by Lynsay Sands
Elysande felt someone bump against her hands where they rested in front of her before moving away, and was sure she recognized Rory’s scent. But she could hear the others settling in around her. Someone was at her back, someone by her feet, someone above her head again, just like last night, and she guessed they were all taking up the same positions they had then, surrounding her protectively. It made her feel safe, and she sent up a silent prayer of thanks that Tom and Simon had survived to bring her to the Buchanans.
Chapter 6
Rory woke slowly, his mind reluctant to leave the warm comfort of sleep, but his body telling him there was something missing. It was the warm weight of Elysande curled into his body, he realized. Rory had woken up in the middle of the night to find himself in the same position he’d been in when he woke the first morning of this journey—on his back with Elysande’s head on his shoulder and her body half on him, her arm and leg thrown over him with abandon. He’d lain there for the longest time trying to decide what to do about it, but in the end he’d just settled back, enjoying the heat from her body and inhaling her scent and wondering what it would be like to wake up every morning like this, with this woman in his arms.
Oddly enough, he’d quite liked the idea and that had kept him awake for hours as he’d pondered why that would be. He didn’t really know the woman and at the moment she wasn’t much to look at with half her face battered and bruised. Of course, the other half of her face was mostly undamaged and attractive enough, and the one eye that wasn’t swollen closed was large and a lovely gray blue. But his attraction definitely wasn’t lust based. Most of the time she had that veil covering her face so he couldn’t see her at all. Nay, it was definitely something other than her looks he was attracted to.
She did feel good in his arms, soft and warm . . . and she smelled good too. But he admired her for her courage. She was so damned brave, and showed a quiet strength that was truly impressive. Elysande had lost everything. Most women would have been weeping and wailing over what had happened to them, but not Elysande. If she cried, she did it silently behind her veil. And while he knew that her every movement, and even just sitting a horse, must cause her agony, the woman never complained. She’d kept up with the men despite the grueling pace he’d set and ridden until she was tumbling from the mount rather than beg them to slow down or stop for rest. And her composure when she’d told them what had happened . . . The pain and horror of all she’d witnessed had been there in her eyes, but she’d remained strong, never giving in to hysterics.
Then there was the most telling moment of all for him. When it had been suggested that her mother’s maid, Betty, might have given up her mother’s plans to de Buci under duress, Elysande hadn’t been angry at the betrayal. She’d been worried about the maid and angry at herself for not taking better care of her, for not insisting she accompany them.
Aye, she was brave, and strong, and he admired her greatly. If he were in the market for a wife, she would definitely be one worth considering. He wasn’t, of course. At least, Rory didn’t think he wanted a wife yet. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be so annoyed by his family’s efforts to find him a bride. Still, Elysande was quite a woman, and any man would consider himself lucky to have a wife he not only enjoyed holding in his arms, but could depend upon through life’s trials.
Thinking of the “enjoying holding her in his arms” part reminded him that she wasn’t there now and Rory opened his eyes. Not only was she gone, but so were the men. He was alone in the loft.
Rory was suddenly wide awake and on his feet, moving toward the ladder. Once there though, he paused when he spotted Fearghas and Donnghail sitting in an empty stall below, talking quietly.
“So ye’ve finally decided to wake up, ha’e ye?” Fearghas asked, not even glancing his way. He hadn’t been quiet about getting up and wasn’t surprised the man had heard him.
“Where is everyone?” Rory asked as he started down the ladder.
“Gone to the shops,” Fearghas answered easily.
“What?” Rory whipped his head around with shock.
Donnghail stood and leaned against the stall to grin at him. “We wanted to wake ye, but the lass insisted we let ye sleep. Said ye must need it,” he added with a twinkle in his eyes. “And then she announced she needed to find the cloth shop and get plaid for her and her men, and off she went with the rest o’ the men trailing her like eager pups.”
“Donnghail and I stayed to let ye ken where they were when ye woke,” Fearghas added, standing up now as well.
