Page 32

The room fell into silence as Polly closed the door behind her. Isobel stared at it, holding the soap the woman had handed her, and wondering why in heaven's name she had told such a lie.

The quiet stretched, growing increasingly uncomfortable.

"Well..." She cleared her throat and chanced a glance in MacGowan's direction.

His hair was damp, slicked away from his face, allowing a glimpse of the bruise above his left ear.

Other than that, he looked amazingly strong and hale, considering the ordeal they'd been through.

But then, she couldn't see his lower body from where she stood.

Not that she cared to. She scurried for something with which to fill the silence.

"I suspect you can finish the job yourself. "

His brows rose. It was amazing, but even after the nightmarish events of the past few days, his features seemed unchanged from their usual conviviality.

He raised his arms from the water, casting them casually over the rim of the tub.

They were golden in hue, sculpted with power and heavy with strength.

For a pretty boy he had an unusual amount of muscle.

Not that she thought he was pretty But his chest was broad and firm, rising in smooth hillocks of power above the water's surface.

Naked as he was, he had a certain primeval appeal.

Not that she found him primitively appeal—

"What job is that, Bel?" he asked.

"What?" She jerked her gaze from his chest.

He grinned. The tendons in her knees went lax and she realized abruptly that she hadn't gotten nearly enough rest. Surely she was exhausted, thus the weakness in her legs.

"What job can I finish by meself?"

"Bathing."

"Oh." His grin widened. Always and forever he had reminded her of a satyr. Irritating, irresist— irreverent.

"Of course," she added and pursed her lips.

"Still," he said, " 'twas good of her to offer."

A boatload of words almost spilled from Isobel's mouth, but she held them back with an effort.

"After all..." He winced as he slipped a hand from the tub's rim and cradled his injured arm against his chest. "I have been badly wounded."

A boyish satyr, he was, with eyes the color of a cloudless sky and hands like—she stopped the thought, straightening her back and her frame of mind in one quick gesture.

"I did not ask you to follow me, MacGowan."

"So you have said. Still, I did and..." He sighed dramatically. "In the process of saving you, I fear I—"

"Saving me! 'Twas I who saved you!"

He shrugged. A bead of water slid languidly around the curve of his shoulder then found a wayward course across his chest.

Isobel licked her lips.

"You are right, of course," he said. "Mayhap 'tis I who should be bathing you." He canted his head and lifted a palm toward his bath. "Would you care to join me?"

Her knees buckled again. She firmed them with a snap. "MacGowan," she said. "Polly is gone."

He gave her a quizzical glance.

"I am not so easily enamored."

"Ahhh," he said. "A challenge."

"Is that what I am? A challenge to you, yet another of the hundreds of maids to fall under your charms?"

"Hundreds?" A dimple etched itself into his cheek. "And just a short while ago it was mere scores of maids who adored me."

She shrugged and paced toward the bed, needing something to do to keep her mind from melting like bacon fat. "I am certain you've been busy since I saw you last."

He laughed. The sound filled the room like the essence of magic. "I am wounded, lass. Surely that would slow down even a rogue like meself."

"I doubt it."

"I am flattered."

"I meant it as an insult."

"What a pity. You never answered me question."

"I'm certain that is because it was foolish."

"On the contrary, I asked if you would like to share me bath."

"You're not a man for subtleties are you, MacGowan?"

" 'Tis not true." He could smile with nothing more than his eyes, but at times his entire being joined in the assault. It was then that she must be most careful. "I can be quite subtle. Would you like a wee example?"

"Nay."

"I don't know why you continue to insist that you are not attracted to me."

"Have you ever considered the possibility that I am not?"

"Nay, I have not."

"In truth, MacGowan, I am surprised Polly went unmolested as long as she did."

"Are you impressed?"

"Not in the least."

He loosed his grin, threatening to turn her joints to pig jelly. "Then mayhap you did not see me in the altogether, as our Polly put it."

"Polly talks too much!" The words surprised Isobel herself. Her hands fidgeted and she found, when she glanced at them, that she still held the soap. "Here!" As she dropped it into the water, he reached out to snag her wrist.

"You would not leave me here alone, would you, Bel?"

"Aye." She leveled her gaze on his and lied to save her sinking soul. "Gladly."

"What if I grow faint and drown?"

"Mayhap you should summon one of those hundreds of adoring maids to assist you."

"Tell me, lass..." His fingers were gentle but firm. "Do you believe every word you hear?"

