“Don’t worry, Shaw,” she said. “I am armed and will not let anyone hurt you.”
He glanced at her, catching her slight grin. It reached her eyes, giving him pause. The corner of his mouth twitch upward. “Glad ye will have my back,” he said, stepping before her as they entered. There was little threat with just one patron hunched over a steaming cup in the corner and two women behind the high bar, setting cups out and drying them with their aprons.
“Goodness,” one of the women declared, wiping her hands on her apron. “We have visitors, Fiona.” The other woman was already staring at them, a scowl on her face. They looked quite similar, full faces and light brown hair, probably near a score and ten years old.
“I see that,” the second woman said. “Welcome to Kinross. I am Fiona Murray, and this is Willa. We run this place.”
“Jasper owns it,” Willa said, glancing toward the silent man watching from the corner, but Fiona ignored her.
“We are in need of lodging,” Shaw said. “Do ye have a room to let?”
“Aye, for three shillings, another if ye be wanting food,” Fiona said.
“And a warm bath,” Alana added.
Fiona frowned, bending closer to them over the bar. “Ye have blood on your head,” she said to Alana. “What is that about?” Her sharp eyes cut to Shaw in obvious assessment.
Alana touched her hairline and smiled. “Foolish me, walked right into a sharp tree limb yesterday. Sliced right through my skin, but I have cleaned it and slathered it with salve. It should heal just fine in another week.”
Willa came out from around the bar as if to inspect the gash. She gasped, her face opening into a broad smile. “Look, Fi, they have a little bairn with them. A fresh one at that.” She leaned over the bairn’s face, inhaling as if sniffing a flower. “I just love the smell of new bairns. How old is it?”
He hadn’t noticed anything sweet smelling about their bairn, except for her name. “He is five weeks old,” Shaw said. Better for them to think the bairn was a boy since the English were looking for a three-week-old girl.
“So tiny still,” Willa said. “Nothing like my Lizzie. She is a bit older, though, almost a full year.”
“You are still nursing, then?” Alana asked. “I have had so much trouble with that, perhaps you could nurse little…George here?”
Both sisters frowned. “I just have enough milk for little Lizzie,” Willa said, taking a step back and crossing her arms over her bosom like the bairn might leap across to suckle.
Alana blinked rapidly, and Shaw swore he saw a shine come to her eyes. She nodded, forcing a little smile. “I understand.” Her voice wobbled. “I just…I am so worried about h…him. Is there cow’s milk nearby so I could feed…George some pap made with it and bread?” She wiped at her eye as if she were trying to stop the tears. “I fear he is not growing fast enough.”
Shaw stared, mesmerized by the amazing performance. Both women were instantly at her side. “What a precious little boy,” Willa said. “I am sure he will do fine.” She glanced at Shaw. “What a strong papa he has.”
“We will make certain to get ye some milk, straight away,” Fiona said. She turned her narrowed eyes toward the man in the corner. “Jasper,” she yelled, making the man, as well as Alana, flinch. “Get off your arse and find some fresh, warm milk for this wee bairn.” The man pushed out of his seat, stuffed a hat onto his head, and hurried out the door without a mumble.
“Thank ye, love,” Willa called after him and frowned at her sister. She turned a bright smile on Alana. “And I will make ye some lovely nettle and chamomile tea. It will help bring in more of your milk,” she said in a lowered voice. Shaw wasn’t sure whom she was hiding her comments from. She glanced his way, so he supposed the father wasn’t supposed to hear talk of milk-producing tea.
“Have ye had enough stimulus?” Fiona asked, and Willa’s eyes widened with another glance toward him. Fiona grabbed her own breast through her apron. “One must rub all around it in circles and then slide your hands…” She glanced at Shaw and shrugged. “Or his hands, down to the nipple to get the milk to come down.” She nodded. “Sometimes it starts when the bairn cries.”
Alana’s mouth opened and closed without answering. Finally, she nodded.
“I can show ye how,” Fiona said, making her eyes open wider as she clutched the bairn against her chest almost like a shield.
“My wife is rather private about her…bosom. And feeding our bairn,” Shaw said.
