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She stepped back, and he let her go with some reluctance.
Then something occurred to Bernard. “The laird? Who is the laird?”
Janice tapped on his head with her knuckles as if she were trying to knock some sense into him.
“Alasdair, of course! Remember the contest? Where we met?”
Bernard looked horrified. “Is he running the estate?”
“Yes. We both are, but he has changed a lot,” she replied. She looked down at the filthy rag she was wearing. “I have to go and clean myself up. I have been planting herbs in the kitchen garden all day.”
He frowned. “Do you not have a gardener to do that?” he asked, puzzled.
“I do—several,” she answered, then shrugged. “But it is so much more fun to do it myself with the kitchen maids. They are much better company than the stuck-up people I usually have to deal with.”
“Is that why you love me?” He shook his head, laughing. “Because I am not a rich man with airs and graces to spare? You are a strange woman.” He pointed at the rag she was wearing. “Is that how your dress came to look like a sack of oats?”
“Indeed it is.” She grinned. “Now, my love, it is time for me to bathe, and I suggest you do too. Would you like a tub in your room or a dip in the loch?”
“Will you join me in the tub?” he asked eagerly.
Janice sighed. “I wish I could, but perhaps not yet. Alasdair worries about what people will think, and although I could not give a fig about the opinions of others, I have to be mindful of him. He is the laird, and although we have a unique relationship, some standards must be shown to be observed.”
Bernard nodded understandingly, and she led him out into the atrium and ordered a room, a bath, and a meal for him, as well as a bottle of wine.
“I will come to see you soon,” she murmured. “Then we will go to see my brother.”
“One last kiss,” he murmured, before sweeping her off her feet and kissing her until she was dizzy.
When their lips drew apart it was to see a ring of household staff around them, all grinning, and a few clapping.
Bernard smiled at her lovingly. “To your chamber, milady?” he asked.
“Only to the door!” she replied, very loudly.
* * *
Lying in the bath, Bernard could not repress a feeling of blissful unreality. Everything he had ever wanted was now within his grasp. The woman of his dreams was his, now and forever, and even if he never became a rich man, he had no need of anything beyond enough to eat, clothes on his back, and a roof over his head. It could not be possible…could it?
His mother had always taught him that if he worked hard enough he could achieve anything, and at the time he had thought that she meant fame and riches. Now he had all the riches he had ever wanted, and that did not mean Janice’s sizable dowry. The thought of that made him deeply uncomfortable.
He sipped the wine she had sent him, thinking of the night they had kissed and almost, but not quite, made love. Even thinking of Janice was enough to make him hard with desire for her. He stood up and dried himself, then put on the only clean set of clothes he had before striding out and descending the stairs to the small parlor closest to the main entrance to the castle.
* * *
When she had woken up that morning, Janice could not have forsaken the changes that were going to happen to her that day. She had eaten her breakfast and then went over some of the estate’s accounts with Alasdair. After that, he had gone out riding on his best grey gelding to visit some tenants.
He did this dutifully twice a week, sometimes taking Janice with him, and she was gratified to see that the tenants’ attitude toward him had changed. Because he now treated them like real people, they began to treat him, first with wariness, then with grudging respect, then with the real thing. Although they still regarded Janice as their real laird, Alasdair was carving out a place for himself.
His real passion remained the buying and selling of horses, however. He had loved them since he was a boy and was quite an expert. Therefore, his knowledge meant that he had something to contribute that had always been outside of Janice’s field of expertise. He could also do arithmetic so fast that it made Janice’s head spin, but it helped her greatly with the accounts.
Andrew had disappeared the day after the contest and had left a note saying that he had been welcomed into the home of Laird Nisbet to court his daughter, Elaine, who, it was rumored, had a dowry half the size of Scotland.
“Ah, well,” Janice said resignedly when she heard the news. “Perhaps he will find true love there. I hope so.”
The old laird had smiled, then erupted into another fit of coughing. When he had stopped and recovered his breath, he looked up at his daughter, who was bending over him anxiously. “There is not much time left, my dear,” he had said sadly for the thousandth time as he caressed her cheek. “Find a good man to marry and raise children. I care nothing about the family name. Alasdair and Andrew can take care of that. I want you to have a good life.”
“I will, Da,” she had promised. “There is a man out there for me somewhere—I know it.” Yet even as she smiled at her father, Janice knew that there was no one.
