“Warm,” said Lachlan, as he placed his hand at her back and rubbed it in that wonderfully soothing manner, just the way she enjoyed. “There are…so many candles. That and the incense…stings the eyes.”
Janet nodded. “They do burn a lot of incense. But it is quite magnificent inside, dear one. You enter the north doors and progress to the relics. There are a great many shrines, and as Lachlan said, all lit up with candles. Also stained-glass windows, brightly painted effigies…St. Andrew at the highest point, of course…then you get to the casse, the jeweled box containing the bones. In truth I cannot be certain that they are real. But when you are there…it feels real. And it seems that is enough for the pilgrims. Now. We must look at these stalls so I can witness your best scorn and wrath.”
Marjorie grinned reluctantly. “Which stall first?”
“Fishmonger?” said Lachlan, gesturing to a large stall several feet away. “We know how…you adore fish.”
“Oh, you!” she replied, swatting her husband’s chest when he puckered his lips and made a kissing sound, possibly the most playful act of his life. “Beast.”
“So they say.”
Marjorie blushed at the warmth in his eyes. With Janet’s wicked promise still echoing in her mind, and now Lachlan’s palpable tenderness, she wanted to leave the market and return to the manor at once so they could reunite properly. After days without their touch, she craved them both more than air. “I…ah…”
“Devil take it.”
Startled at the curse, she glanced at Janet, but her mistress’s gaze was directed down Market Street, and her smile had vanished. “What do you see?”
“The Campbells are here. Hamish, Aileen, and that wretched peacock Angus.”
Wishing the fashionable man to purgatory, Marjorie gritted her teeth. The incident in the garden had been unpleasant, but what the snake had done after that, she would never forgive him for. He was responsible for the queen deciding she must swiftly wed the English baron in Carlisle. He had nearly ruined her life with his petulant act of vengeance when she had rejected his advances. It might be due to Lachlan’s warrior influence, but her thoughts at this moment were bloodthirsty rather than forgiving as she’d been taught. The prioress and nuns would be horrified, although Sister Elspeth and her kitchen dog might understand the sentiment.
In truth, the thought of that dog taking a large nip of Angus’s bottom cheered her greatly.
“I won’t speak to them,” Marjorie announced, uncaring if the Campbells thought her impolite or cold, as her would-be lover had accused.
“He’s fortunate…to retain all limbs,” growled Lachlan.
Janet folded her arms. “I won’t speak to Angus; that hell-spawned rodent is dead to me. But I should greet Hamish. And Aileen.”
Marjorie stilled. Something in the way Janet said the other woman’s name didn’t ease her temper but made her want to spit needles. “How do you know her, really?”
“I told you at that supper,” said Janet, looking away. “We shared a tutor a long time ago.”
“Mistress,” said Lachlan, frowning. “We deserve truth.”
Her guardian’s expression turned hunted, and Marjorie’s heart plummeted. Indeed, there was certainly more to the tale than a shared tutor.
Janet straightened her shoulders. Then she sighed. “Yes, you do. Aileen…her father’s lands marched alongside my father’s. We saw each other often. We did share a tutor, but…”
“But?” whispered Marjorie, glancing across at Lachlan. He looked as grim as she felt.
“Aileen was my lover. My first. And a woman I once loved.”
…
Devil take it, why did everything wonderful have to be swiftly followed by disaster?
Janet winced, an action becoming all too familiar. For a woman who prided herself on plain speaking, she tied herself in terrible knots when it came to her two lovers. And by the hurt on Marjorie’s face and Lachlan’s impassiveness, that mask he only wore when concealing a great deal of emotion, she had blundered badly. Again.
Marjorie had declared her love. And she’d been so overcome that she’d babbled like an infant and changed the subject. The worst possible subject. How foolish she’d been not to tell Marjorie and Lachlan the truth about Aileen after that supper. Naturally it had been prudent not to speak of it with blissfully unaware Hamish and Angus at the table, but she’d had ample opportunity to do so since then.
“I should have confessed,” said Janet into the heavy silence. “It was wrong of me not to tell the whole tale.”
“Why did you not tell us?” asked Marjorie, her beautiful face ashen.
“I’m not sure. I honestly did not know Aileen and Hamish lived near the manor, so it was a great shock to learn they were the supper guests. I have not seen either of them in many years. Since that summer, in fact. Aileen and I were discovered naked together, you see. My parents sent me to court as a gift to the king, and her parents arranged a hasty marriage.”
“Do you still”—Lachlan pursed his lips as though he’d tasted something bitter—“care for her?”
At least this question she could answer.
Being alone with Aileen, she’d not felt any desire to retreat into the past. Not even a kiss or embrace. She would always remember that summer…more so for what she had learned of herself: that she lusted for women as well as men. Also some regret that their affair had been halted by others rather than coming to its own end as it should, so each could have walked away knowing they had not found their forever love and to keep searching. It had been that way with James. Yes, she had loved Fergus dearly and would always miss him, but she now knew for certain that her heart had found two new people to settle on: Lachlan and Marjorie.
Janet took a deep breath. “Let me explain it thus—”
“Lady Janet!”
At the booming hail from Hamish Campbell, she wanted to hurl manure at his chest, which was quite unfair. Unlike his rodent brother, Hamish remained
