Page 31 of Mending the Baron's Sins
Not Orla.
She held her breath, a strange sensation of a prickling feeling in her eyes as he left. The door closed behind him, and she blinked, thrusting the feeling away.
“Why do I dream of being so scandalous? A ruined woman?” she muttered into the air, her hands on her hips in frustration. Her body burned long after he left, though. She had noticed he’d lingered with his arm around her. He had desired her, even if he was not going to act on that feeling.
“Orla? Are you sure you’re quite well?”
“Hmm? I’m sorry?” Orla looked up from where she was helping to snuff the candles and clear the plates away from the table.
Other maids collected plates together on the far side of the table, leaving Esther the space to sidle up to Orla’s side and lower her voice.
“You seem quite distracted.”
“Aye, my apologies. I ate too much. That’s all.” Orla tried to wave her hand in the air to dismiss the idea. Esther put the plates she was carrying back on the table, then thrust her hands on herhips. “You excel at that look, by the way, my friend. You rather remind me of my mother. An Irish mother, oh, I warn you, she can reprimand with her eyes alone.”
“Orla,” Esther hissed. “Do you think all the staff are blind in this house?”
“What do you mean?” Orla returned to snuffing out the candles, just as Esther pulled on her arm and whispered in her ear again.
“Some of the staff are whispering about how you and the baron could not stop staring at one another throughout dinner.”
Orla nearly knocked the candle over in surprise. She gulped, hurrying to stand it straight again.
“I-I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh, course you don’t,” Esther said unconvincingly. “You were observed by the maid serving the wine, and she will tell anyone who wishes to listen.”
“Of course, I’m going to look at him.” Orla stood straight and turned to face Esther with a roll of her eyes. “I am his healer. If anyone gossips, then you must put them straight, Esther. I have to watch him, and watch him closely, to make sure he is well.”
“I’ll tell them that, as you wish me to, but…” She caught Orla’s arm and glanced to the other side of the room, clearly waiting for the maids to move toward the door before she risked saying her next words. “Just be careful, Orla. Please.”
“Careful?”
“He had a voracious appetite for women at one stage in his life,” Esther said, her voice tremulous. “I would hate to think of you being eaten up and spat out, sent out of the house as they all were, too.” As she collected the plates and left the room, Orla froze, uncertain what to think or feel.
The thought of being cast aside by the baron was indeed a painful one. The humiliation, the mortification of it all made her gut twist, yet for some reason, she could not dread the baron’s attention.
Those hands… those eyes…
They had been so close that evening, so near to kissing that she couldn’t help fearing the moment she was alone that her hands would wander again, so she could imagine just what it would be like to be with the baron, completely alone in his bedchamber together.
Orla left the room once all the candles were out. She smiled at the maids she passed in the corridor, fearing that if they had noticed the stares at dinner, it was possible some of the guests had noticed as well. The maids giggled about something and disappeared down a corridor, leaving Orla to pause and watch them go.
Are they laughing at me?
She waited until they were completely gone, then took a candle from nearby and walked a path through the house. She chooses the smaller of the two staircases, moving quickly and using the buttery light of her candle to guide her way.
When she reached the baron’s door, she hesitated, knowing she should move into her own bedchamber, though her feet would not abide by her mind’s wishes.
“How are you faring with my niece then, my lord?” Colm’s voice said from within the room.
Trying her best not to make any of the floorboard’s creak, she tiptoed closer to the door and pressed her ear to the wood.
“Well. Very well,” the baron added, as if in an afterthought. “When I feared I was having a downturn tonight, she was ableto settle me. She taught me a breathing technique. It helped, greatly.”
“She is good at those sorts of things. I am very glad indeed that she is helping you.”
There were soft sounds interrupting their conversation. She judged Colm to be helping the baron into a chair, perhaps opening his medicine bag too.
