Page 32 of Katie's Highlander (Highland Protector 3)
Enough twenty-first-century mewling around this fine lass. Time t’win this rare stubborn woman with a medieval roar.
Chapter 13
The watercolor blue of the summer sky disappearing into the soothing undulating hues of the sea didn’t do a damn thing to cool her temper—nor did the briny breeze riffling through her hair. Teeth clenched so tight her jaws ached, Katie stared out the open window. Fuming. She propped her fists on the cool gritty ledge of jutting stone that hit just above her waist. The crash of the waves far below mimicked the current state of her emotions. Dread, fear, excitement, arousal, and every otherfeelingin the damn encyclopedia of how-the-hell-did-I-end-up-here.
And then there was Ramsay, suddenly stricken with a medieval case ofI am man, hear me roar.Wait for me in the great hall.“Pfft! Like hell.”Don’thold your breath, buddy.
Then the unbidden memory of the kiss brought her fingertips to her still tingling lips and set her body to aching and quaking in pure unabashed lust all over again. That kiss. He’d totally owned it and took hold of her share of it too.
I ain’t never had a kiss like that before.And the sad part? He’d stopped. Katie closed her hand back into a fist and returned it to the window ledge. Why the hell had he stopped?
“M’lady, I’ve come t’help ye dress.” Flora’s cheerful voice drowned out the metallic creak of the door hinges as she scurried into the room without so much as knocking. “We canna keep Himself a’waitin’ and word has already spread of yer arrival. The first of the nearest clans are gatherin’ t’bid ye both a proper welcome with a fine feast this evenin’.”
Katie scooped the bedsheet up from the floor and jerked it around her bare torso, while still keeping her glare focused out the window. She didn’t give a damn about any gathering of the clans. She needed time alone to think—figure out a way to get back where she belonged. With a backward jab, she pointed toward the bed. “Leave the clothes on the bed. I can dress myself.” She was in no mood to be civil. If this Flora girl valued her life, she’d run like hell.
The annoyingly happy maid acted like Katie hadn’t said a word. She hurried over to the hearth with what looked like an oversized shallow bucket hooked over one arm and a bundle of linens hugged against her chest. She placed the larger tub to one side of the cold fireplace, pulled a smaller bucket out of it, and set it beside the bigger one. She piled the bundle of linens and a small cloth-covered crock on a knee-high wooden bench that she dragged out of the corner. Skittering back to the door, she fluttered a hand in Katie’s direction. “Keep the sheet around yerself, m’lady. The lads are bringing the kettles of water. Dinna ye fret, though, they’ll keep their eyes turned away or Mistress Macklemurry and me both will take a switch to their arses for them.”
Before Katie could react, two young boys, probably no more than twelve or so, labored their way into the room, both of them struggling to carry large, steaming black iron kettles in each of their hands. Barefooted, their dark trews hitting them just below their knees and theirléines a bit ragged in spots but overall looking clean, the towheaded pair kept their eyes glued to the floor. They thumped the four kettles down on the stone hearth. With their gazes still locked on the floor, in unison, they turned in Katie’s direction, dipped down in a quick respectful bow, then nearly ran from the room.
A pang in her chest twitched her emotional dial off the poor-me setting and clicked it to sympathy for the two young boys, children who should be playing but instead were forced to work because of the station in life in which they’d been born. Neither the culture nor the century gave a damn about age when it came to survival.
Flora firmly closed the bedchamber door, securely drew the bar down across it, then approached Katie with a coaxing look on her freckle-dusted face. “Come now, Mistress. We’ve fine hot water for a good wash—Himself said ye craved such. Let’s get ye shed of the rest of those filthy clothes and get yer bath. We’ll have ye feelin’ fresh as a spring mornin’ afore ye join yer chieftain.”