She could feel her pulse beating in her wrist, thrumming a tattoo against the hard pads of his fingers. "Are you saying there have not been hundreds?"

Tilting his head back slightly, he laughed. His throat was broad, corded with finely hewn muscle. "Aye," he said. "That is what I am saying."

She should pull away. Should leave. Immediately. "How many?" she asked.

He stared at her, and she met his gaze as evenly as she could, pretending that her heart wasn't galloping like a destrier in training, pretending that she always breathed like an overexerted bellows.

"Isobel..." he crooned and gently caressed the underside of her wrist with his thumb. "Are you asking how many lovers I've had?"

Her knees, damn them to hell, threatened to tilt her face first into his bath.

But she straightened them with a jolt and a shrug even as she tried to pull her hand from his grip.

She failed and scowled. "In truth, MacGowan, I wouldn't care a whit if you spend your nights with three sheep and a doxy. "

“Truly?" he asked and skimmed his thumb across her wrist again. "Then whyever did you ask?"

Dear heavens, his lashes were ungodly long, like a wee lad's. But there was nothing immature about the body that disappeared beneath the warmth of his bath water.

She gave him a shrug and hoped to God she looked neither as panicked nor as needy as she felt "I spent some months in the village of Callander," she said.

He waited for her to continue, seeming to feel no need to hurry her from the spot, even though she had but to tilt her head to the right to see to the bottom of the tub.

"Upon the hillock lived the laird of Unther."

Still he waited as his thumb played across the shivering tendons of her arm, but she studiously turned her mind away from the sensations.

"He had himself a son named William. At times the lad would journey down to the village to buy ralstons from the baker. He loved—"

Loosening his grip slightly, Gilmour stroked a circle into the center of her palm.

"Ralstons?" he asked.

"What?" Her tone seemed oddly breathy to her own ears.

"William... he loved ralstons?" MacGowan guessed.

"Oh. Aye. Certainly. Ralstons." She took a deep breath and found her stride with some difficulty. "One day the village was all agog at how many ralstons he had consumed."

He grinned ever so slightly as he watched her. "And?"

"And I was curious then, too, as to the number."

"Ahh," he said. "So you are saying 'tis only because of idle curiosity that you ask."

"Exactly."

" 'Twas an ungodly long story for so simple a moral. Perhaps..." he began and lifting her arm ever so gently, kissed her wrist.

Something akin to lightning bolted from her wrist to her belly in sizzling heat.

His grin widened, lifting the right side of his mouth and deepening one dimple to lethal depths. "Perhaps," he repeated, "you were looking for an excuse to stay."

"I was doing no—"

He kissed her again, halfway up her arm.

She found to her numbed dismay that she could not move.

"I would gladly bathe you" he murmured, "if you would but ask."

Images bloomed like hotbed flowers in her head, steaming through her mind and dizzying her thoughts.

"Isobel?" he murmured, pulling her closer.

"Nay!" she said and jerked her hand from his grip.

He gave her a wounded expression, but his grin never slipped. "I would be very gentle."

"Don't..." she took a few fortifying breaths."That's ridiculous."

"Surely you need to bathe from time to time."

"I already bathed."

"And I missed it—such a pity. But I suspect I had best simply see to me own cleansing if I ever hope to win your..." he began, but when he reached for a cloth, he winced.

She took an involuntary step toward the tub. "What is it?"

"Oh, 'tis naught," he said and took the cloth from the tub's rim.

She scowled. "Is it your arm?"

"Nay, nay, lass. Worry not. Me arm will mend," he said, but when he lifted the rag to his chest, she saw the darkened bruise that spread across his lower ribs.

"Do they hurt?"

He lifted his gaze to her. His grin was sheepish now and entrancingly boyish. "I would tell you truth, lass, but I have found, through arduous study, that women are rarely impressed by a man's weaknesses."

"Liddie was to ease your pain."

"I am certain she did me naught but good."

Isobel scowled. "You are not to strain yourself."

"I do not think bathing can be considered a strain, lass," he said and lifted the cloth to his shoulder. Water streamed in warm rivulets down his arm and chest.

She followed its descent with her gaze and remembered to breathe. "Mayhap I should assist you for a spell."

"I did not mean to cause you guilt," he said.

She took a step closer. Tiny bubbles covered the surface of the water, obscuring all that was beneath. "Didn't you?"

"Well..." His grin lifted, showing teeth that were slightly crooked but ungodly white. "Mayhap I thought a bit of guilt would do no harm."