Roland put lemon juice into it. This makes it curdle.”
Thomas was leaning over the small boys, watching what they were doing. “Des mentioned you had purchased lemons with the money I gave you,” he said. “This far north, they are a precious commodity. Is this what they were for?”
Maitland nodded. “There is something in the juice that starts the cheese-making process with the hot milk,” she said. “I can use vinegar, too, but something about the lemons makes it taste better. Once the juice is stirred in, we wait until it curdles and then we spoon it into linen that has been placed over a bowl. We fold the linen up and let it sit overnight so the cheese becomes a little firmer.”
Thomas nodded his approval. “Fascinating,” he said. “Then what?”
Maitland pointed to Dyana, the little girl, as she stirred and stirred a soft, white mixture. “Then Tibelda or I put salt and herbs in the cheese, which Dyana is mixing in. We did cheese yesterday that had wild garlic and dill in it. The cheese today has wild rosemary; it grows all along the southern side of the tower wall.”
“And then what will you do with the cheese?”
Maitland looked at him as if surprised by the question. “Sell it in Kelso on Market Day,” she said. “I believe we can make good money selling the cheese to travelers or to inns. In fact, I was going to go into Kelso and talk to the innkeepers to see if they would be willing to buy our cheese. It is quite delicious.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Iwill talk to the innkeepers in Kelso and tell them they must buy your cheese,” he said. “They would not dare deny me. In fact, I shall go to a few other small villages around here and sell your cheese to the innkeepers. Can you meet the demand?”
Maitland nodded. “I think so,” she said. “If I need more goats, I can always ask my great patroness, Lady de Wolfe.”
Thomas grinned, gazing into her lovely face and feeling a pull towards her that he’d never felt in his life. A week of separation had done nothing to quell what was growing. Distance could not kill something that was starting to have a life of its own. In fact, his feelings must have been written all over his face because Maitland suddenly looked away, breaking whatever spell was hovering between them, but Thomas’ gaze was still on her.
He couldn’t look away.
Maitland kept her eyes averted, focused on the bread that Tibelda had just taken out of the oven. She ripped a piece of bread from a hot loaf and smeared it with some of the soft cheese that little Dyana had just stirred up with salt and rosemary.
“Here,” she said. “You must try the cheese so you know how delicious it is. We make it during the day and move it to the vault of the tower at night to keep it chilled, but try some of our freshly-made cheese from today.”
Thomas sensed a nervousness in her movements, as if she were abruptly nervous around him. He could only surmise that she’d seen his longing for her in his eyes and it had startled her. She’d told him once that she would never do anything improper with a betrothed man, and he realized with both respect and disappointment that she was a woman of her word.
Disappointed because he had hoped that she would fall.
