Free What Happens in Scotland by Jennifer McQuiston Page A

Elsie was good enough for you last night.” She stretched a pale, freckled arm over her head and pulled a washing cloth down its length, as if daring Georgette to remember. “I’m your new maid, you daft ninny.”
    “My maid ?” Lack of memory aside, she couldn’t imagine hiring this colorful girl for such a delicate task. Most ladies’ maids didn’t boast a vocabulary that would curl a sailor’s rigging. Or call their mistresses ninnies.
    Or last very long if they did.
    “Hired me last night at the Blue Gander, you did.” The girl moved on to wash her other arm. “Plucked me from the jaws of the serving line. Promised to pay me better than the innkeeper.” The girl stopped her motions and ran a critical hazel eye over Georgette’s stained, misshapen gown. “Either you were lying about being able to afford me, or you are in serious need of a ladies’ maid. Which is it then?”
    “The latter.” It came out as a whisper, so Georgette cleared her throat. She did need a maid, at least while she was staying with Randolph. But the girl was yet more evidence of her aberrant night on the town. “If you are my maid,” she said, louder now, “why are you bathing in my tub? And asking me to fetch your towel?”
    The woman dropped the washcloth and shook a forelock full of wet hair from her eyes. The motion sent her bare breasts bouncing and Georgette’s eyes stinging. “You told me I needed to clean myself up before we started the job proper. Am I not doing it right?”
    Though Georgette tried to control her eye’s downward track, tried to prevent looking , her gaze swept the bits of the girl’s body visible beyond the confines of the hip bath. The embarrassed heat that had pricked at her before exploded to full-bore mortification. “You look quite clean.”
    In fact, Georgette was quite sure she had never seen such a clean creature.
    Elsie stood up, sending water splashing over the sides of the tub and sluicing down delicate limbs. “I suppose you’ll be wanting your own bath, then.” The fierce flare of the girl’s hips drew Georgette’s eye, causing her cheeks to burn poker-hot. One bare foot prodded the rug while Elsie’s hand fished for the towel folded on a nearby chair. “The water’s still warm if you want to have a go.”
    The disarming thought of sliding into used bathwater—the same water that had just touched Elsie’s bare skin—could not compete with the full, shocking sight of the naked woman stepping out of the copper hip bath. Georgette slapped a hand over her eyes, struck by the oddest sense of shame. Not for the girl’s nudity, which Elsie wore as proudly as if she was clad in a smart new gown. No, Georgette was ashamed of herself, and the disappointment she sometimes felt in her own body. Wasn’t she every bit as young—and beautiful—as the young woman dripping before her?
    And yet, Georgette could not recall ever being so comfortable in her skin, or so at ease with someone else watching her.
    She wondered if she had stood similarly naked in front of her Scotsman last night, wondered if the man’s dancing green eyes had watched appreciatively as she slowly peeled off her clothing. Confusion heated her thoughts. Surely she had not done something so brazen. So uncharacteristic.
    So wrong.
    Elsie’s voice floated between the tight clench of Georgette’s fingers. “Or if not a bath, will you be wanting something else? Breakfast, perhaps?”
    Georgette cracked her fingers open a fraction and risked a peek. The girl was wrapped in a towel now. She dropped her hand cautiously, ready to clap it back in place at the first threat of additional nudity. “I am not up for breakfast just yet.”
    “A good thing, that is,” Elsie agreed. “Because I already ate the wee bit of food I found in the larder. And I would really recommend the bath first, miss.” Her nose twisted in concern. “You’re a ripe one this morning. Do you want me to help you undress?”
    Georgette shrank against