Page 7 of The Rebellious Countess (The Ruined Duchess #2)

She eyed him as if she were thinking about how to put something sharp into his back. She was entitled to her rage, but so was he.

“Let’s go, Wife. I’m in need of a bath.” He wouldn’t tell her about his need to ensure that she had not been hurt in more ways than he could see. Elias walked toward the steps where Hag had rooms for let.

“Not in one of my tubs, Elias.”

He turned around and Hag was still smirking.

“What is that supposed to mean?” He asked.

“It means there’s a trough out back you need to use first. Once you’ve rinsed the stench off your person, you can take a flowery bath with your wife.

She may need one more than you.” She walked around the back of the bar and began serving her customers once more, and the man named Thomas took control of Jack.

Máira inhaled sharply, her lips pressing together.

“It’s taking all of your self-control not to give her a scathing retort, isn’t it?” he asked.

“If she wasn’t correct, I would, but days of being violently ill onboard your ship with nothing else to wear has taken its toll on my attire. Not to mention the assault I suffered, the murder I witnessed, and the night I slept in an alley.”

Merde! What had he done to her?

“Oh, and the items you purchased for passage on the ship were dropped off here,” Hag yelled from the bar.

“Here?”

“The captain of the Confiance said he had no use for the shite. By the looks of things, I’d say she does.”

The cornflower blue dress he’d purchased for Máira wasn’t the height of fashion, nor would it fit her as well as her own clothing he’d left behind in Dumfries.

It was for a fresh-faced country girl who welcomed picnics from the man she was falling in love with, and the moment he saw it, it reminded him of the day he’d proposed.

He hadn’t meant to ask her that day. The picnic was a prelude to a chaste kiss he’d planned to place on her cheek before he’d returned her home.

The next day was to be the proposal, but the fresh-faced girl who’d secretly met him in the meadow wearing a simple blue dress, had given him a taste of everything he didn’t want—a responsive, passionate, virgin bride.

And the blue dress he’d purchased in the shop across the street, had been meant to symbolize her new beginning—a beginning so much different than the day he’d altered her life in a meadow with a kiss neither would forget.

Her, because it had been her first. Him, because he’d never wanted anything so much in his life, and he hadn’t even known just how much until their lips met.

He tossed the memory out of his thoughts.

It would do him no good to reflect upon the bond he’d destroyed, because her butter-cream gown looked like aged, moldy cheese now.

“Is that dried blood staining the front of your gown?” He stepped toward her, intending to grab her arms and scour her body for any hint of injury.

The flare of his nostrils, however, reminded him of his own stench and it forced him to search her person from a distance.

“It’s not my blood.” Her voice was flat, as if any emotion she’d felt had been extinguished, but her eyes looked haunted.

“Whose is it?”

“The man who indelicately adorned my forehead with a knot the size of our Queen’s most beautiful amethyst brooch.

My jewel, however, should never be worn by the Queen.

On anyone other than myself, it’d be garish at best.” It was the type of response he would have expected while in conversation with a man.

“No woman should have such a gem.”

“It sounds as if you find it valuable.”

“Valuable in a sense that the person who gave it to you should pay with their life.”

It was the slow blink of her left eye as her vision clouded and she no longer saw him standing in front of her, that nearly undid him.

He wanted to wrap her in his arms and whisk her away from this awful time and place he’d created.

An act of mercy he couldn’t perform for many reasons.

So, he did what he did best and maneuvered her forward with cold hard words.

“Is he dead?”

She lifted her gaze, and it flashed to Hag before it landed on him. “Yes.”

“Good.”

She slowly nodded in agreement, not quite certain she believed him.

“If he weren’t already dead, I would kill him with my bare hands. It would not be the quick and painless death, as I suspect he received.”

Her lips quivered and once more it took every ounce of willpower he possessed not to capture her in his arms and make her forget.

“What happened to your shoulder?”

Hag interrupted before Máira could answer. “While you were playing around in horseshite with Jack, she was fighting your friend for her very life—in here.”

“It happened here?” His gaze swung from Máira to Hag then back to Máira.

“A man grabbed me during a fight in here yesterday. Hag killed him.”

