“Has she said anything about what happened to her last eve?” he asked, rubbing his thumb idly over the symbols embossed on the leather binding of the book.
“Nay. Although she mumbled in her sleep, naught of it made sense.”
Silvan’s eyebrows rose. “Think you she was…er, harmed in some way that has affected her mind?”
“I think,” Nell said carefully, “the fewer questions ye ask her for now, the better. ’Tis plain to see she needs a place to stay, what with having no possessions nor clothing. I ask ye grant her shelter as ye did me that eve, many years past. Let her story come out when she’s ready.”
“Well, if she’s aught like you, that means I’ll never know,” Silvan said with studied casualness.
Nell caught her breath. In all these years he’d not once asked what had happened the night she was given sanctuary at Castle Keltar. For him even to make such an offhand reference to it was rarer than a purple pine marten. Privacy was ever honored at the MacKeltars’—sometimes a blessing, ofttimes a curse. The Keltar men were not wont to pry. And many were the times she’d wished one of them had.
When, a dozen years ago, Silvan had found her lying in the road, beaten and left for dead, she hadn’t felt like talking about it. By the time she’d healed and been ready to confide, Silvan—who’d held her hand and fought for her while she’d lain fevered—had retreated coolly from her bedside and never spoken of it again. What was a woman to do? Blurt out her woeful tale as if she were looking for sympathy?
And so a polite and infinite distance had formed between housekeeper and laird. As should be, she reminded herself. She cocked her head warily, warning herself not to read too much into his mild statement.
When she said nothing, Silvan sighed and instructed that she procure suitable clothing for the lass.
“I already dug out some of yer wife’s old gowns. Now, would ye please drink? Dinna be thinking I’ve not noticed that ye haven’t been feeling yerself of late. My brew will help if ye quit dumping it in the garderobe.”
He flushed.
“Silvan, ye hardly eat, ye scarce sleep, and a body needs certain things. Will ye just try it and see if it doesn’t help?”
He raised one white brow, giving her a satyrlike look. “Pushy wench.”
“Cantankerous old fox.”
A faint smile played about his lips. He raised the mug, held his nose, and tipped the contents back. She watched his throat work for several minutes before he grimaced and plunked it down. For a brief moment, their eyes met.
She turned around and swept toward the door. “Dinna be forgetting about the lass,” she reminded stiffly. “You need to see to her, assure her she has a place here for however long need be.”
“I shan’t forget.”
Nell inclined her head and stepped out the doorway.
“Nellie.”
She froze, her back to him. The man hadn’t called her Nellie in years.
He cleared his throat. “Have you done something different with yourself?” When she didn’t reply, he cleared his throat again. “You look…er, that is you look rather…” He trailed off, as if regretting even beginning.
Nell spun back around to face him, her brows drawn together, lips pursed. He opened and closed his mouth several times, his gaze drifting over her face. Might he truly have noticed the wee change she’d made? She thought he never noticed her. And if he did, would he think she was a silly old woman fussing with herself? “Rather what?” she demanded.
“Er…I do believe…the word might be…fetching.” Softer somehow, he thought, his gaze skimming her up and down. Ye Gods, but the woman was temptingly soft to begin with.
“Have ye lost yer mind, old man?” she snapped, thoroughly discombobulated, and when Nell was thoroughly discombobulated, she wielded crankiness like a sword. “I look the same as I do every day,” she lied. Straightening her spine, she forced herself to glide regally out the door.
But the moment she knew she was out of sight, she rushed down the stairs, skirts a-flying, hair tumbling loose, hands to her throat.
She patted at the wispy strands of hair she’d snipped shorter that morn—similar to the wee lass’s, admiring the look. If such a minor change drew—by God, a compliment!—from Silvan MacKeltar, she might just stitch herself that new gown of softest lapis linen she’d been considering.
Fetching, indeed!
Gwen awakened slowly, surfacing from a montage of nightmares in which she’d been running around nude (naturally, at her heaviest weight, never after a week of successful dieting), chasing Drustan, and losing him through doors that disappeared before she could reach them.