by Mia Marlowe
“I’ve warmed the water,” Dorcas said. “Here, lean over this bucket.”
With a resigned sigh, he did as she bid and the cup of water she poured over his head nearly scalded him. He yelped and straightened abruptly, sending hot droplets flying.
“Dinna fuss so. Let me add a bit of fresh water to cool it. There, now.” With a hand to the back of his neck, she tipped his head down and poured another cup of water over his head. “Is that better?”
It was, but he didn’t feel like letting her know it. “That’s like asking the overdone bannock if a bit of clotted cream will make it better,” he grumbled.
“Ye shouldna complain. I’m only trying to help. Now, hold still.” She reached into a small satchel and pulled out an earthenware jar. When she opened it, a delightful fragrance filled the small room.
“What is that?”
“Some of Lady Margaret’s special soap.”
Nab usually made do with a mixture of mutton fat and wood ash. “Smells good.”
“It should. She makes it of olive oil shipped to Inverness from some ungodly land far to the south. Then she adds soda and lavender and a few aromatic herbs I dinna remember the names of, but they’re frightfully dear.” Dorcas put a liberal dollop on Nab’s head and began to massage it into his scalp. “Lady Margaret gave me this a few days early. ’Tis for Hogmanay.” New Year’s eve.
It felt like a bit of heaven oozing from her fingertips. “But this is yer gift. Ye should save it for yerself, Dorcas.”
“There’s still some left. Besides, I want ye to have it.” She continued to rub his head, drawing her thumbs along the center of his skull. Then she kneaded his scalp in slow circles.
He’d thought her kiss was something special. This was beyond his imaginings. Pleasure dripped down his neck along with the soap. He sighed.
“Like that, do ye?”
He couldn’t speak for bliss. He could only close his eyes and make an “mmm-hmmm” sound. Fortunately, he wasn’t required to say anything else. Dorcas had launched into another of her one-sided conversations about everything and everyone within the castle walls. He didn’t even have to listen all that closely to enjoy the running diatribe. Just the sound of her voice soothed him so that he almost nodded off to sleep.
“Lean over the bucket and we’ll rinse now.”
He jerked back to full wakefulness and did as she instructed.
“And I’ll take care to make sure the water’s not too hot this time,” she promised.
It was perfect. She was perfect.
But he was not. He didn’t know why she hadn’t already seen it.
Then she draped a cloth over his head and rubbed vigorously to dry his shorter locks. “There,” she finally said. “Now let me just trim up the stragglers. Hold still.”
She got out the shears again and began cutting in small sections. His wet hair reached just below his earlobes and tickled along the back of his bared neck.
“Close yer eyes,” she ordered.
When he did, to his surprise, she sectioned off a good bit of hair and cut it short across his forehead. He ran a hand over the wispy ends.
“There. Now ye look a right proper gentleman,” she declared as she put away her shears.
“I’m not a gentleman, Dorcas.”
She turned back to him and dusted a few fritter crumbs he’d missed off the folds of his plaid. “A man can be anything he sets his mind to.”
“My mind has already pretty much set itself on being a fool with no help from me at all.” He crammed his cap back on his head. With less hair, it didn’t feel right. In fact, it threatened to fall down over his forehead and cover his eyes. He had to push it back behind his ears, which he was sure made them stick out all the more. He’d been right when he’d told William that change was almost always bad. He didn’t like this haircut business one bit.
“There’s where ye’re wrong, Nab. I ken yer secrets, remember. Ye’ve a fine mind. Ye can read. Ye’re a learned man, whatever folk may say.” She walked her fingertips up his chest and then teased his chin. “Ye could make something of yerself.”
“I thought I already was something. If I’m not something, I’m nothing.” He decided to dazzle her with a little Latin. It should end the argument. “Ego sum non nihilo, ergo aliquid.”
“I dinna ken what the rest of that gibberish means, but ye’re not at all liquid. Yer hair’s nearly dry already.”
