I rolled my eyes, thinking back on the naked woman in the window. I hardly thought it proper for her to be baring her nipples for all of the village, but she sure hadn’t seemed to have had any problem with it.
Adwen huffed at me with a sound of annoyance, closing the door and trapping me inside with him. “If ye doona wish for Cooper to stay with Orick, I’ll have the lad’s things brought to yer bedchamber, lass. But I can assure ye that Orick will keep him safe. He told the lad he would teach him to shoot a bow, but mayhap ye doona think it a good idea.”
“Of course I don’t care if Cooper stays with Orick. But it should have been me that granted him the permission to do so.”
There was a change in his eyes, as if it was only then that the thought occurred to him. “Ye are right, Jane. Forgive me.”
“Fine. You’re forgiven. Now, leave so that I can change into some real clothes and get ready for supper.”
He nodded and turned away but took only a few steps before he turned around again, a resolve in his eyes that made me immediately nervous.
“Is it true what Cooper said? Did ye really live here? In yer own time?”
The question was much more innocent than I expected, and I felt myself relax a little as the warm memories of my time here came back to me once more.
“Yes, I did.” I smiled, thinking of the shambles that Kathleen and I had spent several happy months in. “My friend and I—Kathleen, she’s married to Jeffrey—you might have met her at McMillan Castle. Anyhow, we bought this place together with intentions to restore it, but then we ended up back here and all of that sort of came to a stop.”
“Restore it?”
“Yes, sometime throughout the next few hundred years, this place falls straight to crap. When we bought it, it was in ruins.”
There was real concern in his eyes—anyone who’d witnessed the beauty of the place couldn’t help but be saddened by the knowledge that it wouldn’t remain. “Did ye save it?”
“A little of it, but we were sent back here before we finished, and neither of us have returned since. I’m afraid to see what it would be like now.”
He shrugged. I could tell he wasn’t one to worry about things he couldn’t change. “Mayhap someone else has come along to continue yer work.”
“I hope so.” I caught his eyes sweep over my robe again. “All right Adwen, now it’s time to go.”
“I’m no leaving yet, lass. The hair ye pulled from me coat—it angered ye.”
I ground my teeth together to keep from punching him in the nose. He looked ridiculously pleased with himself.
“Just how did you get that impression? Your private activities are none of my concern.”
He crossed his arms, oozing an air of arrogance that had me twitching in irritation. “Lass, ye believe I bedded the lass whose hair ye found, and ye doona care for it.”
“You are something else, you know it? I didn’t want you. Over and over I made that clear to you. Therefore,” I could feel myself turning into Cooper, over-blabbing as my frustration grew, even though I knew I had no real reason to be frustrated with Adwen. He’d been kind to me, kind to Isobel, and if he slept with every girl in Scotland—which I suspected he was getting pretty close to doing—it was none of my business. In truth, I was frustrated with myself for wanting to drop the robe wrapped around me and pounce on him like a hyena in heat. “I don’t care who you choose to ‘tup.’”
“Aye, ye do, Jane. Ye wish it was ye that I bedded instead.” He took a step toward me, closing the distance between us. I raised my arm to keep him away.
“Are you crazy? Like hell I’d want to sleep with you right after you finished banging somebody else not three hours ago.”
He leaned forward so that my palm rested against his chest as he reached up with his right hand to grip at my wrist. “What if I told ye I dinna bed her, lass?”
“Adwen,” I glared up at him with disbelieving eyes. Any earlier flutters were quickly replaced with fury at being lied to. “I know you slept with her. I saw you leaving the girl’s house. I saw her breasts through the window.”
He pulled away defensively. “The lass was naked. I willna tell ye differently, but I dinna bed her. I couldna bring myself to do it. ’Tis never happened to me before.”
I laughed, walking to the door to open it for him. “Do you wish to be applauded for that? For once realizing that maybe it’s not the best idea to sleep with a total stranger? Well good on you, Adwen. Now, please leave. I’m exhausted.”
He didn’t move. “Would ye like to know why I couldna bed her?”
“A little case of erectile dysfunction, I imagine. Don’t worry, it happens to the best of men.”
His brows pulled together in confusion. He had no idea what I was talking about—that seemed to happen often with people in the seventeenth century.
“I doona know what ye just said, but no. ’Tis yer fault I couldna bed her.”