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Hell, he might do so if only to see their responses.
As he exited his chamber, muffled footsteps echoed in the corridor behind him. He turned in the direction of the steady pace, his heart leaping in unanticipated joy.
Kendra, wearing a fetching, rich blue gown the color of the sky just before twilight, glided down the passageway, her movements a graceful ballet, tempting and captivating, each swish of her silken skirts a sensual thrum of intrigue enveloped in sheer femininity.
God, but she was devastatingly lovely. Impossibly, amazingly breathtaking. A vision he feasted his eyes upon. He’d like to strip that gown from her fragrant flesh and…
An incandescent smile wreathed her radiant face.
He blinked, almost peering over his shoulder to see the recipient of her smile. It took a handful of breaths to realize the endearing, upward arc was for him. For him. What an unforeseen and wholly charming gift.
Edged by full, sable lashes, her wide, gray eyes sparkled. She lightly touched Broden’s forearm with her ungloved fingertips. “I’m glad to see ye out of bed, but are ye positive ye are fit enough?” Her focus dropped to his wound and the bandage hidden by his shirt.
Grinning at her concern, and not just a little thrilled by it, he flexed his spine, testing the injury. It pulled uncomfortably and panged with the movement. “Aye, I’ve had enough of convalescin’, thank ye. I do plan to be careful if that alleviates yer worry a mite.”
“Hmm.” Eyeing his casual attire, she made a noncommittal sound. Her avid attention gravitated down the length of him before she hauled it back to his face. A pinkish flush tinged her cheeks.
Was that womanly appreciation in her searching gaze, the color of quicksilver today?
He quite liked the notion. Aye, more than liked it.
“Thank ye once more, Kendra, for sacrificin’ yer time and keepin’ me company.” The truce they’d forced these past two weeks left him on uncertain ground. He unequivocally did not want to return to the verbal sparring and insults, but neither was he certain how to proceed.
He wouldn’t ascribe their newly forged relationship as friendship, but he lacked a proper description to define what they’d become.
A delicate blush tinted the graceful slope of her cheeks again. “Ye needna thank me. ’Twas nothin’.”
It wasn’t nothing. For a wild creature such as Kendra, playing attendance in a sickroom, twice daily for a fortnight, had been high sacrifice indeed.
After his morning ablutions and he’d broken his fast, she’d read a portion of the news sheet to him. A half dozen times, she’d dined with him, too.
In the afternoons, he took a nap, mandated by his fretful mother. Broden didn’t argue, for he knew she also took the opportunity to have a lie-down. If he had to pretend to sleep for an hour or two so that she might rest, he’d not grumble. Afterward, before she retired, Kendra read a book to him, or they played chess or cards.
She was damned skilled at the latter two.
Naturally, his mother adopted the role of a chaperone, and more than once, he’d caught her evaluating gaze upon him or Kendra while she embroidered or knitted. Did she sense the shift in their relationship? Perceive the burgeoning attraction?
He strove to conceal his interest, but mothers had a way of knowing their children like no other ever could.
More than once, when she’d been alone with him, he’d vow she’d been about to broach the awkward subject. But for some obscure reason known only to her, she changed her mind.
At the first opportunity, Broden must dispel any notions of a match between him and Kendra. He’d seen Mother’s eyebrow—her very telling eyebrow—raised several times.
God only knew what she’d contrived in that active and all too creative mind of hers.
Not that he would be opposed to a union with Kendra.
In fact, he couldn’t think of anything grander. Two weeks of idleness—mind-numbing idleness and too much time to think idleness—had given him ample time to reflect upon his life. To reflect upon what he wanted for his future, especially now that fate had thrust him into a position of a man of power and means.
A Sassenach earl.
By Odin’s teeth, he might’ve inherited an earldom. But Scotland was now, and would always remain, his home and where he’d live out his life. He wouldn’t change who he was as a person simply because he was encumbered with an earldom, wards, and the role of a most unwilling aristocrat, now.
He never desired the ridiculous trappings of a peer or the restrictions High Society enforced. A simple Scotsman he’d always be.
But several notions—implausible dreams, actually—had tumbled around his mind for years. Notions that had genuine viability now, including establishing a school nearby. Or a home for unfortunate lads and lasses who found themselves on the streets. Mayhap both.
Every child should know how to read and write, no matter their station. But they should also have a roof over their heads, food in their stomachs, and to not live in fear every day.