His eyes shot to the barkeep, even though the movement made it feel as if the bullet was traveling through his bruised brain. “You killed him? My friend I was going to meet?”

“I did,” Hag said. “He won’t be meeting you anytime soon.

Not unless you visit him in the unmarked grave in the cemetery.

He had nefarious intentions and he was knocking her head against the floor as if he was pounding down the gates of hell to drop her inside.

I threw my knife and then finished him off by shooting him. ”

“The gun was a bit overzealous,” Máira added.

Hag shrugged. “I had to be certain.”

His contact had attacked his wife, then Hag had killed him and disposed of him.

“Thank you, but why didn’t you keep her here?” he asked, because he was incredibly grateful she had stopped his friend from hurting his wife further.

“She took off as if those gates had opened up and the hounds of hell were chasing her.”

And now his mission was in jeopardy. A month ago, he would have been furious. At the moment, he found himself relieved Máira was safe. She was safe, yet still in more danger than he’d ever realized.

Directing his attention to Hag he asked, “Do you have a razor? I want to shave my head.”

“What?” Máira gasped. “You can’t shave off your hair.”

“Whyever not?”

“Because I lov—” She stopped as if she couldn’t bear to finish. She loved his hair. She’d confessed that fact on multiple occasions, and he had to admit, the one time he’d released it from its queue for her to run her fingers through had made him as hard as the Rock of Gibraltar.

“If you try to shave it while it’s…” Her nose wrinkled as she carefully chose her next word. “Dirty, every cut, nick or scratch will cause a fever.”

“What are you talking about, Wife?”

Máira scowled at his use of the word ‘wife.’ “I don’t know what it means, but I have found dirt in a lesion on a cow can become red and enflamed. Sometimes the cow even gets a fever and dies.”

“You work with cows?” Maybe he didn’t know his wife as well as he thought he had.

“I did, back on our nursemaid’s farm.”

“And now you’re comparing me to a cow?”

She lifted her chin and spoke to him as if she were an authority on the subject. “There are several similarities between people and livestock.”

Oh, this he had to hear. “What other similarities are there, Máira?”

Her cheeks stained pink, as he knew they would. “What cows will do while filthy, I will not.”

He couldn’t help his laughter. “I wouldn’t dream of touching you while covered in shite. After my bath however…”

“I will wash your hair, but that is it. I do not want to be married to you, but I don’t want you to die, either.”

“Why is that?” he asked, knowing he shouldn’t.

“Because you’re my only way back to Scotland!” She nearly stomped her foot and he grinned. He really liked this fiery side of her.

“Hag, could you put the clothes I bought for my wife in our room? And I could use a change of clothing and shoes as well,” he asked, without releasing Máira from their locked gaze.

“That’ll cost ye another barrel of Scotch.”

He bit his tongue. She was trying his patience, when all he wanted to do was get a bath and then touch Máira to ensure every bit of her was okay. “Fine,” he muttered.

“You bought me clothes?” Máira asked.

“Yes.” It was his turn to be embarrassed, except he was so filthy, no one could tell.

Her tone softened. “When?”

“Yesterday.” He frowned trying to get the time back that was lost to him. “I think it was yesterday. When I came ashore.”

He didn’t want her to soften toward him. It wasn’t safe for either of them if she did. He needed to send her back to her family at Caerlaverock. Untouched. To do that, she needed to believe him to be a scoundrel of the first order.

He inserted a bit of crassness in his question by grabbing himself where he never had before in the presence of a lady. “Now let’s get to that bath, shall we? I find myself in need of my wife’s attention.”

She stomped past him toward the back door, but her body swayed a bit as if she, too, had trouble keeping her balance after the beating she’d received.

He pretended good humor and winked at the lads in the tavern who cheered him on. After all, a beautiful woman was going to give him a bath…how could he not enjoy that?

“Ow! Bloody hell, woman, you’re going to kill me.”

“If I was going to kill you, I would have hit you harder and you’d be dead instead of whining.”

“Are you sure I’m not dead?”

“You smell as if you were.”

She tossed the scrub brush into the water. He ignored it as he grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled it off over his head. The wet shirt landed with a splash at her feet.

Máira jumped back with a squeak. “You did that on purpose.”

“I have never been accused of being a good sport.”