Page 54 of Sweet Home Highlander
Aisla was stunned at Pauline’s outburst. Normally, the little French maid was quite staid with a reserve that could rival Aisla’s.
“What did she say?”
Pauline flushed. “Nothing of note, my lady.”
“Tell me.”
She swallowed hard and nodded. “She said, erm, that the little hussy is getting her comeuppance, and she was glad that everyone finally got to see the real you.”
Aisla shook her head and laughed at the woman’s spite. “It would be untoward if Fenelladidn’tgloat or insult me in some asinine way. Hussy used to be one of my favorites.”
“She is a horrid woman,” Pauline declared loyally.
With a soft huff of laughter, Aisla sat up, letting the coverlet slip from her grip, and gasped. She was naked beneath it. A blush singed her cheeks. “Where is my night rail? Did you undress me?”
Pauline arched a bland eyebrow. “No, my lady.”
Oh, good God.
That meant Niall had. Even down to her stays and chemise. Why would he have divested her of all her clothing? She searched around the room looking for any clues. It made no sense. What was even more frightening was that she did not remember coming to her chamber or being put to bed. Hadshedone anything untoward?
“I should inform you that you have callers, my lady,” Pauline said, putting a clean pair of stays and a new chemise beside the gown. “Lord Leclerc and Lady Makenna arrived some time ago and are breakfasting downstairs with the laird.”
Aisla’s mouth fell open. “What?Why?”
“I cannot presume to know, my lady, but perhaps they wanted to see how you were faring?”
Hell. Aisla could not face any of them. Not now. Perhaps not ever. She flung herself back onto the bedclothes and winced at the subsequent hammering of her head.
“Please give them my regrets, Pauline,” she croaked.
“As you wish. I have also taken your gown to be laundered, my lady, if it pleases you. The silk chemise has been ruined, however,” Pauline said, ringing the bell pull for a footman. “If you are not joining the others, I think some simple tea and toast for breakfast,non?”
“Why has my chemise been ruined?” she whispered, looking up, almost unwilling to hear the answer, but Pauline was off to answer the scratch on the door.
Aisla’s imaginings, in the meantime, ran wild. Had she ripped it off in a fit of passion? Hadhe? Dear God,whatin heaven’s name had happened last night? Surely, she would know if she’d succumbed to drunken lust, wouldn’t she? With a sinking heart, she recalled Niall tumbling into bed and having no recollection of ever touching her the next day. Aisla gasped for air that wouldn’t come.
The wager!
Forget the wager, you bloody fool, you’ve worse things to worry about.
“My chemise, Pauline?” she asked after the maid was finished speaking with the summoned footman.
“It was stained, my lady, with…” Pauline cleared her throat discreetly. “With copious amounts of illness.”
Aisla wanted to crawl under the covers and die. She remembered casting up her accounts in the garden, but she must have done so again once they returned to Tarben Castle. And if her dress had been spared enough to be laundered, then she must have been almost nude when she’d been sick the second time.
A smile twitched at the corners of Pauline’s lips. “You, however, were quite clean.”
Oh, the horror—he hadn’t! Niall hadwashedher. Her gaze slid to the emptied pitcher and folded cloths that the ever-efficient Pauline would have already refreshed.
“His lordship refused my assistance,” Pauline added, salt settling in the wound. “At least, he is your husband,non, since he has seen youen dishabille.”
Aisla buried her face into the pillows, groaning. Had she maintained even a quarter of an ounce of dignity? This day couldn’t get any worse. She decided she would stay abed forever. No one would miss a screaming drunken shrew, would they? She’d eke out the remaining weeks in shameful solitude.
A timid knock on the door brought her out of her despair as the footman arrived with her breakfast tray. Pauline handed her a wrapper and laid out the tray on the small table next to the window. “Come, my lady, this will make you feel better.”
“I cannot eat anything,” she said, her stomach giving a wild lurch.
