Lion Heart (Hearts of the Highlands Book 4)

by Paula Quinn

  “I have no trouble with that, Eli. I just worry over you. I cannot help it. My old habits are difficult to change.”

  “I wouldna have those habits change, Simon. I like havin’ my own guardian angel.” Elias winked at him and lifted his axe high over his head.

  Simon put down his bucket and threw up his hands. “What does it matter? The Black Death is coming. We will all likely perish.”

  “Mayhap,” Elias smashed his axe into the wood, splitting it down the center.

  Simon took up his bucket, along with another that was waiting for him in the grass. He started back, his legs a bit shaky.

  Elias left his axe and ran to help his friend. “Mayhap not.”

  They exchanged a smile and Simon confessed that he was glad to see Elias happy again. The ravages of war would take time to forget, and mayhap they would never forget all of it, but the good Lord and a beautiful woman would help.

  “I willna do as Richard wishes when it comes to his wife,” Elias told him. “I believe he would regret it and come to hate me. Not to mention, I’m not an uncontrolled beast.”

  Simon agreed. “I knew that would be your answer. I respect it. You are a good man, Eli.”

  “So is Richard Bennett,” Elias replied as they came to the kitchen door of the shop. “He wants Lily to be happy.”

  Simon could do nothing but agree as they entered the kitchen. Richard was a hardworking, patient soul, at the beck and call of the sick. The warm days were giving way to cooler mornings and many of the villagers visited the shop in the day or the red-roofed house at night to stock up on remedies for ailments of their bones and aching limbs. Richard saw to them all with the help of his companion. No one was turned away. If they could not pay Richard for his services, they didn’t.

  Agnes had offered a freshly-baked apple pie as payment for a small pouch of dried Mugwort leaves to ease her lady issues. Alfred, one of the merchants, had stopped by last night for a little St. John’s wort for a burn he received from splattering oil. He had no coin but paid Richard with a freshly-killed chicken. Everyone was a friend, a brother.

  It made Elias want to serve him, a truly good man. It made him hate himself because he couldn’t quit thinking about the man’s wife.

  “Good morning.”

  He heard her voice and slanted his gaze to her. She stood at the table, bending over it to set down a third bowl of porridge. His task wouldn’t be easy. His belly churned. “Good morn,” he croaked out then cleared his throat. He didn’t dare look at Simon.

  “Ah, good friends,” came Richard’s steady voice as he joined them from the other side of the house. “Thank you for the wood and water. You have both far exceeded payment to me of any kind.”

  He sat down and smiled at his wife as she set down his, the last bowl, before him on the table.

  “We want to do more,” Elias told him, taking a seat next to him.

  “No. He wants to do more,” Simon corrected, looking down appreciatively at their bowls of porridge dashed with cinnamon and topped in lemon rinds. “I want to do less. My body feels as if it might cease working altogether.” He looked up at Lily and his smile widened. “It smells heavenly.”

  “And it tastes even better,” Richard promised with confidence.

  “Eat the rinds,” Lily told them. “They are very beneficial for almost every ailment, and possibly for what is to come.”

  “Aye, today we begin adding lemon rinds to our remedies,” Richard told them after they prayed and ate. “I will begin tending to my lemon trees around the hill and bringing the lemons to the shop where Lily…and Brother Simon—” he gave Simon a wink, “—will begin the peeling and drying process.”

  “Leave the lemons to me, Richard,” Elias offered. “We need ye well, not so battered down with takin’ care of everythin’ that ye can no longer do what ye are here to do. Keep workin’ and mixin’ and readin’ and leave the heavy work to me.”

  Richard stopped eating, as did Lily. “I do not know how to thank you, Eli. This work means everything to me,” Richard confessed as if they didn’t already know.

  “I will see it done,” Elias vowed.

  He could feel Lily’s gaze on him and prepared to look at her, to smile at her, just as he would Agnes, or Estrid, or anyone. But when his gaze fell on the soft grace of her grateful smile, he felt his practiced smile fade, replaced by something warmer and more intimate.

