She pushed the drapes aside and shook her head. “A rather dreary day by the look of it.”
Mared. She was in his room, opening his drapes and wearing the black gown and white apron of a housekeeper. Still shaking off the fog of a deep sleep, he tried to make sense of it. Was he dreaming? How could he be? Yet what else might explain it? It was so startlingly real that as she moved to the next set of drapes, he caught the scent of lilacs again.
“Snow again, I’d wager.” She clucked her tongue. “I donna suppose ye can build a distillery in weather such as this, aye?”
It was no dream—she was real. She’d walked out of his dreams and she was here, before him, in the flesh. “What are ye doing here?” he asked roughly, anger and wounded pride filling him instantly.
She turned around and flashed that brilliant, green-eyed smile that had, for so many years, accompanied him to sleep. “I’ve brought ye a treat, milord,” she said sweetly. “Sweetmeats. I know how much ye like them.”
He didn’t want her bloody sweetmeats, he didn’t want anything but for her to be gone from him. He’d spent the last month purging her from his heart and mind, and he’d not allow her back in. Not ever, and notwithstanding what Sarah had written him about the brave Miss Lockhart. He didn’t care if she claimed to love him—he didn’t love her anymore.
When he didn’t respond, Mared walked to the small dining table, unwrapped several delicacies and put them on a plate.
“How did ye get in here?” he demanded.
“Mrs. Mackerell,” she said and turned toward him, the plate in hand. “She gave me the plate as well.”
“I donna want yer damn treats.” He threw aside the bedcovers and stood, hardly caring that he was completely naked. He grabbed up his dressing gown and put it on. “I donna know what ye want or what game ye play, Mared, but I will kindly ask ye to leave.”
“I’ll leave them here,” she said and put them on the bedside table. She turned away, and Payton thought she would leave…but she walked to the hearth, put aside the fire screen, and got down on her knees to stoke the fire.
“God blind me!” he exploded. “Go, Mared! I donna want ye here, I donna want to lay eyes on ye!” he said angrily and walked into the privy, slamming the door behind him.
But when he returned a moment later, she was still there, calmly cleaning the riding boots he’d left to dry at the hearth. “Dammit, donna touch them!” he roared and grabbed her by the arm, jerking her up to her feet and shoving her away from his boots. “What the hell are ye doing?”
Looking chagrined, she fidgeted with the ill-fitting housekeeper’s gown, and Payton realized how wrong he’d been to ever put her in it. “What I am doing,” she said softly, “is apologizing.”
“By shining my boots?”
“I asked that a hot bath be brought up. That, too.”
That stopped him; he gaped at her.
She nodded.
Payton groaned heavenward. “What are ye doing to me, lass? Do ye mean to torture me unto death? Ye have rejected and dismissed every overture I’ve ever made, ye’ve told me quite plainly that ye were going on with yer life, away from the lochs, away from me. It is done, Mared. And now ye appear out of nowhere to draw me a bath?”
She nodded again. “I donna know what else to do,” she admitted quietly. “I donna know how to make ye understand other than to open yer drapes and turn down yer bed…and to give ye sweetmeats and stoke yer fire and draw yer bath, and anything else I might do to humble myself before ye and beg forgiveness for the horrible, wretched mistake I’ve made.”
She said it so sincerely that Payton felt a small fissure develop in his impenetrable resolve. Love, he was discovering, was a stubborn bedfellow, unwilling to leave him just because he’d demanded it. The hell if he didn’t still love her, and while part of him wanted to rejoice in her return, another part of him was still hurting. That part didn’t trust her and wanted to turn her out before she could hurt him anymore.
There was a knock on the door that Mared quickly answered. Charlie entered, wishing Payton a cheery good day and carrying two pails of hot water. He was followed by Alan and the new footman, Angus, who eyed Mared curiously. She directed them to the adjoining bath. They poured their buckets, but Mared was not satisfied. She sent them for more.
Payton fell into a chair. What would he do with her? He couldn’t let her back into his heart so easily, not after she had wounded him so. Aye, but she had come crawling back to him, in a housekeeper’s gown, no less. A very difficult thing for a proud Lockhart to do.
He sighed and shook his head. “It willna work,” he said quietly.
Mared bit the inside of her mouth, but she said nothing.
“Ye might serve me all day long and it won’t change my feelings for ye,” he said, meaning it sincerely.
“Will ye no’ allow me to explain, then?” she asked.
He shrugged.