THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

wishing for things that apparently weren’t meant to be. She should be content with knowing Duncan would survive. Glancing up and finding her hubby looking inordinately pleased, she murmured, “Thank you.”
    “Ye are most welcome. ‘Tis a helpful tome, I’m told.”
    “I’m sure it is.” She placed it on the foot of his bed. “I’ll begin reading today.” If nothing else, perhaps she could garner some insight into the elaborate finger movements Rachel, Isaac and Flora employed as they ate. She still couldn’t believe the clan didn’t used forks. “We need to change your dressing now.”
    Duncan’s good humor immediately evaporated, leaving him looking like a petulant four-year-old who’d just been told he was getting a haircut. “Ack! Can it not wait?”
    “Nay, my lord. If you have any intention of getting out of bed any time soon, we need to change the dressing twice a day, so roll over.”
    He huffed but did as she asked. “Finish yer tale.”
    She sprinkled salt into the warm water at his bedside. “Which tale?”
    “The tale of Lady Kathy.”
    “Ah.” She stripped off the linen holding his dressing in place. “Kathy found work serving food.”
    “Where?”
    “In New York at a hotel—-a very big house where travelers spend the night. She worked very hard and one day she received a promotion—-a higher rank. She now had full charge of all the people serving food. Three years passed and she had an opportunity to rise again.” Beth smiled, recalling how excited she’d been the day the general manager of the St. Regis had called and offered her the job. “Now she worked at the most elegant hotel in the city, arranging parties.”
    “I ken not par tees .”
    Beth slowly poured her warm saline solution over the dried packing in his shoulder. He hissed as it soaked in.
    “Sorry.” She winced for him as she poured more, to be sure the dressings edges would loosen. “Parties are banquets where people gather to celebrate.”
    “Ah.”
    “All was going well until a man arrived at her door saying she’d inherited a castle on an isle.”
    He asked through gritted teeth, “Where is this castle?”
    “Here in Scotland, near Oban.” She gingerly picked up one corner of the dressing. “This is going to hurt.” She held her breath as she peeled away the old packing. Her prayers had been answered. She found only bright red healthy tissue beneath. There was no evidence of infection. The gash was now only a half-inch deep. Duncan would have a scar eight inches in length and nearly three inches in width, but who cared? He lived. She again thanked God the man had the constitution of an ox.
    When she blotted the wound, Duncan shuddered and his heavy muscles contracted under her hands. He hissed, “The castle, lass.”
    She patted his shoulder. “Yes, the castle. It’s smaller than many, but lovely to Kathy. This is the first real home she’s ever had.” Ready to place a fresh saline dressing into the wound, she whispered, “Kathy’s castle is haunted.”
    “Ack!” He took a deep breath as the packing hit his wound. “ A ghost ?”
    She smiled, quite pleased her announcement had the desired effect of distracting him. “Aye, a big, handsome, decidedly masculine ghost haunts her castle. He follows her constantly, upstairs and down.” Beth wrapped fresh linen around his shoulder then lowered her voice to a conspirator’s whisper. “She even caught him spying on her as she bathed.”
    “Nay! And where is her cur of a husband whilst all this chasing and spying goes on?”
    Beth suppressed the urge to laugh. Duncan, her resident voyeur, was incensed by the prospect of a man spying on a woman at this stage in his life. “Kathy has no husband. Where she comes from men choose their ladies by fairness of face and by the size of their breasts. The bigger the breasts, the better. Unfortunately, Kathy is thin and plain.”
    “‘Tis madness. Fair fades, breasts droop, but not so stones . The woman is worth her weight in or to a landless Knight of Girt and Sword.”
    “Is or gold?” She tried rolling her r’s as he had. “The yellow metal?”
    “Aye, ‘tis.” He frowned. “Lady Kathy’s clan hath verra strange ways, Beth. Verra strange.”
    She patted his good arm. “We’re done.”
    “Help me sit, lass.”
    “It’s too soon.”
    “Nay, ‘tis past time.” He held out his good arm. Seeing this wasn’t a battle she could win, she reluctantly grasped his good arm. Her hands