Jetta relaxed and began to gather the used linens. “’Tis better I put fresh linens on when I rewrap her feet anyway. Rory says reusing bloodied linens can infect the wound.”
“Help me gather our flowers, Aileen,” Una said, bending next to Jetta to begin collecting the flowers they’d gathered. “That way Geordie and Dwyn can take the plaid to sit on in the garden.”
When Dwyn started to try to help, Geordie leapt to his feet and quickly bent to pick her up. He knew he’d startled her when she gasped in surprise and grabbed for his shoulders as she stared up at him with amazement.
“I did no’ even see ye stand up,” she murmured as he started to walk toward where his horse waited by the cart. “Ye’re very fast, m’laird.”
“If that were true, lass, I’d have had ye naked and under me the first morning we met,” he said with amusement before he could think better of it. Once he realized what he’d said though, he looked down at her face with concern.
While she had flushed a bit at the words, Dwyn didn’t get flustered or squawk with outrage. Instead, she merely tilted her head as she peered up at him and asked with curiosity, “And would I have enjoyed it?”
Dwyn’s question made him stop walking. He stared at her for a long moment with those words circling in his mind. Would she have enjoyed it? He’d like to think so. While he’d never taken a lass’s innocence before, he knew he would have enjoyed it, and that he would have worked damned hard to ensure she enjoyed as much of it as she could too. Come to that, he was pretty sure she would have enjoyed the beginning. It was the ending he was more concerned about. Breaching her maid’s veil. It was not supposed to be pleasant for any woman.
“Shall I put this on your horse for you?”
Geordie tore his gaze from Dwyn’s face and glanced around to see Jetta beside them holding the plaid. His gaze slid to his horse, and then to Dwyn, and he asked, “Will ye hold it, lass? I did no’ bring anything to fasten the plaid to me horse’s saddle.”
“O’ course.” She held her hands out and his sister-in-law passed the plaid to her.
“I shall see you both back at the keep,” Jetta said, before moving away to begin calling to the other women still picking flowers.
Geordie started walking again the moment Jetta turned away, his legs eating up the distance quickly. The women were just starting to move toward the cart with their bundles of flowers when he set Dwyn on his horse and then mounted behind her.
“Where are they going?” Catriona asked resentfully. “Why is Whinnie riding with Geordie rather than in the cart like she did on the way out?”
Geordie was just stiffening at the insulting nickname when he heard Jetta say, “Her name is Dwyn, not Whinnie. I suggest you try to remember that else you shall be invited to leave. And she is riding back with Geordie because he wishes it so. Besides, there is not enough room in the cart for her what with all the flowers.”
Because he wishes it so. Geordie smiled at the words as he reached around Dwyn to gather his horse’s reins, and then spurred the animal to a trot that took them quickly out of the clearing. Aye, he wished it so. At least, he had. Now though, with her back to his chest, and her bottom pressed snugly against his groin . . . Well, mayhap he hadn’t been thinking ahead like he should have, Geordie decided with a grimace. Their arrival back at the keep could be somewhat embarrassing now that his body was responding to her closeness in the predictable way.
“Ye said Conran was kidnapped by his wife last summer.”
Geordie glanced down at the lass in his lap, and recalled it had been the last tale he’d been telling her before Catriona had suggested he join the women in picking flowers.
“It was last summer, was it no’?” Dwyn asked now, turning and tipping her head to glance back at him.
“Aye,” he agreed, returning his attention to his horse and the path through the trees.
“And yet ye’ve only just returned from aiding Conran and his wife to settle her cousin, Gavin, as laird at MacLeod,” she pointed out. “How long were ye there? Surely no’ this whole past year?”
“Nay,” he said on a laugh. “I am no’ that good a brother.”
“I suspect ye just might be,” Dwyn countered, and he wished he could see her expression to tell if she was teasing or not. If she wasn’t, she thought highly of him indeed. Although, Geordie admitted if only to himself, he probably would have stayed a year had he been needed. Fortunately, that hadn’t been necessary.
“Gavin only became laird o’ MacLeod six weeks ago,” he explained. “Conran, his wife, Evina, and Gavin had to petition the king, and get him to hear his case. That took some time. Mostly because none of them, not even Gavin, wanted to sit about at court awaiting the king’s pleasure to see them. So, they wrote and requested an audience. Six months passed before they got a response, and then the date for the audience was three months after that. Once he’d listened to their case, the king sent one o’ his trusted men out to MacLeod to demand the will. Conran, Evina and Gavin had to wait at court for him to go there and come back, which took longer than necessary because Gavin’s uncle insisted on riding back with the man, and he brought a slow-moving caravan of soldiers and wagons rather than ride alone. And then they had to wait a couple more weeks for the king to actually see the will.”
“Weeks?” she asked with dismay.
“When his man didn’t return in the expected length of time, the king thought he’d met with foul play and sent a garrison o’ soldiers out to find him and get the will . . . and then he went on a hunting trip.”
“What?” Dwyn asked with disbelief.
“Aye,” he said dryly. “Apparently, it was planned ahead o’ time though, so . . .” He shrugged, jostling her a bit in his lap. “The worst part is they all arrived back at court—his man, the uncle and the garrison—the day after the king left. The garrison ran into their traveling party that morning, and rode back with them. But ’twas too late—the king was gone, so they had to await his return to have the matter resolved.”
“Oh, dear,” Dwyn said with amusement. “I suspect yer brother would no’ have liked that. I would no’ have.”
“Nay, he didn’t,” Geordie admitted, and then asked, “But why would you no’ have liked it?” He suspected he knew the answer, but wanted to hear it anyway.
“Because I canno’ think of anything less pleasant than to be stuck at court for weeks on end, awaiting the king’s pleasure. No’ if ’tis full o’ lasses like—”
Geordie grinned when Dwyn cut herself off. He was quite sure the lasses whose names she was thinking of but wouldn’t say were Catriona and Sasha. From what he’d heard, the two women were often at court, which perhaps explained their behavior. Court was a place of excess, where cruelty was common. He’d never cared for it himself either.
“Oh, look! There is Buchanan,” she said brightly.
It was such an obvious attempt to distract him from what she’d stopped herself from saying that Geordie found himself grinning down at the top of her head and squeezing her affectionately with the arm around her waist. He only recalled the effect that would have on her neckline when he heard her mutter something under her breath and raised her hands to work at pushing her breasts back into the top of her gown. He glanced down as she pushed at the round globes, and it made him think of Cook kneading dough for some reason, which just struck him as ridiculous and made him laugh.