Fiona set hands on her ample hips. “’Tis nothing to be embarrassed about, feeding your bairn. A woman should be free to pull out her milk whenever it is needed.”
Willa’s face was growing pink. “This is one of my sister’s favorite topics. It got her banned from the chapel one day when she told the pastor’s wife to lower her gown right there to feed their new bairn. People are not used to Fiona’s progressive talk.” Willa’s wide gaze seemed to issue an apology.
“Well, we should talk about it,” Fiona said. “Anything to help a woman and bairn survive in this harsh world.”
She turned sharp eyes on Shaw. “And ye look like a vigorous husband,” Fiona said, sliding her gaze up and down Shaw. He didn’t move even though he had the strangest desire to guard his jack. “Are ye leaving the lass alone?”
“Alone?” he asked, the single word coming slow.
“Not touching her below the waist for a full two months or longer if it was a ripping kind of birth.”
Willa slapped both hands to her cheeks and murmured an apology to Alana.
“I have put three husbands in the ground, so I know a thing or two about randy men,” Fiona said, nodding, her chin tipped high. “Do ye take care of yourself like a good husband?” Her sharp eyes fastened onto Shaw’s gaze.
“Take care?” he asked.
Fiona looked to Alana. “Does he just repeat everything ye say back as a question?”
Shaw looked at her, too, and noticed her merry expression. “Not usually,” she said. “I think he is just confused.”
Fiona turned back to Shaw. “Your jack,” she said slowly, pointing to his kilt. “Do ye take care of your needs by yourself?” She made a motion with her hand as if she were stroking a jack. Shaw was dumbfounded. He’d never seen a woman talk so openly about any of this. His jaw unhinged slightly, but no words came out.
Alana snorted softly, covering her mouth. She lowered her hand. “Apologies, Mistress Fiona. My husband is rather private about the care of his…jack, but rest assured that his urges are taken care of, and he is not damaging me in any way.”
“Fiona is quite open and vocal about the health and welfare of women,” Willa said. “She is the midwife in town and helps any of the lasses if they are being treated roughly.”
The lasses of the town were in excellent hands, and Shaw was starting to think that Fiona may have put her three husbands in the ground prematurely.
Shaw fished a handful of shillings from his sporran. “I would see my wife and bairn to our room.”
Fiona counted the money twice while Willa hurried off. “I will brew the tea.” The haggard Jasper ran inside with a small pail. “Fresh from the cow,” he said, handing it to Shaw.
“I will find ye a bottle to use,” Willa called back from the doorway that must lead to the kitchen.
“Thank ye,” Shaw said, handing Jasper a shilling. “Would ye also shelter my horse? He is right out at the water pump.” The man hurried off again as if thankful to have a task that kept him out from under his sister-in-law’s critical eye.
They followed Fiona up a narrow set of wooden stairs to the second level. With only one entrance, Shaw was glad to see a window in the room. Small, but with a large double bed, the room had a wash stand and a cold hearth. It smelled of cleaning lye.
Fiona let them pass her into the room. “Since ye have a bairn with ye, the peat to burn comes with the room. Don’t want the little fellow to go cold.”
“And a bathing tub with warm water?” Shaw asked.
&nb
sp; “I will send Jasper up with the tub and some buckets of water to heat in the hearth,” she said, her gaze critical. “Do not let the bairn be bare in a draft if ye bathe him.”
“Thank you,” Alana said. “I will take care.”
Fiona glanced back and forth between them and made a little snorting sound. Willa’s hurried footsteps announced her arrival with tea and a glass bottle. It would make feeding Rose so much easier.
“Try the breast first,” Fiona said, pointing to Alana’s chest. The woman then pointed at Shaw. “And ye should help her care for your son.” She wagged her finger. “I cannot abide a man who thinks he is done helping with a bairn after siring it.”
With a parting glare from Fiona and a smile from Willa, the sisters left, closing the door behind them.
After a mutual pause, Shaw and Alana looked at each other. Shaw let a grin grow on his face and rubbed his stubbled jaw. “Are ye needing my help? With your bosom perhaps?”
