Not by him, as he’d done with Audrey and not by her scent, no matter how much his wolf might want that.
“Here, use this.” Audrey handed Shona the bar of lavender soap they’d brought with them from England.
Shona took the soap, wondering if Audrey had noticed the scent of lovemaking in the bedchamber that morning. “Thank you.”
Nothing else was said while the two women washed each other’s hair. Marjory played in the shallow water nearby with a small duck Thomas had carved for her.
At one point, the eagle swooped down again, this time touching Audrey’s bare shoulder with the tip of his wing. She laughed and shooed the bird of prey as she might a rabbit in the carrot patch.
Caelis growled, the sound quite menacing, though he had not turned around. So, she could not understand how he’d known of the Eagle’s brief visit. She put both from her mind as she and Audrey rinsed away the soap and sand from the bottom of the loch they’d used to get their hair clean.
“I was surprised to find Caelis in your bed this morn,” Audrey said tentatively as she and Shona wrung the water from their hair. Her tone invited confidences without an ounce of judgment.
Nevertheless, a flush of shame warmed Shona’s skin despite the chill of the loch’s water. “He was standing guard outside my door when I woke and went searching for the children.”
Which didn’t begin to explain how the man had ended up in her bed. She couldn’t explain that to herself, either, or the fact she’d wanted him to stay after they’d shared their bodies and their passions.
“I should have remained with you last night, but Marjory wanted the comfort of my presence.” Audrey’s voice was laced with heavy regret and self-censure.
“My virtue is not your responsibility,” Shona stated, finding it painful to acknowledge how very thoroughly she’d allowed her virtue to be imperiled.
“You are a virtuous woman.” Audrey said, as if she knew exactly what Shona was thinking. “Whatever happened in the wee hours did not change that.”
“You know ’tis not the way the rest of the world thinks.”
“The rest of the world can go hang,” Audrey said with more malice than Shona had ever heard in her young friend’s voice. “You are the only one who treated Thomas and I like we mattered. You trust your children with us, but just as important, your hand has been open in friendship from the first day we came to the barony.”
“I understood what it meant to be treated as less.” Shona’s pregnancy had made her less in her parents’ eyes.
And despite how pleasing he found her feminine form, her deceased husband had believed himself superior by dint of English birth and the very basic difference that he was a man and she a woman. He also never allowed her to forget that she’d not come to his bed a virgin.
She’d once reminded him that she would not have come to his bed at all if she had been one. That had precipitated one of the few times he’d beaten her.
“Did you give into Caelis because you did not believe you had a choice?” Audrey asked in a quiet undertone with a quick glance at the warrior’s imposing back.
Shona knew the sister of her heart was not asking about the true mate bond. How could she be? Audrey was still innocent to the strange world Shona had learned of only the night before.
No, Audrey wanted to know if Caelis had forced the issue. And Shona could understand why the other woman might ask such a thing.
Whatever he might be, the man who had rejected her and now proclaimed his desire to keep her was no rapist. “No.”
“You are certain?” Audrey met Shona’s gaze, her own blue one so very earnest.
“I am certain.” Shona almost wished she could answer in the affirmative. It was so clear Audrey could conceive of no other reason for Shona’s rash behavior. “He did not force himself on me.”
Audrey sighed, the relief clear in her gaze, even if the confusion had not diminished. “I am glad.”
Shona looked to where her daughter continued to play, oblivious to the adults’ discussion.
Then Audrey’s head snapped up and she looked over at the men standing with their backs to the bathing females. Shona’s gaze followed her friend’s and she saw that Caelis’s stance had grown rigid, anger coming off him in waves.
Had Thomas said something to offend the giant warrior?
She’d thought her friend more intelligent than that. From the side of his face that she could see, Thomas on the other hand, appeared almost appalled by something.
Eadan was playing in the bushes, pretending to hunt and ignoring them all.
Or so Shona hoped. With the way her son heard things she’d thought it impossible for him to, she did not want him overlistening to this conversation.
Then it struck her. Caelis had heard Audrey’s questions and was mortally offended. He should have heard Shona’s answers as well then. So, why was he angry?
Was his manly pride that offended Audrey would even ask? Did he think Shona had not been strenuous enough in her denials?
Whatever his reasoning, the shape-changer would have to come to terms with the fact that both Audrey and Thomas were protective of Shona. As she was of them.
They were family, if not by birth.
Audrey looked away from Caelis and back to Shona. “I do not understand.” Again, there was no censure in her voice, just bewilderment.
Unfortunately, Shona could not help her friend comprehend something she found so difficult to understand herself. “I cannot explain it.”
Her friend probably found the truth no more palatable than Shona did.
“He hurt you grievously, left you with child.”
“He did not know.”
“How could that be?”
“It is not so difficult.”
Audrey did not look convinced. “You gave him the gift of your innocence.”
“You are so sure? Perhaps I was a strumpet, sharing my body here, there and everywhere,” Shona replied bitterly, remembering some of her mother’s more cruel words.
Audrey laughed, the sound carrying across the crisp still air above the lake. “You are no more strumpet than I.”
“You are still innocent.”
“So are you, of wrongdoing.”
“Oh no; I gave myself to him. We were not even betrothed.” Though she’d believed that was just a formality, had believed his promises of a future.
“You loved him.”
“More than I ever want to love any man ever again.”
Audrey nodded. “My mother loved my father and it brought her nothing but pain.”
“Your father is a stupid and selfish man, entirely too vain.” Anyone who would sell his own children into indenture merely to be rid of their presence didn’t deserve the gift of fatherhood.
The man was a lesser baron, but a noble with extensive land holdings nonetheless. He’d had no need for the coin Henry had paid him for the privilege of bringing Audrey and Thomas into his household as higher-ranking servants.
Later, when laughter and splashing sounded across the lake as Caelis and Thomas played in the water with Eadan, Shona thought perhaps some men should get a second chance at fatherhood.
“He has not laughed like that since well before your father passed,” Audrey remarked as she plaited Marjory’s hair.
“Eadan has always enjoyed the company of his Uncle Thomas.” Henry had been very annoyed when Shona had bestowed the honorary titles of uncle and aunt on Thomas and Audrey.
His insistence they were mere servants had only spurred Shona on to continue with the practice.
Audrey just shook her head.
“Oh, fine. You wish me to admit that Eadan is clearly in alt being with his father?”