Evidently Dorcas wouldn’t be cowed in any language. He decided to take another tack. “What made ye want to cut my hair in the first place?”
“Why, to help ye, o’ course.” She batted her eyes at him, as coquettish as a mare in heat. “When a man starts thinkin’ of takin’ a wife, ’tis only natural that he look for ways of bettering his situation. A haircut canna hurt.”
“I’m not thinking of taking a wife.”
She blinked at him several times, all traces of coquetry gone. “Are ye not?”
“No, who would I marry?”
“Me, o’ course.”
Panic clawed at his belly. A few stories. A few kisses. A poem or two. How had it come to this? “Did I ever say I wanted to marry?”
“Not in so many words, but ye showed me yer secret room—”
“As I recollect, ye found it on yer own,” he corrected. She’d followed him, most like.
Dorcas lifted her chin. “At any rate, ye invited me to come back again.”
If Dorcas was right, his memory on that point was a bit fuzzy. It seemed to him that she’d just assumed she’d be returning to the tower room.
“And ye read me stories—”
“Which ye didna like a bit.” It was still a sore point with him that she couldn’t seem to grasp the wonder of Camelot, where might didn’t make someone right. Perhaps she’d never felt small and powerless and in need of a code of chivalry to balance the scales in her favor.
She cast her gaze down so that her pale lashes lay like feathers on the swell of her cheekbones. “I liked the poem.”
“Not the first one. The one about the bald fellow,” he said. She’d been most emphatic on that point. “Was that poem what put ye in mind to do something about my hair?”
She waved the thought away. “No, I havena given that poem a second thought. But I liked the love poem, Nab. I liked it verra, verra much. I can even recite it back to ye.”
Her eyes slid to the right as if the words might be found hovering beside her ear.
Love me truly!
My heart is constant.
Ye possess my soul.
Ye tangle up my thoughts in silken cords,
But I dinna wish to be freed.
Even if ye’re afar off,
My spirit is with ye, not in my poor body.
To know such love is to know the torture of the rack.
Her gaze flicked back to him. “’Twas the most beau-timous thing anyone’s ever said to me. Did I remember it aright?”
“I think so. I dinna know for certain without the book in front of me.” He cocked a brow at her. “How did ye do that?”
She shrugged. “We have different gifts, ye and I. Because I canna read, I remember what I hear verra well. I have to, ye see. But ’tis easy to remember if the words please me.”
Nab was good at remembering the gist of stories, but to recite one word for word was an art he’d not mastered. Certainly not after only one hearing. Dorcas really was smart.
Much smarter than he.
That irritated him more than the haircut.
“Ye needn’t have bothered cutting my hair,” he said testily. Thinking he was the smart one in their little whatever this was had made him feel in control for the first time in his life. Now he realized he’d been wrong. Dorcas had managed everything from the very beginning. “I willna be needing to improve my situation because I’ll not be taking a wife.”
“But—”
“Not you. Not anybody. I’ll not marry ever.”
For the first time in his life, he raised his
voice at someone. He couldn’t seem to help it. The idea of being shackled to another person for the whole of his life, even someone like Dorcas, whom he tolerated better than anyone, was unthinkable. It made his insides do a jittery reel. All he craved was solitude, safely away from the laughter and snide comments of others. When he was alone, he was in good company.
“Get it out of yer head, woman!” he shouted. “And the next time ye decide to improve a body, ye might try asking do they wish it before ye start.”
Nab expected her to fist her hands at her waist and shout back at him. He was used to people yelling. He could deal with that by ignoring her. She’d give up eventually, figuring he wasn’t intelligent enough to realize the stickiness of the situation.
Sometimes, it was good to be thought a fool.
Instead, her little chin quivered. Her eyes became overbright. A tear trembled on her lashes.
This was far worse than being yelled at. And he couldn’t ignore it.
