Page 93 of Come the Morning

Ewan smiled and nodded.

“Go on about your business tonight, MacKinny,” Waryk said. “It has been a long day for us all.”

“Aye, Laird Lion.” Ewan started out. He paused, turning back. “You are, sir, more than I expected. It will not be such a hardship, serving you.”

He walked on out. Waryk drummed his fingers on the table for several long minutes, then shivered, and remembered he was cold. He rose, and returned to the master’s chambers. His rooms now, to be shared with his wife.

He entered quietly. She wasn’t in the bedroom, and he walked to the archway. A bath had been brought as he’d ordered. It was old, of Celtic design. The heavy oak was carved all the way around with Celtic faces. It was deep, and even longer than the one he had brought for himself. Steam rose above it.

Mellyora rested within it.

Her hair trailed over the rim of the tub, and she lay back, her head laid upon the wooden rest. The water smelled pleasantly like a newly mown field. The water covered the length of her, yet it was startling to realize just how cruelly such a sight of her tormented the length of him.

She opened her eyes suddenly, as if she sensed him there. She sat up, staring at him.

“The water certainly appears hot,” he told her.

“Aye.”

He sat upon a trunk and discarded his scabbard, weapons, hose, and boots, then did away with his surcoat, the short mail he had worn, then his tartan. She looked away all the while, at the fire, at the soap, at the water. Then she was forced to stare at him, her eyes widening with alarm or incredulity, as he stepped into the tub with her. She gripped the edges, ready to fly.

“No,” he told her, catching her wrist.

He could see the way her heart was pounding in the vein that thundered madly at her throat, and no matter what torment he was in himself, he wanted her where she was. He smiled. “I just had a conversation with young MacKinny,” he said.

“Oh?” she inquired, but the sound of her teeth gritting—meant for him to hear, he thought—didn’t take away from the concern he saw in her eyes.

“I like him.”

“Do you? How generous.”

“Here, take the soap. Wash my back.”

“I thought you meant to sleep elsewhere.”

“I’m not sleeping; neither are you. Wash my back.”

He gave her the soap, and turned, amazed at the size of the tub.The Celts must have had strange rituals within the thing, he mused.

She didn’t touch him. He wondered if he were being wise, sitting with his back to her. “Mellyora, if you please …?”

The soap touched his back. He lowered his head, knowing the meaning of agony and ecstasy. Her fingers worked upon him, covering the expanse of his back, lightly kneading muscle and flesh. “Indeed, I actually admire young MacKinny.”

“He is admirable.”

“Aye, I like him very much.”

“Good.”

“I did, however, do the fair thing, and warn him that I’d kill him if he so much as brushed by you.”

Her fingers ceased their movement. He remembered the weapons displayed on the walls in the room. He turned suddenly, and saw that her fingers were vised tightly around the soap.

He took it from her.

“Turn around.”

“What?”