Rory grunted at that and then continued down the ladder to the stable floor. He had some shopping to do himself. He’d missed the market yesterday, but if there was an apothecary in Carlisle he might find some wolfsbane there and still be able to make a liniment for Elysande. “How long ago did they leave?”
“After convincing the alewife to give us bread, cheese and watered-down ale to break our fast,” Fearghas said.
Rory’s mouth twisted with disgust. “That must have cost us a muckle load of coins.”
“Nay,” Donnghail said solemnly. “The alewife gave it up fer free.”
Rory blinked at this news. “How did Elysande manage that miracle?”
“I’m no’ sure exactly. When we went into the alehouse to break our fast, the alewife was no’ pleased to see us. Said as we should clear off now that ’twas morn and then stomped off into the kitchen. We all started to turn back to the door, but Elysande told us to sit, removed her headdress and veil, set them on the table and sailed into the kitchen after the woman like a queen pursuing an ornery servant.”
“Aye. Just like a queen, she was,” Donnghail said with a small smile of admiration that matched Fearghas’s. “Shoulders back, head up and following her nose like she was on the trail o’ a terrible stench.” He shook his head, his smile widening as he described it. “I was expecting a flaming row—screaming, banging pots, the crash o’ things breaking. Thought sure we’d have to rush in to rescue the lass. Or maybe the alewife,” he added with a wry twist to his lips.
“I think we all thought that,” Fearghas admitted with amusement. “We were all tense as cats, ready to leap up and run in at the first sound o’ trouble.”
Donnghail nodded. “But there was no trouble. No noise at all except the murmur o’ voices. It went on fer a long time too, and then just when Conn stood up like he was going to check on them, Lady Elysande and the alewife came hurrying out the door of the kitchen, chatty as old friends, bearing trays with bread, cheese and ale fer all o’ us.”
“’Tis true,” Fearghas assured him when Rory’s eyebrows rose. “And the alewife was like a different woman—smiling and pleasant, e’en to us. Saying as how the food and drink was included in what we’d paid to stay, and apologizing that she had nothing better to offer us. She even sent bread, cheese and watered-down ale out fer ye to have when ye wake.”
Fearghas bent out of sight behind the stall’s half wall and then popped up again to hold out the food and drink in question.
“I wonder what Elysande said to her,” Rory muttered as he accepted the offering.
“We do no’ ken,” Donnghail repeated almost apologetically. “Lady Elysande went back into the kitchen with the alewife after helping her hand out food and drink, and didn’t return till just as we finished eating. Then she announced she was off to the shops and headed for the door. There was a mad scramble as it was decided the rest o’ the men would go with her while Fearghas and I stayed to wait fer ye to wake, and they were gone.”
“One o’ them may have got it out o’ her on their visit to the shops,” Fearghas suggested. “I guess ye’ll have to ask when they return.”
“Which should be soon,” Donnghail pointed out. “’Tis nearly the nooning hour.”
Rory stiffened, his head jerking up, eyes wide with shock. “’Tis that late?”
“Aye.” Donnghail smirked. “I’ve never kenned ye to sleep so long. Ye did no’ even rouse when Tom and Simon lifted the lady off where s
he was tangled up with ye again. Well, one part o’ ye was awake, but ye still slept.”
Rory closed his eyes briefly at the teasing, knowing exactly what part of him had been awake. No doubt he’d been tenting his plaid in response to her body pressed up against his. Especially if she’d been shifting her leg over his groin in her sleep as she had the first morning. He only hoped Elysande hadn’t noticed. He wouldn’t want her embarrassed or uncomfortable around him.
Sighing, he downed his ale and headed for the stable doors.
“Where are we going?” Fearghas asked at once, hopping over the stall and falling into step beside him.
“I need to ask the alewife if there’s an apothecary nearby. I might yet be able to get some wolfsbane to make a liniment for Elysande’s bruises,” Rory answered around a bite of bread.
