No, no, no, no physics over breakfast! “Yes, but who cares? Look at this scrumptious food.”
He sounded strained when he asked, “Do you play chess, m’dear?”
She brightened and, finally securing the ham, smiled. “Of course. Would you like to play?”
“On the terrace. In two hours, if you will.”
Gwen beamed. Drustan’s father wanted to spend time with her and play a game. She couldn’t recall a time her father had ever done such a thing. Everything had been work-oriented, and the one time she’d coaxed him into a game of Pente, he’d gone off on how one could calculate every possible outcome….
She shook her head, pushing that memory far to the back of her mind, and eyed Silvan speculatively. Maybe, if Drustan had told him her story, she could work on him. Perhaps he might be more inclined to listen. Winning his support would definitely help.
All while sitting in the sun and playing…
“I don’t usually show so much cleavage, Nell,” Gwen poked her head in the kitchen and said apologetically to Nell’s back. She had some time to pass before meeting Silvan and wanted to get better acquainted with Nell. She suspected the housekeeper probably knew everything that went on in the castle and might be a source of information regarding who might wish the MacKeltars harm. Plus, she didn’t want Nell to think badly of her. Next time she bared so much, she would make sure it was for Drustan and only Drustan. Her breasts were now demurely tucked beneath her bodice.
Nell glanced over her shoulder. Flour dusted her cheek and brow, and she had her hands in a mountain of dough. “I dinna think ye did, lass,” she said with a gentle smile. “Despite ye showin’ up bare as a babe. I know ofttimes a lass feels she has few choices. Ye needn’t barter yerself for shelter and food. I suspect ye’ve more choices than yer thinkin’ ye do.”
“What kind of choices?” Gwen asked, stepping into the kitchen.
“Know ye aught about bakin’, Gwen?” Nell withdrew her hands from the dough.
Gwen nibbled her lip uncertainly. “Not really, but I’m game to try.” Is that what Nell meant about choices? Were they going to offer her a job in the kitchen? A dismal vision of herself cooking for Drustan and his wife made her scowl.
“Ye’ve two fine hands and, if ye dinna mind, I could start on the lamb. Just poke ’em in there and knead. Wash up first.”
Gwen washed and dried her hands before poking tentatively at the mound. Once she’d sunk her hands in it, she decided it was rather fun. Sort of like Play-Doh, which of course she’d not been allowed to have. No Silly Putty either. Her Sunday comics (neatly removed from the paper before she ever got to it) had consisted of her father’s witty drawings of black holes sucking up all the Democrats who preferred to fund the environment over the Department of Defense’s obscenely expensive research projects.
“That’s it, lass,” Nell encouraged, watching her. She skewered a large roast on a spit. “Now, do ye wish to talk about it?”
“About what?” Gwen asked uncertainly.
“What happened the night ye arrived. If ye dinna wish to, I willna pry, but I’ve a willin’ ear and a shoulder if yer needin’ it.”
Gwen’s hands stilled deep in the dough and she was silent a long moment, thinking. “How long have you been here, Nell?”
“Nigh on twelve years,” Nell answered proudly.
“And have you ever noticed anything…er, unusual about Drustan? Or any of the MacKeltars,” she added, wondering how much Nell knew. A part of her longed to confide in Nell; there was no question in her mind how loyal the housekeeper was to her men. Still, it would be safer to acquire more information before revealing any.
Nell finished basting the roast, then slid it above the fire before answering. Wiping her hands on a cloth, she regarded Gwen levelly. “Be ye meanin’ their magic ways?” she said bluntly.
Magic. That was exactly what Drustan’s unusual intelligence and command of cosmology would seem to a sixteenth-century woman. Heavens, it was exactly what it seemed to her. Although she knew there was a scientific theory behind his use of the stones, she couldn’t begin to comprehend how he’d done it. “Yes, that’s what I mean. Like the voice Drustan can use—”
“Ye’ve heard it?” Nell said, surprised, making a mental note to pass that tidbit on to Silvan. “The one that sounds like many voices?”
“Yes.”
“He dinna use it on ye, did he?” Nell frowned.