Highland Promise by Hannah Howell Page B

maids left the room, Bethia saw the way they looked at Eric, their smiles blatantly inviting. She quickly looked at Eric and felt her pangs of jealousy ease. He was too busy making funny faces at a giggling James to even notice the lures sent his way.
    “I shall leave you to your bath, m’lady,” Eric said, bowing low with James in his arms and making the child laugh.
    “Aye, please do.” Bethia laughed and pushed him out the door. “And be quick about it ere the water cools.”
    “Be sure to lock the door behind me.”
    “I will.”
    The moment the door shut behind him, Bethia made sure that it was securely bolted, then began to strip off her clothes. She left them behind her in a trail from the door to the tub. The moment she stepped into the hot water, she sighed with delight. It had been too long since she had enjoyed such a luxury, and as she sank up to her neck in the gently scented water, she intended to savor it.
    As the heat of the water soothed her aching muscles, Bethia found herself thinking about the maids and how the women had looked at Eric. She and Eric had been alone as they traveled to Dunnbea, and Bethia realized that, although she had easily guessed that women would be drawn to Eric, she had never really considered or understood how true that was. Until now. Despite the presence of ones they assumed were the man’s wife and child, the two maids had tried to catch Eric’s eye, to give him warm, inviting looks. Bethia had no doubt that the women would have offered him a toss in the hay right in front of her face. It was not only infuriating—it was astonishing.
    A moment later, she struggled to shake away her concern. How women reacted to Eric would not be her problem after tonight. What mattered was that, for tonight, Eric was all hers. The complete disinterest he had revealed in the maids proved that. Bethia was determined not to spoil their remaining time together with petty jealousies and fears.
    That determination faded abruptly only two hours later. Eric had returned but moments after Bethia had finished dressing and a bath was quickly prepared for him by the same two maids. Their eagerness to please him with a swiftly prepared, hot bath was almost painful to watch. It was when they cooingly offered to help him bathe, right in front of her, his supposed wife, that Bethia decided she had had enough. They were tainting her last night with Eric with their vulgar flirtations and she could not allow that.
    When one of the maids reached out to unlace Eric’s shirt, Bethia was there first, dropping several of James’s soiled rags into her hands. “If ye have such an urge to scrub something, try these. I would like it done—quickly.”
    Biting back a smile, Eric politely but swiftly shooed the maids out of the room, then turned to look at Bethia. She looked gloriously furious and he was pleased. He had not purposely set out to make her jealous, but he would gladly accept the results of the maids’ foolishness. Here was the proof that her feelings already ran deeper than passion alone.
    “Is it always like that?” Bethia asked as the door shut behind the two maids.
    “Like what, my heart?”
    Bethia gave Eric a disgusted look for his attempt to act as if he had not noticed. “They did everything short of tearing off their clothes and jumping on you, and I begin to think that e’en that would have happened if we had waited long enough.”
    “They were unusually brazen.”
    “’Twas as if I wasnae even here.”
    And that, mused Eric, was probably the worst of it. Bethia had spent far too much of her life being ignored, being treated as if she was not really there. The maids were very forward, but that had happened one or two times in the past. It would undoubtedly happen again, as brazenly as that or more subtlely. He could not do anything about it. He did not think he was vain, but he knew that women liked how he looked. Until age or injury marred his looks, women would probably flirt with