Page 20 of A Forbidden Night with a Scot
“I didnae ken that was a rule!” Samuel pointed out.
“It isnae arule, but nay one does!”
Samuel was panting. He hadn’t realized until then, but his breath was coming in quick, short puffs and his heart was racing as if he had just seen a woman naked for the first time. As much as he tried to forget what he had seen, he was certain that the memory would stay with him and torment him for the rest of his life.
“Ye didnae… ye didnae see anythin’, did ye?”
Alicia’s voice was hollow and tinny as it rang through the small room. It was so empty that every sound seemed to be amplified—everything from her voice and the splashing of water as she moved in the tub, to the slow, steady drip of it on the floor. The air seemed to press down on him, oppressive and filled with humidity, and the only thing Samuel wanted in that moment was to disappear.
“Nay,” he lied. “I saw naething, o’ course. Dinnae fash.”
It was better to lie to her, he thought, than tell her the truth. He didn’t want her to be embarrassed about this or to allow such an unfortunate incident make their interactions awkward.
Silence stretched between them for several moments, time seemingly slowing down for Samuel. Eventually, Alicia cleared her throat and he remembered just where he was and what he was doing, and he couldn’t help but curse his bad luck.
Why did Alicia have to have been there right when he entered the room? Why did she have to have been naked?
“Well!” said Samuel in a voice so loud it was jarring even to his own ears. “I will leave ye tae dress.”
As he spoke, he quickly gathered the clothes he had thrown, picking them up off the floor. In his hasty effort, he kept dropping things—first his shirt, then the trews, and then hisdrying cloth, the items simply falling right out of his hands as though his body had forgotten how to hold onto things. By the time he had gathered it all, he had almost given up, thinking it was better to flee and leave the clothes there.
The moment he had everything in his arms, he strode out of the baths without another word and he didn’t stop walking until he had made it all the way back to his chambers. He didn’t know how he even managed to get there—all he knew was that he was now behind the safety of his door and he had managed to reach that safety without further incidents, though several servants had looked at him oddly as he rushed by without a word.
Heart still hammering in his chest, Samuel dropped his clothes on the floor and let his head fall back against the door, closing his eyes with a heavy sigh. Soon, though, that turned out to be a bad idea, as he could imagine, clear as day, Alicia’s nude body right in front of him, as vivid as when he had first seen it.
It was going to be a long stay at Castle MacCallum, Samuel thought. There was no other explanation for it—this was payment for his sins.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The water had turned cold, raising goosebumps on Alicia’s skin. The steam was long gone, dissipating in the air around her and leaving it chilled, all the warmth now gone from the baths. And yet Alicia still sat there in that tub, the drying cloth that she still held around her body now soaked and heavy, sinking to the bottom of the tub.
She stared straight ahead at the wall, her eyes idly tracking the moisture there, the shape of the water stains that were imbued into the building after so many years of use.
Despite the chill in the water and the air, her body felt warm, almost feverish. Though she stared at that wall, what she was truly seeing was the ghost image of Samuel entering the baths and finding her there, his gaze burning hot as it travelled down her body.
He had told her he had seen nothing, but Alicia didn’t believe him. How could he not? Alicia had been standing right in front of his eyes.
Maybe it was wishful thinking, she thought, but she could have sworn before embarrassment gripped him and he ran away from her, he had gazed at her with desire.
Could it be? Or am I merely imaginin’ it?
The latter sounded more likely. Samuel may have always been fond of her, but he had never seen her as more than a child. No amount of wishful thinking could change that.
That didn’t stop Alicia from suddenly pushing herself out of the water and pulling on her fresh change of clothes, battling the fabric as it stuck to her wet skin. She pulled roughly on the hems, forcing everything into its proper position, before rushing out of the baths and to Katherine’s chambers, eager to speak to her sister.
Once outside, Alicia knocked furiously on the door, her former daze in the face of her encounter with Samuel now entirely gone and replaced by an urgent need to confess everything to someone—and who else could she confess to other than her sister? Katherine was the only one who could know about any of this, the only one who already knew about her childhood infatuation with Samuel.
The door flew open to reveal Katherine’s look of concern, a half-finished embroidery clutched in her hand, the thread dangling from the cloth. “What is it? What happened?”
“Somethin’ terrible,” Alicia said as she pushed her way into the room and fell on Katherine’s bed with a sigh, bouncing onceoff the mattress. Her hair, still wet from her bath, clung to her forehead and the back of her neck, soaking the bedding under her head.
Katherine’s chambers were as familiar as her own and, in fact, very similar with the wooden best posts and the rich, burgundy drapes that hung from their ends. Where Alicia’s rooms were cluttered with all sorts of items, though, from discarded clothes and half-finished books to every trinket she had ever owned, Katherine’s were pristine; everything had its place and nothing was where it shouldn’t be.
For a few moments, Katherine scrutinized Alicia, her arms crossed over her chest as she stood by the door, before she decided that whatever it was that was bothering her sister couldn’t possibly be as terrible as she claimed. Katherine had a knack for reading Alicia’s moods, knowing when something was truly wrong and when she was simply being dramatic.
I’m nae bein’ dramatic… this is truly terrible!
Katherine went to sit next to Alicia, feet dangling off the edge of the bed as she stared at her in disbelief. “What could possibly be so terrible that ye had tae come knockin’ on me door like that?”
