Page 57 of In the Highlander's Bed

“See?” Grace said to Fiona. “You have no worries.”

Fiona shook her head, her gaze never leaving Constance. “I’d wager you know his scent better than your own. You probably know when he’s been to his tent while you aren’t there. You canfeelhis presence.”

Constance didn’t answer, but knew Fiona was right.

“What nonsense are you speaking?” Grace interjected, as if she was the voice of common sense. She placed herself by Constance’s side. “We’re blessed to have her here,” she said. “I, for one, appreciate her.”

“I appreciate her, too,” Fiona said, surprising Constance. “She’s left her mark on all of us, including my brother. You’ll pardon me, Grace, if I deem it important to see to his welfare and ask the questions aloud everyone gossips over behind his back.” To Constance, she explained, “I know how it is to have all their bickering tongues wagging about you, and how dangerous.”

Of course, people would be talking, Constance realized. Of course, they would assume she was Gordon’s woman. It added titillation to ordinary lives.

What caught her off guard was thatshe’dignored the whispers—purposefully. What had mattered was being close to Gordon. The rest was immaterial.

Something of what she felt must have shown on her face. “You’re in love with him,” Fiona said.

“Iadmirehim,” Constance quickly corrected.

“And what is that, if not love?” his sister countered.

Grace rolled her eyes. “This is foolish.” She threw a twig she’d been holding in her hand on the fire, stepping between them as she did so. “People don’t fall in love in a matter of days. And Constance has too much sense for such poetic humdrum.”

“What wouldyouknow about love?” Fiona asked.

“I’ve been in love before,” Grace answered. She looked at the shocked faces that greeted this news. “What? I’m four and twenty. One would expect me to have been in love at least once if not more. Haven’tyouever been in love?” she asked Fiona.

“Never,” Fiona said. “But given that you are a wh—” She broke off, hesitating only a moment before plowing on. “Doesn’t your choice of profession betray the whole notion of love?”

“I’m no longer in that ‘profession,’” Grace primly informed her. “Sometimes life takes us in directions we don’t understand. That we never would have anticipated.” She shrugged. “I ended up here…and, perhaps, this is where I was meant to be.” She looked to Constance. “You’ve pricked my conscience.”

“How could I do that?” Constance asked, startled by Grace’s candor.

“By taking your life into your own hands,” Grace said. “At first, when I heard they’d caught you attempting to run away toAmerica, of all places—you, a woman alone—I thought you strange. Unnatural. A woman doesn’t just go off and do what she feels like. But over the past several days, watching you work as hardas any man and stand up for yourself, I’ve come to realize that each of us makes our own fortune. I was making mine on my back, and not doing very well at it. I have nothing to show from Thomas except relief that I don’t have to smell his breath in the morning anymore. I want to be something more than a whore.” She directed this last to Fiona.

“I never said you were a whore,” Fiona countered, and then added honestly, “Not lately.”

“Thank you, Grace,” Constance said, deeply touched by the other’s appraisal. “I fear my sisters would not admire my independence—”

“Who were you in love with?” Fiona interrupted, her interest not leaving Grace. “Is that why you chose the devil? Unrequited love?”

Grace frowned at the “devil” description. “Do you not fear the same fate?” she countered.

Fiona immediately took a step back. “I don’t know that I need or even want marriage.” She picked up a bundle of clothing lying nearby and dropped it into the pot of warming water. Taking up a wooden paddle from the ground, she pushed the clothes under the water.

Grace wasn’t about to be lenient. “A woman like you—one born, bred, and molded to be a wife—is helpless for anything else,” she challenged Fiona.

“Ihaveto be worth something more,” Fiona answered fiercely. She began stabbing the clothes. “I refuse to believe I’m ruined.Idid nothing wrong.”

Grace’s response was to begin clapping her hands.

“What are you doing?” Fiona said irritably.

“Congratulating you,” Grace answered. “There may be hope for you yet. You’ve shown more spirit today than you have all the days before Constance arrived.”

Fiona’s brows came together. “There are times I don’t like you.”

“Or I you,” Grace countered.

“Then there are other times when I believe we could be friends,” Fiona said.