by Paula Quinn
“Is Gunter with you, brother? I need him to carry what I find back to my room.”
“He’s bringing the last of the bodies outside. I’ll get him and instruct him to take any bed as long as there isn’t a girl already in it and bring it to you.”
“I’ll need fresh linens, as well.”
“Of course,” Harry muttered. “Just as long as you agree not to leave your room alone again.”
She sighed, but didn’t argue with him that she wasn’t alone.
“As you wish, Harry. You have my thanks.” She gave him a little curtsey, just a slight fold and dip of her head. During her journey from France to England she learned that in order to stay safe in the world, she had to become and always remain unobtrusive. She didn’t mind staying in the shadows. Shadows were what she knew. She was comfortable in them.
“I’ll be waiting then.” She turned, her fingers resting gently on Gascon’s head. “Good night, Bess.”
“Emmaline,” Bess replied through tight lips.
Emma couldn’t understand why Bess would be angry with her. It wasn’t Emma’s fault that Bess’s would-be lover was unconscious in her room. So much for trying to be polite and wish a girl good night.
She pushed open the door to her room and was entering when Alison’s excited voice stopped her. “Look who is awake!”
Emma assumed it was Cailean since Alison’s voice came from her bed. It was good news. He would live.
“Welcome back, Mr. Grant,” Emma said. “We are glad you’ve decided to stay.”
“Aye,” the younger Grant said, sounding like a groggy bear. “How could I refuse when Alison was waiting here fer me?”
Emma smiled, glad he was awake and glad that Alison was here to greet him.
“Alison told me all the hours ye’ve put in fer me and m’ brother,” Cailean told her. “I’ll be sure to tell him.” He sounded very sleepy and Emma nodded, then checked his wound.
She didn’t know what to say really. It was nice of Alison to tell him. The only people who had done nice things for her were Clem and her parents. But Cailean and his brother had rescued Gascon, and now Alison. She wasn’t used to it and she didn’t know how to respond. She smiled and hoped it was enough.
Chapter Five
Malcolm came awake in his new bed a half dozen or so times during the next two days. With his eyes hooded and his thoughts clouded, he was mildly aware of a woman standing over him, cleaning his wounds. A veil covered her head. A veil of spun gossamer gold. He smiled at her. At least he thought he did but she didn’t even look at him. He was dreaming. Where was his brother? If Cailean had fallen… If his brother was dead, it would be the end of him. “Cai…” His throat burst into flames and he almost passed out from the pain in his neck as he finished calling his brother. “Cailean!”
“Ssh, there now,” a woman’s soft voice spoke like a foreign whisper against his skin. “Cailean is well. Cailean is well.”
She soothed him, getting him to settle down and lay still. She held a cool cloth against his forehead, offering him blessed comfort from the heat. He relaxed, falling back in the deep bliss of sleep.
He dreamed on and off, drifting from consciousness to semi-consciousness, to being out cold. When he dreamed, it was of a lass, an angel wearing a sash around her eyes. He offered his hand to help her when she stumbled, but she refused it and offered hers to him instead. Ah, but he needed an angel’s help. So many things in his life had gone to hell.
He’d never call himself extremely political, not like his cousin Edmund and some of his other kin. A few years ago, he’d joined in Edmund’s crusade to stop the Union with England Act mostly because there was plenty of fighting to go with it. But he believed in the cause and after coming close to a victory so many times, even trying to stop the treaty by kidnapping the Duke of Queensberry’s niece, who ultimately captured Edmund’s heart. They had failed and Scotland joined with England to become the United Kingdom.
Edmund also joined with Queensberry’s niece, Amelia Bell. Malcolm watched even Lucan MacGregor find love in the arms of a serving wench. The chief’s daughter, Abigail, lost her heart to her English escort on the way to meet her aunt, the queen. His own sister had fallen in love with a damned pirate.
Love. He hated it.
