said, and fell back to the pillows. Sinjun was looking at the line the covers made below his waist. She swallowed. He was so beautiful, all hard and long, black hair covering his chest, ah, but it narrowed to a soft black trail and disappeared beneath the covers. He was too thin, she could see his ribs, but that would change.
“You must stay warm,” she said, and pulled the covers up to his shoulders, even though she wanted to pull them to his feet and look at him for six hours at least.
“Joan, you’re not jesting? MacDuff is here?”
She blinked. “MacDuff? He didn’t give me his name, just said he was your favorite cousin. MacDuff, as in Shakespeare’s MacDuff?”
“Yes. As boys, we all called him MacCud—”
“As in a Scottish cow?”
He grinned. “That’s it. His real name is Francis Little, absurd for someone of his height, breadth, and width, so we chose MacDuff for him when we were boys. As I recall, he threatened to smash us in the dirt if we didn’t stop calling him MacCud and change it to MacDuff.”
“It fits him better than Francis Little, which isn’t at all right for a man with a chest the width of a tree trunk. MacDuff! That’s very clever, Colin. I imagine you devised that name. You know, he’s got the reddest hair and no freckles. His eyes are as blue as a summer sky—”
“His eyes are just the same shade as yours. Stop your rhapsodizing about my bloody giant of a cousin. Bring him up.”
“No,” Sinjun said. “Not until you’ve eaten your breakfast. Ah, here’s Finkle right now. He’ll assist you with other matters as well. I will be back in a few minutes and help you eat.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Certainly not, but you will enjoy my company, won’t you?”
He just looked at her. She smiled at him, kissed his closed mouth lightly, and nearly danced from the room.
She turned at the doorway. “Should you like to marry me tomorrow?”
He gave her a look that held irritation rather than shock, and said, “You would have a memorable wedding night. I would be lying dead to the world at your side and that would be it.”
“I shouldn’t mind. We have the rest of our lives together.”
“I refuse to wed you until I can bed you properly.” It was a stupid thing for him to say, he realized. He needed to wed her in the next hour, if it were possible. Time was growing short. He desperately needed her money.
Sinjun sat back, watching the two cousins talk. They were speaking quietly, so she couldn’t understand them, nor did she really want to eavesdrop, something at which she was really quite accomplished. With three older brothers, she’d learned at a very young age that most information kept from her, wicked or otherwise, was best discovered through a keyhole. She looked out the window down into the enclosed garden. It was a cool day, but the sky was clear and blue and the flowers and plants in the garden were in full bloom. She heard Colin laugh and looked up, smiling. MacDuff—surely that nickname was stranger than her own nickname, Sinjun—seemed a pleasant man, and more important, very fond of Colin. Even sitting by the bed he looked huge, not fat, no, not at all, just huge like a giant. His laugh was huge, too, shaking his entire body. She liked him. She had no qualms about MacDuff because she’d told him that if he tired Colin, she would personally boot him out.
He’d looked down at her from his vast elevation and grinned. “You’re no coward, I see, just a bit stupid to take this mongrel into your home. Nay, I’ll close my trap when the time comes so as not to tire out the poor lad.”
In perfect accord, she’d taken him in to see Colin.
Even now he was rising and saying to Colin, “It’s time you rested, old man. No, no arguments. I have promised Sinjun and I have a mighty fear of her.”
“Her name is Joan. She isn’t a man.”
MacDuff raised a violent red eyebrow. “A bit irritable, are we? A bit of a green color about the gills? I will see you in the morning, Ash. Do what Sinjun tells you to do. She’s invited me to the wedding, you know.”
And MacDuff the tree trunk was gone.
“He has no Scottish accent, just as you don’t.”
“MacDuff, despite his nickname, prefers the English side of his family. My father and his mother were brother and sister. His mother married an Englishman from York, a very wealthy ironmonger. Both of us were educated in England, but he went more deeply into it than I did. I used to think he would cut all ties with Scotland if he weren’t tied to it so closely, at least that’s what he always said. But now I believe he’s changed his mind, because during the past few years he’s lived most of the time in Edinburgh.”
“You’re tired, Colin. I want to hear all about this, but later, my dear.”
“You’re a nag.”
He sounded sour, which pleased her. He was mending.
“No, not a nag. One rides a nag,” she said, patting the covers at his shoulders.