Page 12 of When the Laird Claims
He smirked and shook his head. “Bet ye feel awful for hitting me all those times earlier now, daeye nae?”
Victoria’s jaw dropped. She had not even thought about that. She lifted the back of her hand to her mouth in an attempt to cover her shock. Shedidfeel terrible. Her pushing and shoving had not seemed to affect him in the slightest, but she must have been doing more damage than she had originally assumed if she was irritating any of these wounds.
“I just… I did not… Well, you could have said something.”
This time, when he chuckled, it was an actual sound of amusement, and not something born out of sarcasm or something else at her expense.
“I am only teasing ye, lass. Ye can make it up to me by taking the shirt and going to enjoy yer bath,” he continued as he practically pushed the fabric into her hands.
If it were not somehow so much cleaner than her own dress, she might have protested. Slowly, she pulled the fabric toward her chest and started to turn to leave.
“Wait a moment,” he said, and stepped in front of her.
He lifted her arm, first the left, by sliding his hand up from her elbow to the edge of her glove, easing the satin down toward her wrist. It felt entirely too intimate to have him pulling her glove from her hand, but she couldn’t bring herself to stop him either.
She was frozen, transfixed, and staring as he teased the fabric over her marred skin, taking great care when it came time toremove it from the places where her own injuries wished to stick. She winced, biting down on her bottom lip to keep from making noise at her discomfort. Ifhecould endure so many wounds without a flinch or a grimace, then so could she.
The shame, however, was harder to manage. She could not have put into words why it was that his seeing her injuries was so embarrassing. Clearly, he was not a stranger to blood or seeing wounds, for that matter. She doubted that scars ever fazed him either… and yet she knew that it was unsightly, and unsightly things in her world were supposed to stay hidden.
How can he be so gentle with such… strong hands?
Victoria found that she could not seem to stop making comparisons between the gentlemen of thetonand the burly man in front of her. Yet, he touched her with surprising tenderness as he examined her skin. He gestured for her other hand, and she did not hesitate to give it to him.
What must he be thinking? Was he thinking less of her because she had been in the situation that had caused those wounds? She knew on more than one occasion that she had felt that way about herself, especially considering she had never imagined that she would allow herself to fall for a snake’s tricks. She had read enough stories of villains and rogues that she should have been able to see Charles for what he truly was the very moment she met him, yet she had been fooled.
“Apologies,” Arran said as she winced involuntarily.
The skin of her wrist tingled where he had touched it.
He dropped her gloves on the back of the small single chair that faced the fireplace. Just about every piece of furniture in the meager room seemed like it had seen better days, but at least she was unbound, free to walk back and forth if she chose to, able to sleep and bathe unshackled.
He turned to the small bag that he had pulled from his horse and brought with him. Victoria tried to lift onto her tiptoes to see if she could peek around his broad figure into the contents of his possessions, despite knowing how rude that would be considered. But she could not manage to see around him.
She was shocked, however, when he produced a small jar with a pinkish-looking cream inside it. He sniffed it as if it might have expired, then nodded to himself. He recapped the jar and placed it in her palm.
“After ye’re done with yer bath, put a thick layer on yer wrists; it will ease some of the achin’,” he said matter-of-factly, and the kindness of the gesture could have brought her to tears.
Her throat felt thick, and she did not trust herself to speak, so she merely nodded. Did he not need this medicine or whatever it was? He, too, had plenty of injured parts that might have greatly benefited from it. Gazing down at the jar, she knew she would just have to be very sparing in her application, despite his instructions to the contrary. She would not leave him without a goodbye.
Arran gestured to the door. “I’ll spend a while out in the hallway while ye bathe. Ye’ll nae be disturbed.”
She had not acknowledged until that moment that the promised tub that would soon be filled was sitting in front of the fireplace. They could not both be in here at the same time.
He paused on the threshold, his hand lingering on the doorknob. “What do I call ye, eh?”
She could lie.
The stubborn, headstrong part of her wanted to give him her title and nothing less. She could give him her family name, but the last thing that she needed was her father being drawn into this and making a bigger mess of things. Even worse, it might somehow lead these men to her sister, and she certainly could not have that.
“Victoria,” she answered, as that was the simplest thing that she could offer, and it felt like an olive branch as Arran bowed his head and left her to the relative peace of the room.
She listened briefly for the sound of a key turning in the lock, so accustomed to that awful noise that it almost felt wrong when she did not hear it. Satisfied that she was not imprisoned, she walked over to the wooden tub at the front of the room to inspect it. A smaller wash basin was toward the back of the room, and there was a wooden sort of rail near the heat of the fire where she could drape her garments should she so choose to.
“This is not so bad,” she murmured, sitting down on the single chair as she waited for the water to arrive.
The room was warm and cozy, and it touched her heart to see that a few wildflowers and a bundle of dried lavender had been placed beside the bathtub for her indulgence should she wish it. They did think that it was her wedding night, after all.
Half an hour and many buckets of water later, Victoria had herself a bath to look forward to, prompting her to undress before it cooled too much.