“There is,” Donnghail announced from his other side, and when Rory glanced to him in question, he explained, “Lady Elysande asked after one while they were passing out the bread and cheese. The alewife told her where to find it.”
“Aye. We may run into them there,” Fearghas commented.
Rory merely grunted at the suggestion as he led them out into the courtyard. He ate the bread and cheese quickly, and was just swallowing the last of it as he entered the back door of the alehouse. A good thing too, or he might have choked on it when they reached the main room and he saw Tom and Simon both in plaids so short he was surprised he couldn’t see their bollocks hanging out the bottom.
“Are you sure this is right?” Simon was tugging at the bottom of the plaid. “Yours aren’t this short.”
“We told ye,” Alick said patiently. “The plaid’ll drop lower by the sup. Do ye put it any lower now, ye’ll be tripping on it when it does drop and we’ll have to start all over.”
“Alick,” Rory growled the warning, and then crossed his arms over his chest to scowl at his brother, as well as Conn and Inan for this trickery. “Quit messing about and fix the plaids fer them.”
“Ah, Rory,” Alick complained. “Did ye have to ruin the first bit o’ fun we’ve managed to find since leaving Scotland?”
Rory felt a moment’s guilt at the words, because Alick and the men had camped outside Monmouth for two weeks, sleeping on the cold hard ground and hunting their own food while he’d been in the keep.
But that guilt quickly died when he thought of Elysande seeing her men like this, and he scowled again. “Would ye have the lass see them like this and be embarrassed? Speaking o’ which, where is she?”
“In the kitchen, making a liniment for her pains,” Conn said solemnly.
“A liniment for her pains?” Rory echoed blankly.
“Aye, with the wolfsbane, willow bark and several other weeds she purchased from the apothecary this morn,” Tom said almost apologetically.
“She is making my liniment?” Rory asked with dismay.
“Ah. Well, most like ’tis a recipe Lady Mairghread taught her,” Tom said with a grimace, and then explained, “I fear I may have forgot to mention that our lady was a somewhat renowned healer in England, and that she trained Lady Elysande in all she knew.”
Rory gaped at the man, his mind in an uproar. He’d wanted to make Elysande a liniment for her pains. It was his one skill, healing. Or at least the one skill he was known and valued for. Any man could wield a sword. Hell, every man at Buchanan did. But healing was the one thing about him that was special. It made him much in demand. Monmouth was not the first man who had paid him a small fortune to travel to heal them. He was just the latest, and with the money the English lord had given him, he now had enough to build his own keep on the plot of land his parents had left him. That was how sought after he was; he’d earned a fortune any man would envy.
Not that Rory made everyone pay or even asked for payment in return for his skills. He became a healer because he couldn’t stand by and watch another person die as he’d been forced to watch happen with his mother. But almost every patient tried to give him something to show their gratitude, whether it was coin, or livestock, or something else. Even the poorest patient he’d healed had gone picking wild herbs and medicinals they hoped would come in handy in his healing capacity. But wealthy lords who lived far away and feared he would need an inducement to travel to them often offered coin. And because it was an inconvenience to travel long distances and be away from home and family, and because they could afford it, he accepted the payment.
But with Elysande it had been different. He’d wanted desperately to use his skills to help her. He’d wanted to be the hero and take away her pain. He’d wanted . . . He’d wanted her to see him as special, he realized. Instead, she was in the kitchen making a potion herself. One her mother had taught her. Using wolfsbane, an extremely poisonous plant that had to be handled with extreme caution to prevent accidental poisoning and death.
Concern rushing through him now, Rory turned on his heel and headed for the kitchen door, growling, “Fix their plaids.”
Ignoring Alick’s groan and Tom and Simon’s irritated demands that the men fix their “bleedin’ skirts,” Rory started to push through the kitchen door and then froze halfway into the room as his mind processed what his eyes were seeing.
Lady Elysande, completely naked, was lying on her stomach on top of a linen laid over the kitchen table, her head pillowed on her folded arms. It left her naked back and bottom on view as the alewife smoothed liniment gently over the bruises on her back.