“Dorcas, dinna cry. Please. I didna mean—”
“Aye, ye did,” she said between sniffles, “else ye’d not have said it.”
Nab pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and offered it to her. He couldn’t vouch for its cleanliness, so he wasn’t surprised when she didn’t take it. Instead she covered her face with a bit of her arisaid and sobbed into it.
“I take it back, Dorcas. Can ye not forget I said anything?”
“No, I canna. Ye know I canna. Words in my hearing dinna fade away. I store them up, do I wish it or no.”
It was true. She’d just demonstrated how well she’d remember his hatefulness. He felt lower than the icy slush on the bottom of his boots.
“Dorcas, please . . .” He reached a tentative hand to her. It was hard for him to do it. Touching and being touched was not something he enjoyed, but he didn’t mind it so much with Dorcas. Who knew if he’d ever feel that way with anyone else. And he felt if he didn’t touch her now, he never would again.
She jerked away from him as soon as his fingertips brushed her shoulder. “Stay away from me, Nab.”
Swiping at her eyes, Dorcas hurriedly gathered up her things and put them into her satchel. He saw now that she’d spread a blanket for them on the other side of the wellhead near the fire. There was even a jug of something—ale or small beer—they hadn’t opened yet. His haircut was only the beginning of the night she had planned for them.
Part of him wished he’d held his tongue and just let events wash over him. Dorcas was a good planner. He probably would have enjoyed it, whatever it was.
He tried once more to stop her at the door.
“Step aside, Nab,” she said without looking at him.
“Not until ye let me tell ye—”
“Why should I let ye speak when I’m afeared of what ye’ll say?” Tears coursed down her cheeks. “But I’ll say this. I used to stick up for ye, ye know, when some of the others would speak ill of ye. I willna do so anymore. Ye dinna ken when someone truly cares for ye. And ye havena the sense to care for them back.” She met his gaze then. “Ye really are a fool.”
Then she threw the bolt and slipped out the door. After she was gone, he banged his forehead on the hard oak a few times, wishing he could call back the moment that he’d opened his mouth to complain. He should have said he loved his haircut. He loved the idea of improving his lot in life.
He loved her.
Then Nab, who would rather have had his own company than anyone else’s, sank slowly to the stone floor. All his life, he hadn’t minded being alone.
He minded now. And he feared he would for the rest of his days.
Farewell advent and have good day.
Christmas is come, now go thy way.
Get thee hence, what dost thou here?
Thou hast no love of no beggere.
—From “Get Thee Hence,
What Dost Thou Here?”
“Beggars and fools dinna deserve love in the first place. I’m proof of that.”
—An observation from Nab,
fool to the Earl of Glengarry
Chapter Twenty-Four
Katherine’s knitting needles clicked in time with Margaret’s plodding around her chamber.
“I wish there was something I could do to hurry this one along,” Margaret said wistfully. “Sometimes, I think I’ll die pregnant.”
“Whist! Dinna tempt the devil,” Katherine said, surreptitiously making the sign against evil. “Are ye sure ye should be out of bed?”
“That’s the one thing I am sure of.” Margaret ground her fists into the small of her back as she walked. “If I lie there another moment, I’ll go dafter than Nab.”
“He does seem a bit more barmy than usual,” Katherine said, comparing the stocking she was working on to the one she’d finished to make sure it wasn’t already longer than its mate. “He told William he’d dreamed the scepter was hidden away where no one would find it for hundreds of years.”
Dorcas, who’d been flitting about the chamber tidying up, began remaking the bed. In silence, for a change.
“I’m surprised Nab would bring the scepter up since he’s the one who lost it in the first place,” Margaret said. “That must be a sore point with William.”
“It is, for all that he’s not complained, but that’s not the least of it. Nab claimed that in his dream William was the one who hid it! Wonder what’s gotten into him.” Katherine shook her head, then gaped at the way the maid was pounding the pillows. “Be easy, Dorcas. Ye’ll have feathers everywhere. What do ye think you’re doing?”
