Free The Smithfield Bargain by Jo Ann Ferguson

with hair that was a more fiery red than his looked past him, and she choked again, “Jamie? What are you doing back so soon? I thought you were going to be gone for a fortnight.”
    â€œEllen, step aside and let us in before Lady Romayne and her party think we are the rudest of hosts.”
    The freckled girl nodded as she stood in a corner of the cramped foyer to watch strangers invade her home. As she wiped her hands on a soiled, muslin apron, her eyes were large in her face. Romayne could think of many words to reassure Ellen, but they refused to flow from her exhausted brain to her lips.
    â€œGet some water on to heat,” James ordered. “We are weary with the cold.”
    â€œAye,” Ellen whispered, backing away, as if she could not bear to take her eyes away from the strangers.
    â€œIn there,” he continued, pointing to a door opening off the entry.
    As Thatcher and Cameron excused themselves to tend to the horses, Romayne put her arm around James to help him into the other room. Grange’s furious eyes pierced her back, but Romayne knew she owed James the duty of helping him after he had saved her life. When he settled his uninjured arm on her shoulder, his fingers slipped beneath the blankets to stroke her shoulder. She looked up at him, finding his face as close as it had been when she had slept in his arms.
    A slow smile spread across his lips and climbed to glitter in his eyes. The voices around them evaporated in the sudden warmth that billowed over her. She did not know if the others had left or if she was deafened by the sound of her heart throbbing inside her. It did not matter; all that mattered was losing herself in the emerald depths of his eyes.
    â€œGirl, help Lady Romayne!”
    Grange’s sharp command brought Romayne back to her senses. With a shudder, she pulled her gaze from James’s. The sound of his low laugh reverberated through her, and she stiffened. He had every right to laugh when she was being a complete block.
    With Ellen’s help, Romayne steered James into the room beyond the door. The chamber was small and cramped. James’s head nearly brushed the low rafters. A sitting room, she decided, for it contained a settee and several chairs around the wide hearth. Dusk clung to the corners. Rushes covered the stone floor, and they crunched with a shrill sound which hurt her aching head.
    The furniture was simply made and the window covered only by the thinnest material, but the house was better than she had dared to hope. Narrow stairs climbed one wall. Several more rooms must open off this main chamber, for doors flanked the hearth and another was opposite the window.
    â€œGardyloo,” James muttered as she helped him to the settee.
    â€œWould you speak English?”
    â€œYou’re in Scotland now, my dear lady. You should learn that gardyloo means ‘take care.’ Mayhap if you had learned to take care, you wouldn’t be in this predicament now.”
    He smiled, and she turned away. Their situation was abominable enough without his atrocious sense of humor. Shrugging off the blankets, she folded them over a chair as Grange lowered herself to a chair next to the hearth.
    A door opened, and a tall, gaunt woman entered the room. Her auburn hair did not match the wrinkles weaving life’s pattern in her face. Brown eyes widened, then narrowed as she stared at the snow melting on the floor.
    â€œJamie!” she gasped. “What has happened to you?”
    â€œA bit of an accident,” he replied with a nonchalance that his pain-tightened lips belied.
    â€œEllen, send Fergus for the doctor.” When Ellen ran out of the room, the tall woman continued serenely, “I see you have brought us guests. This is indeed a surprise.”
    â€œMy aunt Dora Dunbar,” James said. “Ellen is her daughter. Dora, this is Lady Romayne Smithfield and her abigail Grange. Her man Thatcher is out at the stables with