A CHRISTMAS WISH

Chapter 25 Revelations: Part 1

She also liked the way the women in the highlands had their own plaids, the cheques were bigger than the ones on the men’s plaids but the pattern was similar.

All you had to do to put it on was to fold it several times and drape it over the shoulders like a shawl, fastening it at the chest with pins and a thin leather belt at the waist. It was a little complicated, truth be told, especially the bit where one had to get all the pleats just right at the waist but Sarah felt confident she could master the technique. How hard could it be? Megan had done it in five minutes. Sarah was sure she could follow suit, albeit a lot slower. Oh well, she thought, it would give her something to do in the mornings.

Which led her to spare several thoughts to the things which weren’t so rosy, the room being the obvious front runner.

 Sarah was a fan of minimalism herself, she didn’t like clutter either, but Iain’s room was downright Spartan, he had definitely taken the bachelor pad thing way too far.

She hadn’t really noticed much when she had stumbled in here several hours ago, the effect of her altercation with Iain and the embarrassment afterwards had done quite a lot to dampen any curiosity she had had. At that point in time all she had wanted to do was to collapse onto the bed, and hide under the covers.

It was only now, after a good few hours of sleep and a long soak that Sarah was finally beginning to survey her surroundings critically.

Personally, she would change everything about the big room, starting with that heavy, brown animal fur which she had unwittingly used herself. It lay innocently enough, in a rumpled heap on the bed, but that didn’t lessen the fact that it belonged to god only knew what poor animal.

Sarah had deep reservations about sleeping with real fur draped over her every night. Granted it was soft and very warm, but she would insist Iain change it the moment she saw him. It wasn’t like wool hadn’t been invented, she was wearing a dress made of it for god’s sake, they could surely use blankets made of wool too.

The rest of the room was also a big no-no, for one it was almost completely empty, save for the low king size bed she had slept in, and even that wasn’t positioned correctly, one entire side was pushed up against the big stone wall, while the other faced the door.  Sarah had no idea why, but it meant standing up and walking over Iain if she ever wanted to leave the room in the middle of the night, and that arrangement didn’t suit her one bit.

But the thing she hated most was the damn windows; there were two of them in the room, one above the bed and the other further along the wall close to the open fireplace. They were the same ones Sarah had seen from outside, and they were just as tiny as she had feared. The worst part of it was that she couldn’t even reach them, that damn shyster of an architect had stuck them in the wall at least 8 feet up. The only way she could get to the window over the bed was by standing up on top of it, and even then all she managed was a peek over the windowsill.

How the hell was she supposed to get proper curtains up there? The ugly brown rags flapping in the wind had to go. They made the place look like a prison cell; all it lacked were the iron bars.

The only additional bit of “furniture” beside the bed was a bulky wooden chest lying underneath the other window. Sarah hadn’t looked inside yet but she had discovered a use for it. Megan had actually stood on the thing to put a few lit tallow candles on the window sill, bathing the dark room with dim light. At least something was functional Sarah told her self.

It seemed she would have to present Iain with a whole new list of complaints when he came to bed tonight. The only problem was that she was a little reluctant to do that, especially after what had transpired between them downstairs.