  “Let us not forget,” said Simon, “that you let us sit at your table and partake of your wife’s delicious food everyday.”

  Elias agreed bringing a spoonful of porridge to his mouth. Richard was correct. It was heavenly. “Did ye add cream to this, lass?”

  She nodded and grinned happily. “It adds richness.”

  He nodded. With her along, they would surely find a cure for this monster.

  “’Tis warmin’ to my bones,” he supplied, liking her reactions to compliments on her cooking.

  “Besides tasting so good, the cinnamon has hundreds of uses in cooking and in medicine.”

  “Sadly, ‘tis extremely difficult to get,” Richard told them. “Tis costly because it comes from so far away. We use it sparingly.”

  Elias listened and took everything in. He also didn’t leave a drop of porridge in the bowl.

  “I will bring in the wood,” Elias said, standing up from his stool. “I willna take long and then I will begin workin’ in the orchard.”

  Richard smiled and agreed. Excusing himself, Elias left the table and went back to work bringing in the wood. He carried several of the split logs inside and set them beside the hearth in the sitting room, then carried more in for the kitchen fires. Richard had gone back to his work and Simon had left to use the small outhouse behind house.

  “You are very helpful to have around.” Lily’s sweet voice fell on his ears as he was getting ready to leave.

  He stopped, bending at the door in the kitchen and turned to her. He didn’t know why but he laughed a little. It felt good. How long had it been? Why did he feel so happy here when the only lass who had ever stopped his heart was forbidden? When a damned plague could be headed their way.

  He let himself feel the humor in it all.

  “I’m happy ye think so, my lady.”

  He fell in awe of her beauty when she dipped her chin and looked at him from beneath long, dark lashes. “I am not a lady, sir.”

  “And I have never been knighted.”

  She looked up to find him grinning like a damned fool. She matched it and they both ended up laughing. They weren’t sure what they found so humorous. Perhaps it was desperation to cling to hope and to life. He would hold on to it with one hand and her with the other.

  “Are you going to pick lemons now?” she asked, wiping her hands on her apron and then removing it.

  Elias watched her, nodding. She did nothing to make herself look beautiful. Her hair was not curled and pinned like the ladies he’d seen in some courts. Her cheeks were dusted with a healthy glow, her lips were a natural deep pink, and her eyes were painted with hues of kindness, compassion, and a fierce love for her husband and the people she lived with.

  “May I come along?”

  “Aye, but I thought ye were to help Simon peel.”

  “They have to be picked first, do not they not?”

  She came closer and his belly ached because he had to turn away and not take her face in his hands and kiss her.

  “Ye are welcome to come with me.” He held out his arm before him, offering her a path to take.

  “Tell me about your life, Elias MacPherson,” she asked him on the way to the orchard. “Tell me about your kin.”

  He smiled at her use of the Scots’ word. “My father and his two brothers built the MacPherson stronghold in Invergarry where we live. He and my uncles were separated when my father was two. They all grew up alone, without a family, so when they finally found one another, they wouldna be separated again. My cousins and I all grew up together. ‘Twas good even when we fought,” he
said, smiling at memories of getting into trouble with his cousins. “I miss them.” He wondered if he would ever see them again. “When I returned from the war, I became a shepherd of my father’s livestock.” They spoke a little bit more about his family and his fighting under the Scot’s king, who was now imprisoned.

  “I have three half-sisters,” Lily told him in a quiet voice. The whites of her eyes grew red with unshed tears, making her blue eyes more startling. The tip of her nose also grew red. “I have not seen them or my father in nine years.”

  “Have ye never tried to find them?” he asked, wishing he could help.

  She shook her head. “Not when I was with Bertram, and when I came here, I stopped needing anything else.”

  He vowed to himself then and there that he would find her half-sisters and her father and bring them to her.

  They came to the sunlit orchard and Elias smiled knowing how much all this meant to Richard…and to Lily.

