Page 22 of Scandalous Passions

Plague take it, imagining herself as a Thoroughbred, sleek and swift, had not worked. Her pursuers nearly had her cornered.

Marjorie clung to the stair banister, her knees wobbling and breasts aching after the short run.

“I shall fight to the death!” she wheezed, wishing she had a sword to brandish rather than a single waving finger. It did lessen the theatric impact somewhat.

“Lady?”

Marjorie’s hand slipped, and she flopped onto the bottom stair in an ungainly heap before turning and glaring at Sir Lachlan. “We agreed on a cough to warn of your approach.”

He cleared his throat. “You spoke to no one. Are you well?”

“I did no such thing. I warned away the women stalking me with the food they wish to put in my hair.”

Sir Lachlan’s brow furrowed. “Food?”

Marjorie sighed as her heartbeat finally began to slow. “They claim Janet wishes them to wash my hair. But they don’t have a square of lye soap, just a dish of bacon fat. Raw eggs. Vinegar. Now tell me, Sir Lachlan, does that sound like tools of beauty or the makings of supper?”

His head tilted, his gaze suddenly far away. “My mother used eggs. One each month. The chicken had…a bad temper. My hands were pecked bloody. But her hair shone. Like sunbeams.”

The silence stretched between them as Marjorie absorbed that halting, rasping affectionate tale, surely the longest string of words Sir Lachlan had ever bestowed upon her. But the emotion behind it—he’d loved his mother. It seemed the habit he’d learned as a boy had stayed with the man. He sacrificed and served.

“Is she…is your mother in the Highlands somewhere?”

Sir Lachlan’s face shuttered. “No. She died long ago.”

“Forgive me, I—”

“Let them wash it,” he said gruffly. “To please Lady Janet. It will look…pretty.”

And with that pronouncement, he marched past her and out the front door toward the orchard.

Well.

Marjorie propped her chin on her hands and stared after Sir Lachlan. Her head had accepted that he belonged to Janet, that they were lovers, that she had no choice but to remain a virgin until her wedding night with a husband of the king’s choosing.

Her heart had yet to reconcile with those facts.

It still believed that Sir Lachlan liked her a little. More than duty, which made it difficult to live under the same roof, as she kept pondering what he and Janet might do together in bed.

Would they ever permit me to watch them?

The shocking thought lodged in her mind, so wicked, so troubling, Marjorie leaped up and paced the entrance hall. It was sinful enough she wanted so much more from Janet, more touching, to be kissed and stroked and to learn how to do so in return. But to even entertain the thought of watching Janet and Sir Lachlan naked and pleasuring each other, bedding each other…

Marjorie shuddered, her breathing now shallow pants.

Wicked. Terribly, shamefully, wicked. Janet was her guardian, kindly teaching her. Sir Lachlan a protector.

Nothing more.

“Lady Marjorie,” came a voice to her left, and she turned to see the two servant women intent on turning her hair into a larder. The curtsies were polite, the expressions exasperated.

She sighed and surrendered. “Very well. Forgive my reluctance, but I’ve only ever washed my hair with lye soap. I did not know there were other remedies.”

One of the women grimaced. “Lye soap? Oh no, m’lady. This will be so much better. No tangles, and it will smell sweet and fresh too.”

“Will it take very long? I must meet Lady Janet in the solar at noon. For a, er, lesson.”

That I wouldn’t miss for the world.