He’d heard songs and stories about his parents and his uncles and aunts, his grandparents. The list didn’t end. Tales of love, all. That most passionate of emotions was available to everyone in Camlochlin. Except him.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t find a wife. He’d never looked for one. He didn’t have to really. Lasses found him. He’d been with his fair share but none had ever taken his heart. He searched himself for those feelings in his uncle Finn’s poems. He never felt a single one. Over the years, he began to believe that he wasn’t capable of loving the way a man should love the woman he wants as a wife. Was he lacking in whatever made a man fall in love? Was he unworthy of it? If so, why? What had he done that some of the other men of Camlochlin hadn’t? Nevertheless, he tried to fall in love, to find his own happy tale. But he always walked away empty. His lack haunted him and every time one of his cousins fell in love, he took another step toward not wanting it, in hating it because it eluded him. It became what his grandmother would call a dragon. Instead of facing it, fighting it, he avoided any kind of emotional connection so that he wasn’t reminded of his deficiency.
He became a rake, infamous at what he did best, fighting or laughing with men, using women, and running from a dragon.
He offered a quick smile to everyone. He lived a seemingly carefree, unconcerned life. People saw what he wanted them to see. But no one truly knew him. Mayhap Edmund knew him best, but even he didn’t know all. There was more to Malcolm than people suspected. He lay in bed at night and ached from a void that wouldn’t be filled. Like a hunger that would never be satisfied. It had nothing to do with his celibacy, because it was the same before. He was lonely often but he craved no one’s company overlong. His inability was always present in his life, no matter how he tried to mask it.
He heard someone speaking and tried to open his eyes. He was tired of sleeping, as well. He wanted to be up and about.
“I knew you’d live. Nothing can keep this body down.”
He fought harder to open his eyes and recognized the deep golden tresses around the lass’s face, the length of it corded in a thick braid down the back of her emerald gown.
Bess. He tried to say her name, but the livid hot pain in his neck returned. He smiled at her instead.
“Welcome back to the world of the living, Malcolm. I’ve missed you.” She leaned down and planted a kiss on his temple and then one on his eyelid. Both places hurt like hell and he closed his eye again, suddenly realizing that only one had been opened.
“You were shot in the neck, poor dear. And struck in the head with a club of some sort. You’re a bit swollen but you’ll be as good as new in no time. I’ve had a terrible time trying to keep the girls from your bedside. We’ve all been so worried about you. None of us wants to lose our favorite customer.”
It didn’t bother him that all he was to them was a customer. He was glad Bess had gotten over him. Who wouldn’t after so long? He’d never expected to be anything else, especially not in a brothel. Right now, he only cared about one thing.
“Cail…”
“Is recovering well but he’s going to need—”
“Bess,” another lass’s voice, one he’d heard in his dream, light but stern… and French, cut her off. “Mr. Fitzwilliam is expecting you down the hall.”
Malcolm studied Harry’s sister with his limited gaze. At first glance, she wasn’t striking in appearance. But after a moment or two of taking in the elegant curl at the edge of her mouth, the delicate column of her throat, the way light reflected in the curve of her curls, it was clear to see that she was more bonny than he’d first thought. He remembered her and her drooling escort, Gascon, the dog.
He smiled at her and she held a cup to
his lower lip. He corrected the rim and obeyed when she bid him to drink and soothe his throat.
“Are ye certain ye aren’t interested in going in my place, Emmaline?” Bess asked her in a sticky sweet voice. “Mr. Fitzwilliam has requested ye often. Yer sightless eyes interest him.”
Ah, aye, she was blind. He remembered now. He watched her delicate hands feel around for things, her fingers flitting over this surface or that.
Gascon’s low growl drew Malcolm’s attention. On his haunches, the beast’s head reached Malcolm’s. What kind of dog saw for the blind? He’d love to know how Miss Grey taught her hound to guide her steps. Dry now, Gascon was more fluff than muscle. His ears pointed straight up with fur flopping down over them. If not for the growling, he would have appeared utterly harmless. Malcolm knew better. He’d grown up with dogs. This one didn’t like Bess.
