In the corner was a pair of wooden bassinets, and Mary gravitated to them like iron being pulled by a lodestone. She did not dare touch but spotted soft blankets padded inside. She looked back and felt her soul sigh. This was lovely, so lovely. This was comfort, not pride as her parents would have sanctimoniously touted.
“This way, Miss,” Isla said as she called Mary’s attention to a folding screen cutting off a part of the room from view.
Peeling her eyes away, Mary followed Isla behind the screen and there rested a copper tub.
“The bath is ready,” Isla pointed to a tray. “Here are a bar of soap, a rag, and a comb if ye wish to wash yer hair. Do you need help undressing?”
“No, no,” Mary said, “I’m fully able to help myself, but thank you for the offer.”
“Please call if ye need help,” Isla bowed her head and turned away,
Placing the sack on a ground, Mary reached behind to braid her hair into a sloppy plait and then pulled the strings of her dress’ bodice free. She managed to unlaced the ties and pulled the soiled clothing over her head.
His hands were shaking also, but not from fear but relief. The moment she was bare, she felt the warmth wafting up from the bath. She wondered how that water was still warm and then when she heard something pop, she realized that the bath was raised on bricks. Under them were warm coals.
She braced her hands on the rim and carefully stepped inside. Sliding down in the warm water, her sigh of relief was audible. Her head was braced on the rim. Her body felt wooden and heavy as the warmth penetrated her skin. Having been used to baths, the three-and-a-half days of riding, and God knows how long lying unconscious in that ravine, plus the two days she had spent under the roof of the Robasdan Clan without one, had made her feel filthy.
After scrubbing her body, she managed to wash her hair and twisted the thick locks into a coil. Then, clean and satisfied, she laid back to bask as much as she could in the comfort and safety. Her head still had little twinges of pain but she wasn’t going to say anything about it. She did not want to bother the healers anymore as she was sure that with time the pain would go.
It was a dour prospect that she might have to live the rest of her life in solitude and loneliness but both were better than being married to a man that would suck the life out of her. She might be unmarried and alone, but she was able to live her life on her terms.
Leith…he’s handsome and has a very gracious mind. I’m sure he’ll marry quickly enough. She pressed to her breastbone and grimaced. Why did that thought hurt me?
Finished, she lifted herself out of the tub even as her limbs felt heavy. Drying off, she put on one of the dresses she had carried, an old grey one, and dried her hair enough so that it lay in wet curls around her shoulders.
“Ye seem lively,” Lady Robasdan said as she came in with a babe in her arms. “Feeling better, I hope?”
Ducking her head, Mary said, “I am and I do thank you and your husband for your help.”
“Will ye spare a moment to tell me why yer here?” Lady Robasdan asked while gesturing to a seat.
Even though the tale was a grievous one but not wanting to be rude to her host, Mary held her sack to her chest and said, “It’s not a wonderful story, Lady Robasdan…” Mary began to recount her tale from the day she met Lord Blackmore and the grief she had felt trying to get her parents to stop this ill-matched marriage. “I had no choice but to run or live a life that I know would kill me.” Mary bit her lip. “It’s a shameful act of running away the way I did, isn’t it?”
“Nae, its survival,” Lady Robasdan replied. “Ye will have to do things that many would term disgraceful, but to ye is the only way ye can live. Dinnae be afraid to follow yer own heart, dear. It will lead ye to places yer mind will nae.”
“Thank you for understanding,” Mary stood and hugged the woman, “and thanks to your husband for his hospitality.”
“Given by proxy, but I’ll take it,” a gravelly voice said from the doorway.
The man who entered, the Laird, was a large man in stature with wide shoulders, dark hair, and a thick beard. He came to rest a hand on his wife who looked at him with fondness, “Yer very welcome, Miss Thompson. If ye need help, be free to come to me. Lenichton will get ye here even faster.”
Dropping out a curtsy, Mary smiled, “Good evening and my best prayers are with you.”
Hurrying back the way she remembered Isla taking her, Mary got back to the infirmary just in time for a woman to come in bearing a tray of food and a draught of the mandragora.”
Thanking her, Mary did not eat immediately, instead, she began to wonder if tomorrow would work out the way she wanted and even more, she wondered why she sensed that parting from Leith would pain her.
I don’t even know the man…
8
With his hand shaking Tarrant’s, Leith nodded. “Thank ye, Robasdan, for yer help. I’ll be back as soon as I am able. If nae, I’ll send ye a message.”
Gripping his hand firmly, the Laird of Robasdan nodded. “I ken. Take care of the little lass, Lenichton. Poor girl needs a friend in these times.”
“Ye see it too,” Leith said as he twisted to see Mary, already seated on a borrowed horse, waiting for him at the