She threw a hand over her mouth, laughing silently. She slid it off partway. “About as much help as you need with your poor, neglected jack.”
He chuckled, meeting her laughing gaze with one of his own. A heat grew in his chest with his smile. It was a feeling he hadn’t known in a very long time.
Chapter Seven
“There now,” Alana said to the sweet babe over her shoulder. “A full stomach, a burp, warm, and clean. How long has it been since you have been this comfortable? Poor thing.” Darkness had descended, and Shaw had gone below to find them a dinner meal while Alana tended Rose. The small brand on the babe’s toe seemed nearly healed, leaving the undeniable mark of a rose. Was it done by the queen, so she would be able to find her daughter again? Which would mean that the queen knew Rose was alive. But what mother could burn her own child?
Rose fell quickly to sleep, and Alana lowered her into the woven cradle next to the large bed. There was hardly any room for the basket with the wooden tub before the hearth. Alana had taken a bath with the babe and was wearing a clean smock that she’d bought from Willa while her ripped one dried from a line she rigged out in the hallway.
She knelt beside the tub. If she was quick enough, she could wash her hair before Shaw returned with the food. Tipping her heavy tresses forward over her head, she dropped them in the relatively clean water of the tub. It was definitely cleaner than her poor hair, which was still crusted with blood in spots. Running her fingers through the mass, she soaked it all, kneeling over so far that she could tumble in if she wasn’t careful.
The door clicked, and Alana turned her head, her face hovering over the surface.
“I got us two ham pasties, ale, and bannocks.” Shaw’s words trailed off as he looked at her bent over the tub, but he closed the door and set the dinner on the bed. “Need some help?”
She should ask him to leave, for she was just in a smock that was bound to get wet. “My soap, please, on my bag.”
He grabbed up the small bar that was scented with rose hips from the school garden and placed it in her upturned hand. “Thank you.” She turned back to stare at the water under her face. Balancing the edge of the tub against her ribs, she rubbed some lather and began to work it into the thick waves of hair. “You can eat. I need to get this blood out of my hair.”
Shaw moved to her side. “With the two of us working on it, we will get ye clean to eat in half the time.” His big hands reached over her into the water. Her breath caught as she felt his strong fingers work through her strands, parting them and rubbing up through the mass to find her scalp. Scooping some water in his palm, he wet the scalp with the still warm water and began to wind a massaging path along her head.
Alana sighed. She’d never had anyone rub her scalp before. Her mother had been rather rough when brushing out her hair as a child, and none of her friends preferred to fashion hair. Placing her hands over the tub rim, she closed her eyes and held on while Shaw worked the suds through her heavy tresses. “Blessed lord,” she murmured. “That feels good.” Her words came breathless, and he stopped for a moment before continuing.
He cleared his throat. “I…I think all the blood is worked out. Now to rinse.”
She took a breath and pushed forward, submerging her hair into the bathwater as he once again ran his fingers through the floating hair, ridding it of soap.
“A bit more,” he said. “Then a little rinse with the water left on the hearth.” He picked up the bucket. “Turn around so it falls down the back from your forehead to make sure the soap is clear from the bullet wound.”
“Oh…ah, yes,” Alana said, pulling a bit higher onto her knees and slowly turning while managing to keep her hair over the tub, the ends long enough to sink to the bottom. Her back was arched backward over the rim. Shaw stood above her, looking down with the bucket in his hands. His gaze swept her, and she felt a warmth rise inside. Not embarrassment but something else, a heat that made her tremble a little.
He gave her a nod and then slowly poured the clean water over her hair, making sure to clean the wound with a gentle touch of his fingers. “It does not look tainted, but we should keep watch of it.” He bent forward, studying the gash, and Alana noticed that he’d trimmed his short beard, and his hair looked damp.
“You found a bath, too?” she asked over the sound of the water tumbling down her hair into the tub.
“Aye. The blacksmith let me wash there since there are no public places to get cleaned. He had heard that ye were bathing here with our baby boy. Word gets around quickly in a small town.”
