Janet stifled a grin. Marjorie was so delightfully responsive. “Then you may touch yourself. Stroke your pearl until you gain release, just like I showed you in the wagon. It will help relax you, and you’ll sleep better. Until tomorrow, then.”
Marjorie nodded, her hand already moving under the quilts. Satisfied she was back in control, Janet turned and walked toward the door.
Hopefully Lachlan had finished his inspections.
She required him for another duty entirely.
Chapter Six
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.
“A half hour at most. We’ve done it for all the ladies. And our sisters. We’ll have your hair looking right nice in no time.”
Marjorie shot a doubtful look at the basket. The egg she would try, if for no other reason than Sir Lachlan’s poignant story. But bacon fat? Ugh. “Where?”
The other woman smiled. “We have a little bathing tent set up outside for privacy. Hood, gown, and kirtle off; shift on. Come with us and we’ll begin.”
Soon she knelt on a cushion in front of a large wooden bucket. Several other smaller buckets sat nearby, each filled to the brim with fresh water.
After wetting her hair, two egg yolks were rubbed in. Then the women rinsed it clean with jugs of water. Next came the bacon fat, and Marjorie’s nose twitched at both the smell and the unpleasant cool greasiness on her scalp. Once they’d scraped and rinsed that away, a small deluge of vinegar covered her entire head, trickling onto her arms and down her face, as expert hands firmly massaged. If this was the final treatment, no one would want to sit near her for at least a week. But the vinegar washed away into the wooden bucket, and the servant opened another jar of something green that actually smelled lovely, like fresh herbs.
Marjorie sniffed appreciatively. “Is that mint?”
“Aye, m’lady. Will make your head tingle. Plus parsley, thyme, and watercress made into a paste.”
They let the paste sit in her hair for a few minutes before rinsing, then a servant dried away the excess water with a linen towel. Marjorie prepared to stand, but the other servant’s voice halted her.
“Two more things, m’lady. We’ll rub your hair with silk, then comb it.”
She nodded reluctantly, as they were clearly skilled in their work. But when the woman eventually produced a wooden comb, Marjorie gritted her teeth. This was always the worst part.
The comb slid through her hair like an eating knife through tender meat.
“It’s not
