The older girl pounded on his shoulder. “Don’t ye hurt her!”
“I’m only carrying her to the bed,” he said, though he was not accustomed to explaining his actions. “I’ll not harm her.”
“Promise?” the smaller girl asked.
David took a deep breath and reminded himself that they were just wee girls.
“I will protect your mother with my life,” he said. “Just as I will protect you.”
Both girls’ eyes went wide.
“You’re my responsibility now,” he told them.
That silenced them for the moment. Carefully, he lifted Lady Alison from the floor. She weighed nothing at all, which made him feel like an ox, but her slight frame was soft and curved in all the right places. As he laid her down on the bed, his fingers brushed the side of her breast, and his throat went dry.
He had not expected the widow to be anything like this. As he looked down at her pale, perfect skin and angelic face, he was incensed at the thought of her sharing a bed with Blackadder, a dull, brutish man of nearly fifty. She must have been barely of age when she married the bastard. He imagined how she must have looked on her wedding day, fresh as a dew-kissed morning, with a soft glow in her cheeks.
And now, David was the brutish, undeserving man who would take her to bed.
After a long moment, he realized that the sounds of fighting had died. His men would be waiting for him to give them orders.
He pulled the coverlet over Lady Alison and checked her pulse again. It was strong and her color was returning. Yet she looked so fragile that he felt uneasy about leaving her.
He watched her chest rise and fall with shallow but steady breaths, then his gaze drifted to her parted lips. He shook his head, wondering how long he’d been standing beside the bed staring like a fool. By the heavens, what was wrong with him?
“You,” he said, pointing to the old woman who was huddled in the corner and had not made a single peep. “Are ye able to look after your mistress?”
The old woman nodded.
“Then do it.” He turned abruptly to leave, but halted when he saw the two girls, who were standing between him and the door holding hands. These two bairns were the heiresses of Blackadder. He had definite plans for them once they were of age—but he had no notion what to do with them in the meantime.
And judging by the size of them, the meantime would last for years. Ach, this was another gap in his plans. He’d helped raise his brothers, but he’d not been around little girls a day in his life.
“Your lady mother is fine,” he said, dropping to one knee to speak with them. “She only needs a bit of rest.”
The younger girl’s dark curls bounced as she tilted her head to the side and examined him with wide blue eyes. After a long moment, she said, “I’m hungry.”
David relaxed. Perhaps little girls were not so different from lads after all.
“Come, I’ll take ye down to the hall to get something to eat.”
When he started for the stairs, the younger girl startled him by slipping her tiny hand in his. He would need to watch this one closely, for the wee thing was entirely too trusting.
“Margaret, don’t!” her sister hissed, apparently sharing his concern, but she followed them down the stairs all the same.
Strange how a tiny hand could make the weight of his new responsibilities feel like a boulder on his chest.
CHAPTER 6
David’s reaction to Lady Alison irritated him more with each passing moment. His mood was already sour when he entered the hall with the two girls in tow and saw the serving women huddled together in a corner.
“One of ye go upstairs and see to your lady,” David told them. “The rest of ye bring us food and drink.”
The women looked at him as if he’d ordered them to kill their firstborn children. By the saints, these Blackadder women were easily frightened.
“Take a couple of these women to the kitchens,” he told Brian, who was nearest at hand, “and come back with some food.”
Brian returned a short time later. “There’s not a scrap to be found.”