Page 13 of A Fine Scottish Spell (The Magical Matchmakers of Seven Cairns #2)

She clenched her teeth to keep from cursing.

How had she awakened him so easily? She had barely moved, and the bed hadn’t shifted in the least. “Go back to sleep,” she whispered.

Why was she whispering? He was already awake.

“Go back to sleep,” she said louder. “I am going to the…” She nodded at the privacy screen in the corner.

He rolled off his side of the bed, hurried around to her side, and started to pick her up.

“No! I can do this.” She pushed his hands away and scooted to the edge. “I am not hurting nearly as badly. Let me try it on my own. Besides—there is no way you’re going back there with me.”

“Everyone pisses and takes a shite. There is no need for embarrassment. If ye fall, ye might hurt yerself worse.”

She glared at him, willing him to understand. “I cannot do what I need to do with an audience.”

“Once I get ye there and seated on the close stool, I will come away and give ye yer privacy until ye are ready to return to the bed. Will that suit ye?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Ye do not.”

“Fine.” If she didn’t get to the facilities soon, he’d be calling for Inalfi to dry the bed again.

He swept her up into his arms and strode to the area behind the screen. It was bigger than she’d expected, containing a long cabinet with several pitchers and bowls and what looked like a short, squat nightstand against the wall.

“Are ye strong enough to stand and hold fast to the sideboard while I open the stool for ye?”

She nodded. “I’ll keep my weight on my right leg.”

Ever so gently, he lowered her, then stood there watching as if waiting to see if she would topple over.

“Could you get on with it?” She hadn’t relieved herself since arriving in this confusing era, and she was about to burst.

With a hurried dip of his chin, he turned to the nightstand, opened its top and side, then moved back to reveal a wooden chair with a hole in the seat—a far cry from any toilet she had ever used. But she’d take it and be grateful that at least she didn’t have to squat over a ceramic tureen.

Before she could limp across the distance between her and the seat, he slid his arms under hers, held her tight, and shifted her around to stand in front of the commode. “Pull up yer shift, and I’ll ease ye down.”

Burning with embarrassment, she did just that. Better to get it over with rather than argue. She would never be able to look him in the eye again. She propped her elbows on her knees and buried her face in her hands.

“Do ye need a basin, lass? Are ye ill?”

“I am not ill—just humiliated beyond belief.”

“Why?”

She couldn’t believe he actually sounded befuddled, but wasn’t about to lift her head to look and see if he was making fun of her. “I just am. Could I have some privacy, please?”

“Aye. Call out when ye are ready to return to the bed.”

“I will. Thank you.”

Peeking through her fingers, she relaxed a little at finding herself alone.

Could things possibly get any worse? She scrubbed her face with her hands.

“I bet he doesn’t think of me as his precious little ember now,” she grumbled under her breath.

Leave it to her to find a way to debase herself in the eyes of a hot Highlander whose grumpiness somehow made him even more enticing.

“What was that, lass? I didn’t catch it. Are ye ready for help back to the bed?”

“Not yet.” She pulled in a deep breath and closed her eyes. Pee, already!

At long last, the dam broke, and the deluge echoed like thunder in the large ceramic pot under the wooden seat.

She covered her face again. People in her century had probably heard her pee hitting that jug.

A great deal lighter and no longer under that strain, she glanced all around.

When she had stayed with Jessa for a few days in that version of the eighteenth century, old bits of parchment, or rags, or moss, and leaves had been used in place of toilet paper. Surely, they did the same here.

“Bottom drawer of the sideboard, the one closest to ye, has everything ye might need,” Gryffe called out as if reading her mind or worse—spying on her.

She squinted at the wooden screen, trying to see through it.

Thankfully, from her vantage point, it appeared quite solid and as private as its name .

The drawer did indeed hold what she needed to finish the job.

Since it was old parchment, she let it join the rest of her leavings in the chamber pot.

After latching hold of the sideboard, she pulled herself to her feet, or more accurately, her foot, still not brave enough to put any weight on her left leg.

She needed to wash her hands and wouldn’t mind splashing some water on her face too.

Close enough to one of the tall white ceramic pitchers to peer inside it, she was pleased to find it filled with water.

Hopping alongside the cabinet, she better positioned herself to pour some water into the basin and enjoy at least a minimal scrub.