The maid stopped flailing away at the bedclothes and folded her hands before her, fig-leaf style. She dropped a reflexive curtsey. “I’m just plumping Lady Margaret’s pillows, m’lady.”
“More like beating them into submission,” Katherine said. “That’ll do. If we need to subdue any of the other linens, ye’ll be the first to know.”
“I’ll be in the nursery then.” Dorcas curtseyed first to Margaret, then to Katherine and padded down the spiral stairs.
“There’s something a bit off with Dorcas of late too.” Margaret stopped before the window and looked out on the loch.
Katherine tied off a row of stitches and laid her knitting aside. “She’s not talking our ears off for one thing.”
“If I were myself instead of two of me, I’d get to the bottom of it. There was a time when nothing passed in this keep without my notice, but my belly preoccupies me. I suspect I’ll not be descending or climbing those stairs again till this bairn comes. Ah, well, I’ll deal with what I can.” She turned and cast Katherine a shrewd glance. “It was good to see ye and William sharing a trencher last night.”
Katherine allowed herself a small smile. “’Tis not all we’ve been sharing of late.”
Margaret waddled over and sat on the stool Katherine had been using for her feet. “Tell me.”
Katherine loved her sister-in-law dearly but she couldn’t reveal the way William had bared his heart and his grief to her. She wouldn’t share that with anyone. It was too private.
Too . . . holy.
In the darkness, amid that deep sorrow, their souls had found each other again.
And then their bodies followed suit.
It was a tender joining because they were both so fragile. Once united, their ascent was slow but steady. Grief mixed with joy. Sorrow with unspeakable gladness. Kisses salted with tears. And at their pinnacle, the rightness of a homecoming, weary and spent but grateful to return to a place where the world made sense again.
Safe in each other’s love.
The next morning, she’d wakened with William’s arms around her, his leg thrown over hers, all tangled up in that vulnerable net of sleep. Even now, she could call up that drowsy, “all’s-right-with-the-world” feeling.
But it still felt so tenuous. As if she danced on a spider’s web. Their days were filled with pleasant moments and speaking glances and their nights with more whispered confessions and sometimes laughter that ended w
ith another heart-stopping joining.
Even so, she feared being too happy. Their problem was only half resolved.
She was still barren.
“Och, that’s all right. Ye don’t have to tell me. I can see on your face how pleased ye are,” Margaret said when the silence between them had stretched past the point of comfort. She grimaced and rubbed her swollen belly. “Besides, once this bairn decides to come, the last thing I’ll be wantin’ to think about is marital bliss. When the pains start, I’ll be imagining myself beaning your brother on the head, not welcoming him back to my bed.”
“Ye’ve had no pain?”
She shook her head. “The little darling is taking her time.”
“Her? Ye think the child is a girl?”
“No, I only hope.” Margie rocked a bit on the stool, a comforting rhythm for her and the child inside her. “I suppose I should set myself to have another boy, but it would be so lovely to have a little girl. Oh, dinna mistake me. I love my boys. But as soon as they’re old enough not to irritate Donald, he’ll have them with him most of the time, lest I spoil them. A girl-child would be mine to dote upon as I please.”
“Till Donald arranges a match for her.”
“My, what a long view ye’re taking this day, and for a bairn not even born yet.”
“I’m trying not to. I dinna want to worry about the future. Sometimes, it just comes upon me.” Katherine took up her knitting again. She’d missed a stitch and had to unravel a row. “’Twould be so fine if all we had to fret about was now.”
“‘Sufficient unto the day,’” Margaret quoted.
“But surely we aren’t meant to ignore our obligations.” She still felt keenly the need to provide Will with an heir. But before she could say more, Fergie appeared with a polite cough at the open doorway.
“Beggin’ yer pardons, m’ladies,” he said, tugging respectfully at his forelock. “Lord William says ye’re to come quick, Lady Katherine.”
