THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

Served him right for delaying the inevitable.
    “Duncan, please roll onto your good side.”
    He opened his eyes. Her color hadn’t faded and she had chewed her lower lip berry red. The color was attractive beneath her slate gray eyes. He grinned. “Ye have good hands, wife.”
    He hadn’t thought it possible, but she turned an even brighter shade of red.
    “Thank you.” She ran a nervous hand to her neck and rubbed. “Would you mind?” She waved in a circle.
    Rolling onto his right shoulder took his breath away. Had Eleanor not been already been dead, he’d have found a way to kill her. God’s Teeth!
    “ Shh , just relax.”
    He hadn’t realized he’d groaned. With the sheeting tucked under his back from shoulders to hip, he again felt her soft hands. She caressed his back with cool water. After a few ragged breaths he finally relaxed under her touch. As her hands crept lower—massaging the taut muscles of his lower back in slow steady circles—his manhood stained at attention. When she ran her hands around the cheeks of his buttocks, he groaned again.
    She leaned over. “Did I hurt you?”
    “Nay.” She might yet be the death of him, but certainly not from pain. “Have ye a tale, lass?” Trying to fathom her odd manner of speech might prove distracting enough to ease the pressure in his groin.
    “A tail?”
    “Aye, a ballad.”
    “Ah. That kind of tale.” Her hands slid slowly down his legs. To his consternation, it took several agonizing minutes before she took a deep breath and started.
    “Once upon a time a wee lass named Kathy found herself all alone. She didn’t understand—-ken—-why her parents had died or why a lady took her from home and told her she needed to find a new mother and father. Kathy didn’t want new parents, she wanted her parents, but she was brave. She didn’t cry when the lady placed her in an orphanage—-a house for lost children. She was told new parents would come and so she waited.
    “Many times over the next few years she was paraded before people, but never chosen. Years passed and many adults came and took other children home, but no one ever came for Kathy.”
    Hearing her voice crack, Duncan craned his neck to look at his ladywife’s face. She blinked and motioned for him to turn around.
    “Kathy eventually became sullen in her resignation.” This time when his wife hesitated, her hands also stilled. True, her tale was sad, but why did she take the child’s tale so personally?
    “One day the orphanage closed and Kathy was placed in foster care. She didn’t mind, believing she’d now have a mother and father of her own once again.
    “But Kathy soon realized she had only been placed in her new home to help take care of babies. Try as she might, her new parents never offered affection, never hugged or kissed her. She went to school and then came home to care for the babies, day after day. Eventually, her foster parents tired. No new babies came and they sent Kathy to another family.” 
    Duncan had been fostered to the Campbell as a lad of ten to earn his spurs. He, too, had been lonely on occasion. What affection he did receive came only in the way of backslapping and goodhearted teasing. He’d not been hugged or kissed either. So why was his wife sounding so forlorn for Kathy? As he pondered, her hands began massaging his calves with cool water.
    “In her new home,” his ladywife continued, “Mrs. Proctor was kind, but Mr. Proctor tried to corner Kathy whenever he found opportunity. At twelve years, her figure—-body—had started to curve, to look womanly. One day, she came home to find herself alone with Mr. Proctor. He tried to bed her. Terrified, she fought. She got sick on him, bloodied his nose with a lamp, and then escaped. That’s the first time I...Kathy ran away.”
    Ah! He now understood the cause of his ladywife’s angst. He hoped the man had been caught and hung; him and any dog, horse or falcon found with him, which ‘tis the law of the land.
    Beth sighed as she began removing the dressing around his shoulder. “Having no money—-marks—-Kathy didn’t get far. She was caught and given to a lady named Mrs. Wade, a very odd woman.”
    His ladywife stopped her tale. He looked over his shoulder to see her holding a cup of the water over his wound.
    “Duncan, this might sting.”
    He might have shamed himself by yelling had she not warned him in advance. To his consternation she had the nerve to pour more into his wound.