“Ye have to be the stubbornest woman I have ever met,” Gryffe said from entirely too close behind her. “Did I not tell ye I would help ye?”

“You said you would help me back into bed when I was ready. I just wanted to wash my face and hands.”

“Without falling over?”

“I can stand on one leg without falling over.” To prove her point, she scooped up a handful of water and splashed her face. When she opened her eyes, he stood ready with a fresh linen and a sour look.

“Why do ye fight me?” he asked after she took the cloth, patted her face dry, then dried her hands.

“You’re a chieftain—not a nursemaid—and I am used to taking care of myself.”

As soon as she tossed the cloth aside, he scooped her up, carried her back to bed, and then eased her down into it. Standing over her, he bared his teeth as if about to growl. “A chieftain is all things to those he cares about. Whatever mine need, I become that for them.”

She reached up and touched his face, stroking the soft richness of his close cropped beard.

She knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t help herself.

“Thank you for helping me,” she whispered, longing to say so much more but not brave enough to speak her heart.

What if she was wrong? What if he wasn’t her fated mate—just like he’d said about his mother casting a spell on her.

“I know I’ve been a lot of trouble, and I’m sorry. I’m just…it’s…it’s complicated.”

He groaned with a heavy sigh before pressing his forehead to hers for a brief yet wonderful moment. Then he jerked back and stepped away from the bed. “Sleep, my ember. Sleep and heal.”

Unreasonable disappointment crashed through her. “Where are you going? Don’t you need sleep too?”

With a hard shove, he pushed his chair back to its place in front of the hearth. “I need to watch the fire for a little while. Those embers dinna present as much danger to me as ye do.”

She wanted to argue, demand he tell her how she could possibly be as dangerous to him as a live coal, but she already knew the answer.

Because he was just as much a danger to her, even more so.

In her case, it was already too late to escape this reality unscathed.

When it came time to leave, she already knew she would have to tear herself away, and that was after knowing him for less than a day.

How painful would it be after spending time with him for however long it took her to heal and make the trip to Seven Cairns?

“You’re not the only one hurting, you know.

” She cringed at her pettiness, but on a deeper level, she needed him to know this wasn’t easy for her either. “And if I ever see your mother?—”

Hunched over in the chair, he turned and looked at her, his eyes wild and feral, as filled with pain as a beast trying to gnaw itself free from a brutal steel trap. “Once…long ago...a vision came to me. The vision of my one. I swore to find her so we would both escape this loneliness.”

A fierce, possessive jealousy crackled through Emily like wildfire, even though she had no right.

If he belonged to another, then he would never be hers.

Plain and simple. She would never share a man and refused to accept the lesser status of the other woman.

The look in Gryffe’s eyes made it clear he would never cease searching for his one.

She curled onto her side, facing him as she pulled the bedclothes up over her shoulders and clutched them close. “Why haven’t you been able to find her?” She had to be reasonable about this. Maybe it would help her get past this unsettling attraction to him.

He turned back to the fire and stared hopelessly into the flames. “I dinna ken the sweetness of her voice nor her beauty. She came to me in shadow, and hidden in shadow, she has remained.”

Hidden in shadow? “How do you know it wasn’t some random dream?” Everyone had dreams filled with people they didn’t know and couldn’t quite remember when the dream was over. Didn’t they?

He barely shook his head, squinting at the fire as though trying to peer deeper into the flames.

“It was not a dream. It was a vision that hit me with the force of a storm and knocked me from the saddle. As I struggled to regain my footing, I… felt …her, as well as saw her, but she was veiled by a dark, swirling mist that refused to reveal her face or let her speak.” He shook his head again.

“She needed me to save her. I felt her begging me to help her.” He sucked in a deep breath and let it out with a great sigh.

“She is the other half of my soul, and I am hers.”

“To feel a love like that and not be able to find her must be?—”

“Maddening,” he said, then leaned back in the chair and stretched his legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankles. “Sleep, lass. ’Tis hours before dawn, and ye need the healing that only sleep brings. Elseways, ye’ll never get to Seven Cairns and back where ye belong.”

Back where she belonged. She wanted to remind him that he’d said she belonged with him, but she clenched her teeth to keep from speaking.

No. She refused to beg for anyone’s attention.

She deserved better. Rolling carefully to keep from hurting her hip, she turned her back on him.

Tomorrow—not days from now but tomorrow —she would head for Seven Cairns even if she had to crawl.