  “There are only three trees,” he remarked, stepping under one of them. They were heavily-laden with big, yellow fruit.

  “After one of Richard’s remedies cured a merchant from Genoa of a terrible skin disease, “Lily told him, “Richard was given a sapling of a lemon tree as payment. He grew the sapling for a few weeks and then cut it into eight more saplings. Only three lived. He has tried to grow more,” she said and reached up to brush her fingertips over the leaves, “but alas, they die.”

  Elias watched her with sunlight streaming onto her through the foliage above. His heart ached to know her more, to tell her more about him. “I thought at first there wouldna be enough, but these trees hold a vast amount. I think if I pluck one from its branch, they will all fall.”

  “Aye!” she agreed and then ran to a much smaller shed than the one near the shop. She hurried inside and came back out with two wooden buckets inside a wheelbarrow. She handed him a bucket and held hers over her head, and then plucked a lemon loose. They were right. At least a dozen lemons dropped around them. A few hit their buckets.

  They laughed and hurried about picking up the lemons that fell. Soon though, Elias realized that picking lemons up off the ground was more backbreaking than reaching up for them.

  “Are there any children in the village?” he asked, seeing her place her hand to her side as she bent over and over.

  “Aye, there are children.” She smiled. “Little Eddie and Terrick the Terrible. Cecily and Liz—”

  He stood up straight. “Let us go fetch them.”

  “To do our work?” she asked, wide-eyed.

  He nodded. “And to play.”

  Her eyes opened wider and she straightened. “To play? To play what?”

  She sounded utterly shocked that one would consider making work play, so he would show her.

  “Come,” he beckoned and raced her to the center of the village. There they found Lily’s delight, little Eddie, who was but two summers old, being pulled around by Norman the baker’s daughters, Ava and Emma. Charlie was the oldest among them all at twelve. His sister Cecily and her friend Lizbeth, daughter of Alan the carpenter and his wife, Helen, volunteered immediately to help. In fact, they all did. Including Terrick the Terrible, a stout eight-year-old boy who, as young Annabelle told it, liked to cause trouble.

  “I do not like to cause trouble!” Terrick shouted in his defense.

  “Well, there will be no trouble today,” Elias called out, quieting them. “Today, Lily and I need yer help in gatherin’ lemons to make medicine.”

  “There are many of them,” Lily added as enthusiastically as the children listened, “but for your work you will get sliced apples and honey.”

  The children, eight in total, cheered.

  “But sadly,” Elias interjected, holding up a finger and tossing Lily a sad look, “there are only enough apples and honey fer six of ye. “ He turned to the small faces looking up at him, some stained with dirt, their smiles fading. “So, we shall have a race! The first six of ye who put the most lemons into the wheelbarrow will win. Who wants to play?”

  He said the magic word and the children cheered again and squealed with excitement then took off toward the orchard.

  Elias and Lily ran with them, laughing under the sun, forgetting everything but this. When they reached the lemon trees, Elias stopped them and found two more buckets in the shed. He picked four children to hold the buckets over their heads and shook the tree. Everyone screamed and laughed as lemons rained down on their friends. The sound of their merriment drew Richard and Simon out of the house to see what was going on.

  Simon covered his eyes and Richard laughed when the second batch of children were hit on their shielded heads with lemons.

  There were still too many lemons in the trees for the children to pick them from the ground without more falling on their tender heads, so Elias had everyone stand around the trees. He and the other adults pulled branches down so that each child and each adult had a branch in each hand to shake.

  The children shook vigorously and squealed with joy over the falling lemons. They laughed even harder when Terrick ran beneath the trees with his bare head, was hit with a lemon, tripped over one on the ground and fell flat on his face, only to be pelted with more lemons as everyone kept shaking the branches.

  “They do not even know they are working,” Lily laughed, tilting her lips toward his ear so he could hear her over the laugher.

  “I had plenty of children to play with when I was a lad. We made games oot of all our work,” he told her. “All right then lads and lassies, time to gather the lemons. Everyone get ready. Go!”

