Laird of Ballanclaire Read Free Page B

edge of his wound. Part of her emotion was due to the way he jerked from the first touch, part was because he was injured and she didn’t want to hurt him, and part of it was because if she didn’t finish this, he wasn’t going to get well. And then he wouldn’t leave.
    Before she was finished washing his shoulder, she realized his injuries were just as bad as they looked. His back was a mass of bruising and a crooked latticework of open wounds that needed cleaning, medicating, and bandaging if they were going to heal properly. Whoever had whipped him made certain to break skin. Each time she dipped the rag the water darkened, until finally it was unusable.
    She would have explained that she was leaving to get a fresh bucketful, but she was never speaking to him again.
    There was nobody about in the kitchen, and there was hot water bubbling in every bucket on the hearth. Constant put her empty bucket down and stole a fresh one. Somewhere in the house she heard Charity moaning. Constant didn’t stay around to verify anything. She had to get the man named Kam better. She had to get him out of the shed, and she had to get him off her mind.
    The door to the shed creaked a bit when she got back. Hester and Henry were still sleeping, and the man was still stretched out, his shoulders elevated atop the log, his head hanging to the floor.
    “You . . . came back,” he said.
    “Of course. I’ve little choice now.”
    Constant knelt beside him and dipped her rag. She had one side of his back washed, and started on the other one. She’d been right earlier. He was muscular. And large. His back was immense, covered with more muscle than she’d ever seen. Of course, she only had her sisters’ husbands for contrast; as well as their father, who was smaller than Constant; and Thomas Esterbrook, who was fairly thin, although most young men at the age of eighteen were. Then again, she’d never seen a man lying stretched out before her. Maybe in that position any man appeared extraordinarily large.
    “Is it . . . bad?” he asked.
    Constant dipped her rag and washed the area where a belt should be holding his pants up. He didn’t have any spare flesh there, either, only a thick ridge of muscle.
    “Well?”
    “I am not speaking to you ever again, sir,” she answered.
    He snorted. “Doona’ call me that. My name is Kameron. ’Tis a family name. Auld Gaelic. But I’d like it if you’d call me Kam.”
    “I don’t want to know your name,” she replied.
    “Why?”
    “Because I was stupid.”
    He stiffened as she cleaned. Constant lightened her touch.
    “You’re na’ stupid. I am. I lied, too.”
    Constant narrowed her eyes. “An adulterer . . . and a liar?”
    “I dinna’ commit adultery with anyone, Constant.”
    “You should call me Mistress Ridgely. That would be right and proper.”
    “Right . . . and proper? Now?” He wheezed out a breath that sounded like a laugh. “I really think you should call me Kam.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I’m asking you to.”
    “Why?” she repeated.
    “Because . . . we’ll be getting verra familiar with each other fairly soon, and I’d feel much better about it if you’d call me by my name. Fair?”
    Constant narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “They took my clothing, lass. All of it.”
    Her hands halted, her eyes widened, and she forgot to breathe for a moment. She concentrated on dipping the rag, wringing it out, and then finishing her chore. She forced her mind to a complete blank and then ordered her own throat to swallow.
    “Dinna’ you hear me?” he asked quietly.
    “I already told you I’m not speaking to you ever again. I don’t understand why you didn’t hear it the first time . . . sir .”
    “Well, at least I know why they call you Constant.”
    “They call me that because it’s my name,” she replied.
    “What kind of name is that?”
    “Mine. I just told you.”
    “Who would name a child that? And