𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐖𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐁𝐞 | 𝐉𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐞 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐫 ✅

3 - Corset Strings & Taught Tension

"Morag, canna ye do them any tighter?" I was staring into the flames of the fire in my bedroom, wishing that Brian Fraser had assigned me any other lady's maid other than Morag MacKinnon, who couldn't have tied corset strings properly had her life depended on it. She tried to do them more tightly but was unable to. I sighed and turned, shooing her out of my room. "Leave!" I exclaimed, "I'll do it - and close the door on yer way out."

Morag didn't like me very much, so didn't wait for me to ask her twice. She hurried out of the room and I sighed again, tying my own corset strings as tightly as I could with a lot of difficulty. When I was finished dressing, there was a knock at the door.

"Come in." The flowers atop my fireplace were wilting quite badly, and I made a mental note to go out tomorrow and pick some fresh ones.

"Da asked where ye are." Jenny said, "ye're quite late, ye ken."

I nodded, "I ken it well... it was Morag's fault, she couldn't tie my strings tight enough -"

"Ye were dressed with Jamie when I called ye both, were ye not?" She smirked.

"I was!" I promised, blushing slightly, "but I had this lovely dress made for Jamie's return, and not the chance to wear it."

Jenny giggled, coming further into the room, "he kens ye had it made for Jamie, ye ken."

"Brian?" She nodded and I shook my head, "he doesna."

"He does." Jenny paused, "I think he quite likes the idea of having ye as a daughter, that's why he let ye have it."

"Mistress?" Morag was at my bedroom door once more.

"What is it now, Morag?" I sighed, wishing for the day that I would be free of the useless girl to come sooner.

"Begging yer pardon," she bobbed a curtsy at Jenny and I and then continued speaking, not meeting my gaze as she well knew that she shouldn't - I disliked her so much that I needed very little reason to scream at her, "Himself is asking that ye join the table immediately, whether ye're in yer shift or not, he says."

"Thank ye, Morag," Jenny said in a more kind tone than I would have used, "ye may go. Please tell Himself that we will be down immediately." Morag scurried off and I looked at the woman who was practically my sister.

"I wish I could have a new maid." I sighed, biting my lip, "it'd make my life a lot easier -"

"Come on," Jenny took my hand and pulled me out of the door, "I expect it's more Jamie who's hungry for his supper than it is father."

When we came into the dining room, Jamie's eyes landed on me immediately and his jaw slackened, dropping for several seconds before he was reminded of himself and recovered his previous position, though his eyes followed me across the room, resting all the while on my breasts, the tops of which were exposed in my new dress. The corset was so tight that I knew it gave me a very pronounced figure, one so defined that not many women were gifted with it.

But I was.

I had a gorgeous body, even if I did say so myself.

And I wasn't the only one who knew it.

"That dress looks bonnie on ye, Eira." Brian told me as I sat beside him at the table, opposite Jamie.

"Aye," Jamie agreed, digging into his meal immediately, "so it does."

I blushed a little. Jamie noticed and grinned. Jenny noticed and a devilish idea formed in her mind.

"I reckon if she wore it out, Ye-Know-Who would be on her in a minute."

"Ye-Know-Who?" Jamie echoed in confusion, "who is that?"

"Nobody, Jamie." Brian started eating.

"Jenny," I said to her, playing along with her game as I wanted Jamie's attention just as badly as she wanted to get it for me, perhaps more so. "Jenny, I've told ye before that Willie Faulkner is of no interest to me -"

"Aye, but ye are of interest to him." She paused, sipping at the wine in her goblet.

Jamie spoke before she could continue, "Faulkner?" He echoed, trying to think of who we might be speaking of, "the tanner's lad?" Jamie looked to his father, "surely ye're not considering giving her to him?"

Jenny and I knew that we had succeeded in our task of making her brother jealous, so we looked at our plates and stayed quiet.

"Giving her?" Brian echoed in surprise, chuckling quietly. "James, do ye really think that it's my place to give Miss MacCraig to anybody? That's her father's role as ye know it -"

"But she could do so much better than a tanner's apprentice." Jamie grumbled.

"Better?" Jenny echoed, chuckling, once more playing along with her game. "She'll not do much better, Jamie, save a laird... or son of one, perhaps -"

Jamie stood up abruptly, pushing his chair back. Brian frowned because he hadn't liked the sound of the heavy wood scraping against the floor, but he didn't stop his son as Jamie stormed out of the room and to his own.

Brian sighed, "I find that I've rather lost my appetite. Excuse me." He bobbed a head at Jenny and then myself in turn before leaving the room, a trifle slower than Jamie.

"He kens!" I cried out, feeling my tears roll down my cheeks, "he kens how I feel and he doesna feel the same!"

The thought of my love for Jamie being unrequited made my heart ache and threaten to break into two once more.

"Of course he kens," Jenny told me, "and he feels the same... he just doesn't ken it -"

"If he doesna ken it, then how can he feel the same?"

She sighed and stood up, coming to sit in the chair beside my own. She had previously been seated beside her brother. "Men very rarely ken what they want. That's what us women are for." She hushed me the way that my own mother would have; by peppering my head with soft kisses and running her fingers through my long and silken ebony hair until it was all I could concentrate on and I was yawning wide like the mouth of a cavern. "Let's get ye off to bed now. Come along." She helped me to stand up and then she led me out of the dining room and up the stairs.