“Good thing you said Rose was a boy, then.” She slowly straightened out of her bent-back position and took the damp drying sheet from Shaw to wrap around her hair. Standing, with his help under her arm, she glanced down herself. Och, the front of her smock had been wet, making the material almost transparent, and she’d had her breasts thrust forward. She glanced where he was emptying the water from the tub with buckets out the open window. He hadn’t said a word about it, so she wouldn’t, either. But her cheeks were stained red.
“Rose is sleeping happily,” she said.
“Ye should eat and get some sleep, too.” He turned from the window and set the bucket down by the hearth. “I will take the floor.”
Alana looked at the one-foot path of bare floor around the bed. “Where exactly? Under the bed?”
Shaw opened the door and lifted the tub, carrying it out into the hallway. “Goodnight, Mistress Fiona.”
Alana heard the woman grunt in the hall, and he came back in, shutting the door behind him. He pointed to the wall. “Her room I think,” he said low.
“Then you need to share this bed with me,” she whispered. “In case she has a peephole.” Her words were so low that she wondered if he could hear her. He came to sit on the bed next to her, and she dragged her bare toes up under her gown. The heat from the fire was making the room comfortable, even with her damp hair. They shared the food in silence. Only the crackle of the peat in the fire grate and an occasional whisper of wind outside made noise.
A howl sounded far off outside the window. “That might be Robert,” Alana whispered. “Alistair won’t kill him for keeping him up all night, will he?”
“Not with Mungo there,” Shaw said. “The man grew up with a pack of dogs and would fight anyone to the death if they tried to injure one.”
“Grew up with a pack of dogs?” she asked. “You said his mother died when he was young, but surely someone took him in.”
“My mother looked after him until he was an older lad, but then my uncle threw him out of the castle when she died.”
“The uncle who sold Girnigoe to the Campbells?” Alana asked, biting into the fragrant meat turnover. He nodded and drank from their shared tankard. “How old were you when she died?”
“Eight, almost nine.”
Her chest tightened. There was no emotion in his words, and having lived with warriors, she knew he’d hate any pity she might show. “And your father?”
“He died when I was a lad of f
ive, which is why we were living with my mother’s brother at Girnigoe Castle.”
“And your uncle accrued debt?”
He stood, stretching, his head nearly brushing the sloped ceiling. “He was a drunkard and liked to take his self-pity and rages out on people who were weaker than he. Aye, he accrued debt, and enemies. No one would help him when the Campbells wanted our home. So, he sold it all without thinking about anyone else. The Campbells let us stay in the castle until George died about nine years ago. Then the seat of the mighty Sinclairs was dismantled, but the Campbells still came to take the castle even without furnishings and a complete roof.”
Alana watched him bank the fire with more peat, and she let her damp hair out of the bath sheet, sliding her fingers through it. She squatted down near Shaw to splay the tresses out to dry. “My distant cousin, Edgar Campbell.”
“Aye, and he has no interest in letting us win or buy the lands back.”
Alana sighed. “And somehow, all of this ties to Rose and getting her to St. Andrews?”
Shaw turned his face to hers. The firelight cut across his features, and she felt the prickles of heat on her skin. “It has everything to do with this mission.”
“Rose is a babe, not a mission,” Alana said softly.
“And Girnigoe is a home and seat of a clan, not just a castle and conquest.” She watched his jaw move as if tension ached along it. “I will sleep on the far side, so ye can drape your hair over the bed to dry it close to the fire.”
He splayed his hands, stretching them against the ceiling. In the confines of the small room, Shaw Sinclair looked even larger, like a giant captured in a box. One who was gentle enough to keep an infant alive and honorable enough to wash a scandalously clad woman’s hair without comment or the hint of a leer.
With a tug, Shaw loosened his belt around his kilt, and it dropped for him to step out of it, leaving him in what looked like a new white tunic. He picked up the length of woven fabric, and Alana tried not to stare at the muscular legs below his tunic. Stretching over the bed, he climbed under the single quilt covered by the wool blanket that they’d had on the horse. With a quick glance at Rose, he settled in, yanking off the tunic to drape it on the end of the bed.
The Highland Outlaw Page 10