Hot water.Damn, what a temptation.Still clutching the bedsheet around her body, Katie moved away from the window and swished across the room over to the metal tub. Nearly three feet across and no more than twelve inches deep, thebathwas more like an oversized basin that was just big enough for her to stand in. She bent and ran her fingers across the hammered surface and the rolled lip around the tub.Copper.I think I found one of these on a dig once.She didn’t say the words aloud. No sense scaring Flora by making her think the chieftain’s wife was crazy.
“Come now, m’lady,” Flora urged. “Yer chieftain’s waitin’.”
“He’s not my chieftain,” Katie snapped, feeling immediate guilt at the wide-eyed look ofoh shiton young Flora’s face. “Sorry, sorry.” Katie held up a hand. “I didn’t mean to bite your head off. It’s been a rough few days.”
Flora waved away the apology as she took hold of the bedsheet around Katie’s body and tugged hard enough to pull it free. “Ah…Mistress. Ye owe me no soft words. Mrs. Macklemurry says I need t’ken when t’keep my mouth shut. That’s what she says, she does. Says my constant natterin’ would drive a sane man o’er a cliff.”
Self-consciously folding her arms over her breasts, Katie glanced down at her still unfastened jeans while Flora returned the sheet to the bed. Either she had to take her jeans and undies off or persistent Flora would surely remove them.
She’d never been overly self-conscious—not after growing up in a tent with Nanny Fay. Nanny Fay had taken care of her from birth until she turned eighteen. Katie swallowed hard. Dear sweet Nanny Fay would’ve insisted on looking after her a lot longer, but cancer had stolen away the kind woman, the only mother that Katie had ever known. Katie eyed Flora, weighing her options. Flora was a complete stranger but hot water sure would feel good right now.
No choice and cleanliness is calling.Katie shucked her jeans and panties off with a jerk then stepped into the shallow depths of the metal tub, nervously keeping one arm across her breasts and the other in front of her crotch.
Completely ignoring Katie’s discomfort, Flora buzzed around her like a bee tending to its favorite flower. She poured some of the hot water into a small basin, wet a rag and dipped it into the small crock, and got a generous glop of a white sticky substance that was probably a precursor to a bar of lye soap. “This here’s Old Creada’s best soapwort soap. I dinna ken all that she mixes with it, but it smells fresh as heather.”
Flora was right. The foamy lather the girl’s scrubbing created did smell good as the maid washed her tangled hair then worked her way down Katie’s back and torso. Flora looked at her like she’d lost her mind when she grabbed hold of the girl’s wrist before the rag dipped below her belly button.
“I’ll wash my lady parts, thank you.”
Flora paused, then shrugged and held out the rag. “As ye wish, m’lady.”
The dousing rinse with buckets of hot steaming water did wonders to improve her mood and ready her for what she was certain was going to be an interesting meet and greet with Ramsay in the great hall. Both the boys’ labor and Flora’s excited devotion had guilted her out of her plan to stay holed up in the room and solve this little quantum physics conundrum. They’d all three worked so hard to make her happy and presentable. If she didn’t show up, she had no doubt that somehow, they’d be blamed and harshly punished.I can’t handle that on my conscience.
As she stepped out of the tub and submitted to Flora’s brisk drying with a linen towel, she belatedly remembered her hair. “Oh shit.”
“M’lady?” Flora paused in her frenzied drying of Katie’s back and legs.
“No blow-dryer or flat iron.” Katie reached up with both hands and worked her fingers through her already unruly, curling hair. “I’ll be a damn puff ball—like a French poodle in dire need of trim.”
“French poodle?” Flora carefully repeated, confusion knotting her reddish-blond brows over her clear blue eyes.
“Never mind.” Katie forced her fingers back through her thick, damp hair, pulling it as smooth and taut as she could and into a semicontrolled ponytail of curls at the back of her head. “Have you got something I can tie this mess with? Some pins or something?” She could already feel the stubbornly curling tendrils slipping away and coiling about her neck.
Flora gently patted Katie’s hands away while making a soft clucking noise that should only come from a much older, grandmotherly woman. “Ne’er ye fret, m’lady. I’ll comb out yer lovely curls and braid them up all pretty and such. But first, we must dress ye.”