“I’m quite certain, Bess,” Harry’s sister said softly, her voice shifting an octave in earnest, her hand resting on the dog’s head, calming him. “I don’t want to give myself to a man I don’t love. No one forces me, just as they don’t force you.”
Her voice held no trace of pride, but still Bess seemed to take offense at her.
“Ha! What is love?” Bess laughed at her. “There is one thing, and one thing alone that men love, and it isn’t your good nature. Isn’t that right, Malcolm?”
“I believe there’s more to love than that,” Emma answered before Malcolm could give his voice a try. “That there are men who are capable of giving their heart to a single woman for a lifetime. Men of honor and chivalry.”
Malcolm cursed his wounds because they confined him. Why did she bring up love? He wanted to get up and leave the room, the conversation. He didn’t know anything about love or why a man would settle down with one lass.
His heart remained perfectly intact in his chest.
“You’re a fool, Emma,” Bess said, pulling another growl from Gascon. Before she provoked the dog to tear at her throat, Malcolm rested his palm on Bess’s hip and gave her a slight push toward the door.
“I’ll return,” she promised, proving she wasn’t a fool when she moved to leave the room. “Until then, no one else’s hands shall feel as good as mine.”
Malcolm watched her leave with a flourish and almost laughed at the overdramatic performance. His head hurt. He lifted his hand to it and swallowed his heart. His hair! What the hell happened to his hair? He didn’t get a chance to ask when blessed sleep overtook him again.
He woke the next day, feeling a bit stronger. His throat was less raw. He opened his eyes, both of them, and focused on the candlelit room. Where was Cailean? There was another bed on the other side. A bigger bed, bathed in soft golden light, with a single figure upon it and a redheaded lass worrying beside it. He remembered her but not her name.
“Is…” He put his hand to his throat and opened his mouth to try again.
“Here.” Emmaline Grey appeared before him in her plain dark gown and pallid complexion and helped him lean up on one elbow. Her name, he could remember. Emmaline.
“Drink your tea,” she urged. “You are not fully healed yet and mustn’t strain your throat.”
He did as she bid and downed the concoction. It was a mixture of different teas and oils; lavender among them, making the liquid go down easier. For an instant he prayed she knew what she was doing and didn’t poison him.
“Is that… Cailean… in bed?”
“Oui, ’tis.”
He looked up at her, her face eclipsed behind her long, loose waves. He couldn’t read her expression so he reached for her hand instead. “Cailean?”
Her already large eyes grew larger as she took a seat in the chair by his unadorned bed. “Mr. Grant, your brother regained consciousness the night of his injuries but not again since. He was shot and the bullet had to be removed. His body was in shock and we waited three days before we went in, but today he has a fever.”
Malcolm’s heart smashed against his ribs. Cailean was the baby. Their mother would perish if he left the earth. They’d already lost Caitrina. Though she wasn’t dead, their only daughter spent most of her life on the high seas, a place more dangerous than anywhere else in the world. Losing Cailean would change their family.
Malcolm wasn’t too proud to beg for his brother’s life.
“Please,” he murmured, “save him.”
“I’m doing my best,” she promised earnestly.
He closed his eyes and tried to regulate his breathing. The Winthers had done this. They’d returned to the brothel with pistols and shot him and his brother. He was going to kill them. If Cailean died, his kin would come and kill them all.
“I want to… see him.”
She stood up and reached for Gascon. “You’ll need to walk.”
He nodded.
“Can you?”
“Aye,” he answered, forgetting that she couldn’t see anything out of those lush, lovely eyes. “I think so.”
“Here,” she offered her shoulder to lean on and he smiled. If he leaned on her too heavily she’d tip right over. “Alison,” she called out to the redhead hovering over his brother.
Ah, yes, Alison.
“Bring the chair please.”
She tucked her shoulder under his arm and curled his arm around her neck. “Slowly, now, Mr. Grant.”
