“Oh!” Aileen said suddenly, turning back to face her. “Lady Jetta is making arrangements for a feast the night after they arrive.”
“To celebrate the men’s return?” she asked.
“Aye, and there will be minstrels and dancing and everything.”
Una added, “She was going to hold the feast the night they arrive, but Laird Buchanan pointed out the lads might be tired from their travels and it would be better to hold it the next night. But that is better anyway—it gives us the next two whole days to sort out what ye should wear to the feast . . . and how to fix yer hair,” she added, eyeing Dwyn’s long tresses. “Perhaps we could ask for a bath for ye the night before, wash yer hair and then separate segments and wrap them around bits of cloth so that ye have curls once it dried.”
“Where would we get the bits o’ cloth?” Dwyn asked with a frown.
Una shrugged. “I suppose we’d have to rip up one o’ yer shifts.”
“Or we could braid it after washing it,” Aileen suggested. “That always looks nice when ye take it out after it’s dried.”
“Aye, it does,” Una agreed thoughtfully.
“Oh! And we could gather some flowers the afternoon before, and weave them in her hair somehow. Perhaps in small braids at her temple that we then pull around back. It could be like a fairy crown,” she added excitedly.
“Or I could put it back in its bun and do without all this fuss,” Dwyn suggested with exasperation.
“Nay,” they both said at once, and then began to chatter to each other about what they could do to “fix Dwyn up and make her pretty.”
Rolling her eyes, Dwyn set her borrowed book on the table and glanced around for her slippers. Not spotting them right away, she made her way to the garderobe barefoot. She loved her sisters, but truly, they were causing her nothing but misery with their efforts to make her attractive. It just pointed out how unattractive they thought she was, which was oddly hurtful. Dwyn wouldn’t have thought it would be. She’d always prided herself on being a sensible young woman who saw herself clearly. But while Dwyn had always accepted that she was plain . . . well . . . she hadn’t felt plain in Geordie’s arms. She’d felt beautiful . . . and desirable, and even powerful. She’d felt like she imagined a goddess must feel, like she could bring men to their knees and conquer the world with her body.
“Which is just ridiculous,” Dwyn muttered to herself as she slid into the garderobe and closed the door. She hadn’t even conquered Geordie. He was the one who had ended both embraces she’d enjoyed with him. But until he had, she’d felt glorious, Dwyn admitted on a sigh.
Chapter 5
“It looks as though I have a bit o’ a wait,” Geordie said dryly as he and Aulay entered the great hall and he spied the people lined up by the garderobe doors.
“Aye. Everyone wants to use them ere they sleep,” Aulay commented, and then said, “I doubt there is a lineup fer the one above stairs though. Use that one.”
“Ye got it finished?” he asked with surprise. Jetta had been pestering Aulay to install a garderobe above stairs for weeks before Geordie had left to help Conran and Evina at MacLeod. And his brother had finally agreed just before he rode out. But it was a large undertaking. They’d had to wall off the end of the hall just past the last of the bedroom doors to make a large garderobe, then build the stone shafts that would carry the waste away to the moat below, which had been the more difficult part of the endeavor.
“Aye, we finished just in time fer the arrival o’ our guests,” Aulay said dryly. “Which, as it turns out, was why she wanted them.”
Geordie thought Jetta was clever to have thought of it. From what he’d seen last night when he’d arrived and first entered the keep, there were so many extra servants and soldiers presently here that everyone had been forced to sleep on their sides belly to back, and even then there had been little if any space between the sleepers. There certainly hadn’t been the customary path left to the stairs, and from there to the garderobes and kitchens. Nodding, he said, “I’ll use the upper one, then.”
“Do ye see me wife?” Aulay asked before he could move away.
Geordie glanced over the people in the hall. There was no one at the trestle tables. In fact, those had been taken down and the pieces were even now being carted over to lean against the wall.
“Nay,” he said finally. “But I do no’ see any o’ the would-be brides or their families here either. They must have all retired fer the night.”
“Aye,” Aulay said, and walked with him to the stairs, adding, “A messenger arrived today. Yer brothers should be back the day after tomorrow.”
Geordie arched an eyebrow at that as they started up the steps. “Why bother sending a messenger if they would be practically on his heels?”
“I gather the man was sent several days ago, but ran into trouble on the way. He was fine,” Aulay added before Geordie could ask. “But his horse was killed and he had to walk quite a way ere meeting up with a slow-moving merchant who was kind enough to allow him to ride on his wagon with him. I loaned him a horse for the return journey.”
“Rory was attending the labor o’ Lady Ferguson, was he no’?” Geordie asked.
“Aye.”
“Well, then, I hope ye kissed yer horse fare-thee-well ere ye sent it off,” he said dryly. “Ye ken those bastards’ll just keep it.”
Aulay shook his head. “They’ll no’ start a war with us o’er a horse. He’ll return it.”
“Oh, aye. We have influence and eight armies at our back,” Geordie said with a shake of the head.
“Exactly,” Aulay said with a grin, and opened his mouth to say something else, but paused abruptly as a cry of pain reached them from the upper floor.
They were only a couple of steps from the landing, but both men hurried up them and looked along the hall to see what had caused that sound. Geordie’s eyes widened, his heart slamming into his chest, when he saw Dwyn on the floor near the garderobe. Even as he recognized the spray of golden hair around her, she planted her hands on the floor and pushed her upper body halfway up and then twisted her head to peer back toward her feet, her long hair falling to curtain her breasts as they bulged from her top.
“Dwyn.” Rushing forward, Geordie started to kneel next to her and then paused when he saw the broken glass littering the floor around her and noted the bloody cuts on her bare feet. Then he bent to scoop her up, asking, “Did ye drop a goblet, lass?”
“Nay. I just came out o’ the garderobe and stepped on it,” she said on a sigh, and he couldn’t help noticing that her drawing the breath in and then pushing it out had her breasts creeping upward out of her gown again. He was beginning to love her gowns, Geordie acknowledged.
“Ye stepped on an unbroken goblet and it shattered?” Aulay asked as he reached them.
“Oh, nay. It was already broken and all over the floor when I came out,” she explained quickly. “I meant I just stepped on the broken pieces. They were no’ there when I went into the garderobe,” she added with a frown, glancing down at the glass strewn across the floor. “Someone must have broken it while I was in there. No doubt they went to fetch a maid to help clean it up.”