The Laird's Forbidden Lady by Ann Lethbridge

Author:Ann Lethbridge
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781408943571
Publisher: HarlequinUKLtd
Published: 2012-06-21T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Marie Flora stumped in with a bucket of water and a frown on her face. ‘Thomas, are you still here? Did Father not ask you to move the cow to the other pasture?’

The boy shoved his whittling in his pocket and left without a word.

‘He’s such a dreamer,’ Marie Flora said. She put the bucket between them and went to a bin in the corner where she gathered an apron full of potatoes and put them beside the bucket. She handed Selina a knife. ‘‘Tis sharp. Mind you do not cut yourself.’

Quite the little mother and not at all shy any more. Selina couldn’t help but smile. She watched the child peel her first tatty and then began to work on her own.

‘Not sae deep,’ the girl said sharply.

Selina looked up.

‘You are cutting too much of the flesh,’ Marie Flora said. ‘There’ll be nothing left. Watch.’

Clearly if she didn’t get this right her worth was going to go down in this young lady’s eyes. She watched closely, saw how she rested her thumb against the vegetable and skimmed the skin away.

She tried again. This time she did better and the child nodded her satisfaction. She grinned to herself. This was nice, sitting here working on something useful with a companion, instead of setting fine stitches within an embroidery hoop on a piece of cloth only fit to adorn something that was already beautiful enough.

‘Dig the eyes out like this,’ Marie Flora said, showing her how she twirled the point of the knife in the little brown indentations. She put her finished potato in the bowl and washed another one before starting in on it with her knife.

Selina finished her first one by the time Marie Flora had done three, but she elicited no more criticism so she assumed she was doing it right, if slowly.

Thomas wandered in with a wooden bucket full of creamy milk. It sloshed over the side when he closed the door. His sister muttered something in Gaelic and leapt to her feet. The boy went bright red. She snatched the bucket from his hand, all the while scolding. The boy shot Selina a considering glance.

‘Don’t you have any Gaelic at all?’ he asked.

‘Not really.’ She knew a few curse words, but it would be better not to say those. She would save them for Ian when he returned.

Married, indeed. At least he could have warned her. And now they were to share that bed in there. Her traitorous body tightened at the thought and she flushed warm all over. But it would be just like last night, she reminded herself. They would sleep. Nothing more.

The potatoes were finished and her hands were red, raw and numb from the cold water. This would be the kind of thing she would have to learn if they really were married. It would be a very different life. And fraught with danger, no doubt. A trickle of excitement flowed through her.

Marie Flora handed her a towel and turned to her brother.

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