  They watched Charlie and Lizbeth bringing in the most lemons in the fastest amount of time. Cecily and Terrick were next, with Elias having to warn Terrick twice about pushing. Little Eddie even dropped a few lemons into the wheelbarrow and gave Elias an extra smile for letting him play. Elias praised him for his hard work and mussed the boys golden curls.

  “He likes you,” Richard pointed out with a smile.

  “I like him, as well,” Elias replied with a kind smile of his own and patted his older friend on the back.

  The children filled two wheelbarrows and were all invited into the apothecary’s shop where each and every child was given apples and honey.

  A bit later, when Elias headed for the shop with one of the wheelbarrows, all the children followed after him. He didn’t mind. In fact, he enjoyed their small, soft voices when they spoke, and their enthusiasm to have fun and make the most of the day. They taught him a song he was sure his uncle, Torin, would approve of and he listened to each of them when they sought his attention.

  They made him miss home and his nieces and nephews, and he had many. He stopped questioning if he would see them again and believed that he would. Being here was going to take courage, more than it would take to leave. Richard knew it and so did his wife. But they might not have a choice. They might have to leave. There was still time to take them to Invergarry, but would Lily and Richard leave their friends behind? Could he take them all, even these little ones, on such a journey? Were they all free of the illness? When would he know?

  He looked around at their happy faces and felt his heart lurch.

  He and Simon could leave today. The longer they waited the more dangerous it became of possibly bringing the disease home. Were these people worth possibly dying over?

  Was she?

  Chapter Seven

  Lily drew her fingers to her mouth to conceal her smile and control her laughter. She was in her kitchen with Bother Simon peeling lemons when her cat, Pip, entered and poor Brother Simon hit the floor.

  “Oh, my!” he lamented and then leaped up and over a chair to escape little Pip. “I do not like cats.”

  “Why? What has one done to you?” she asked, trying not to giggle at his antics. “Are you truly this frightened of my cat, or are you pretending?” She hoped he was pretending because, any moment now, she was going to burst into laughter.

  “I—” He stopped speaking and his l
arge eyes grew larger as Pip pounced closer to him as if the brother were prey.

  He scrambled out of the way, around the kitchen table and went pale when Pip sprang up to the table and continued toward him.

  Poor Brother Simon. He looked about to fall faint. Lily guessed this was what mice felt when Pip saw them.

  “What is this?” Elias asked, stepping into the shop and reaching for the cat on the table. “How do ye do…” He peeked between Pip’s chubby thighs. “…lass?”

  Pip purred and rubbed her gray-striped head under Elias’ chin.

  Lily had held her laughter back too long and hiccupped. The force of it lifted her off her heels and startled Pip out of Elias’ arm and Brother Simon out of the kitchen.

  Elias laughed softly, drawing Lily’s gaze to him. Her heart raced in her chest.

  “He fears cats,” he told her.

  “I gathered that,” she said, covering her smile with her hand.

  Had Elias stepped closer? He smelled like lemons.

  “Lily.” He grew serious “Where is Richard? There is a matter of importance I need to discuss with ye and him.”

  “He is on the other side of the house. What is it?” she asked, her smile fading with his and putting down her lemon.

  “There is talk aboot some people in London,” he told her. “That they died with symptoms of the Black Death.”

  “No!” she almost blurted out. “’Tis here then. Oh, Elias!”

  “I know ‘tis frightenin’, lass. Osbert has called a meetin’ of the officials. He wants Richard there but I would like to speak to Richard first.”

  “What about?”

  “Aboot leavin’ Sevenoaks. The four of us. Me, Simon, ye, and Richard. We will go to Invergarry.”

  “What? What are you saying?”

  “It is time to leave here, Lily.”

  “Leave everyone here?” she asked, her eyes wide.

  He knew it was going to be difficult to get her to go, but they had to, and they had to hurry before it was too late. There were too many people coming and going. If one person showed up sick here, his home would have to be forgotten.