“Malcolm,” he corrected, drawn to the scent of her beneath his nose. She smelled like medicinal herbs. He inhaled and coughed a little.
He remembered something and stopped. He reached his hand up to his head. It wasn’t a dream. Someone had chopped off his hair. He asked her who’d done it.
“I did,” she admitted easily. “You needed stitching. I couldn’t let you die because of some vanity about your hair.”
“Why no’?”
“What?”
“Why could ye no’ let me die? Ye dinna’ know me.”
“Because I promised Harry.”
That was it then? She promised Harry. And he’d promised Harry.
Alison hurried forward with the chair and placed it beside the bed. He moved slowly, forgetting his hair with Emma pressed close to him.
“Gascon seems to like me.”
“He’s grateful to you, as am I, for convincing my brother to let him inside.”
“Ye trained him well.”
She shook her head under his arm. “I didn’t train him. He’s always known what to do.”
Malcolm looked at the dog, admiring the beast’s intelligence.
When they reached the bed, she helped him bend and sit, facing his brother. She backed away and went about her business in the room.
Malcolm stared at the lad, pale and lifeless in the bed. He’d brought Cailean here. Malcolm closed his eyes, unable for a moment to look without tears spilling from him. He’d seen dying and dead men before, but this was his brother.
“Cailean,” he said, covering his brother’s hand with his own. He recoiled for an instant when the heat from Cailean’s flesh ran through him. His fever was high. “Ye can fight this, lad. This is nothin’ fer ye. I’ll be right here with ye. Ye’re doin’ just fine.”
He looked up at Emmaline stepping around the bed to the other side, and watched her prepare to check his brother’s dressing. “Ye think me mad fer talkin’ to him like this.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I think he knows you’re here. It could be what he needs to recover.”
He didn’t know about that, but speaking to him was all he could do, so he did more of it.
When he was done, he turned to her. “Do ye all take turns?”
“Doing what?” she asked from over his brother’s body where she freshened his dressing.
“Tendin’ to us.”
The delicate swirl of her lips made him feel as fevered as his brother. Pity she couldn’t see how lovely she was. It was as if she grew a little more bonny every moment.
“Alison is a great help to me.”
He was glad she had help. He knew from watching h
is aunt Davina nearly die of a fever how difficult it was to care for the sick.
He watched her slender fingers at work, tender, fluttering touches that made him wish she was tending to him.
“How d’ye know what ye’re doin’, lass?”
She tilted her head up and made him wonder how he could think of anything but the beguiling quirk of her brow?
“Do you worry that I don’t?” she put to him.
He laughed, liking her boldness. “Nae. I worry that ye dinna’ care if ye do or not.”
“Mr. Grant, you must rest your throat. If you cannot do that I’ll have to drug you again.”
He stared at her. Was she jesting? She’d drugged him? It would explain him sleeping so much. He gave her a halfhearted glare but she didn’t see it. Instead, she held her index finger to her lips and cautioned him to rest.
He didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or argue with her. She hadn’t done it, he convinced himself. It was merely a threat to make him obey her. She needn’t go to the trouble. He’d be happy to do whatever she commanded.
“I know something about removin’ pistol balls from flesh. ’Tis no’ easy. Who removed Cailean’s?”
“I did,” she said without missing a beat as she ground more herbs with her pummel.
“How?” He didn’t want to think of the mess she likely made digging around blindly.
“I felt my way around. You can take a look when I’m done. ’Tis quite neat.”
How had she done it? He was quite impressed and he must have somehow conveyed the feeling. When she spoke again, she sounded frustrated. “Don’t wonder at me, and please don’t pity me. I can get along as well as anyone else. Your brother needed help and I did everything I know. The rest is up to him.”
He nodded to himself, not really knowing what to say. He’d seen her as less able to help Cailean and he was wrong. He realized how wrong when she lifted Cailean’s covering and showed Malcolm his wound. It was small and clean and quite well done.
He commended her work and felt his own wound. She’d saved him. She’d saved Cailean.