“How is that, then, m’lady?” the alewife asked. “Is it helping any?”
“Aye, thank you, Mildrede,” Elysande breathed the words with obvious relief. “Really, thank you so much for offering to do this. I was planning to do it myself, but you were right, I could not have done my back alone.”
“Nay, you could not have,” the alewife said firmly, and then her tone turning apologetic, she admitted, “In truth, I only made the offer to get a look at your back and see if ’twas as bad as yer face. But seeing it . . .” She clucked under her breath and shook her head as she scooped more liniment out of a bowl next to Elysande’s hip and continued her work before murmuring sympathetically, “How ye must have been suffering, m’lady. I do not know how ye bore it,” she said with amazement, her hands now moving lower over her buttocks.
“You can stop now if you like, Mildrede,” Elysande said gently. “I can reach everything else. ’Twas just my back I could not do myself and I certainly appreciate you doing it for me.”
“Oh, nonsense, m’lady,” the alewife said as her hands made quick work of the chore. “I’m pleased to help you, and it will only take another minute. Besides,” she added, a wry twist to her lips as she moved onto the backs of her legs, “my hand is numb already from the cream. Might as well save you numbing your own hand. You’ll have enough parts going numb as ’tis,” she pointed out with a chuckle.
Rory could hear the amusement in Elysande’s voice when she agreed. “Aye, but better that than the pain.”
“Aye.” The alewife’s smile faded then and she shook her head. “’Tis a wonder to me that you’re able to walk let alone sit a saddle. You’re a brave one, m’lady.”
“Nay, not brave,” Elysande assured her quietly. “Just terribly frightened that was I too much trouble they might leave us behind somewhere.”
“Oh, surely not,” Mildrede said with a frown.
“Nay,” Elysande agreed. “I realize that now, but I did not at the start. I did not know then that these Scots were such good, kind and honorable men.”
“Nay. I suppose not. I surely wouldn’t have expected it of a Scot.” The woman sighed. “You got lucky with this group, m’lady. I venture there are few Scots who would act so honorably as to trouble themselves to save a young maiden in such a nasty predicament.”
“Aye,” Elysande breathed the word. “Is life not funny that way?”
“How is that, m’lady?”
“Well, I was just thinking . . . Truly, the murder of my mother, father and all of our soldiers was the most u
nfortunate event of my life. But encountering our new Scottish friends was, I think, the most fortunate. And both happened one behind the other.”
“The best and worst of life all rolled into one incident,” Mildrede said sadly. “Life never seems to be able to give you one without the other.”
“Aye,” Elysande murmured solemnly.
They were both silent for a minute, and then the alewife backed away from the table, wiping her hands on a cloth that hung from her waist. “There. All done.”
“Thank you,” Elysande said, easing into a sitting position with her back to Rory. “’Twas very kind of you to help me.”
“Nonsense,” the alewife said firmly. “But ye must give me the recipe. ’Twould come in handy when my bones are hurting if it can get that deep. Sometimes they ache so bad I just want to sit down and weep.”
“Of course. But remember that wolfsbane is poisonous, so you must be careful while handling—”
Rory didn’t hear anymore. He’d backed out of the room and eased the door closed for fear one of the women would look over and catch him standing there gawking. But he’d heard enough. Elysande obviously knew how dangerous wolfsbane could be, and must have used the correct amount in her liniment, because there was enough cream slathered on her that she’d already be dead if she’d got it wrong. And, God in heaven, that would have been a crime. Elysande had a beautiful body, all soft curves and pale pink skin where she wasn’t bruised.
“That’s better. I knew ’twas too short before.”
Rory turned at Tom’s grim words to see that the men had finished fixing his plaid and were now working on Simon’s. Tom’s plaid now reached almost to his knees, as it should. Although he didn’t seem all that much more happy with it, Rory noted. Tom kept bending to look at his knees and frowning. It would take him a while to get used to it, Rory supposed.