Hours later, when she was on the other side of the village in Laura’s small but cozy hut to administer a fennel tea to Laura’s colicky baby, she could still feel those hard gray eyes boring into her, searching her, flickering with—something like heat.
Chapter Six
Morning light crept in around the furs covering Jossalyn’s chamber window, but it was early still. In the summer months, the sun rose earlier here in the northern Borderlands than it had in her childhood home in lower England. She normally relished the longer days in the summer, but for some reason, she felt like lingering in bed today.
It wasn’t just “some reason,” she chided herself and she rubbed her eyes. She knew very well why she was dragging her feet. She was a coward. She had gone two whole days without seeing Garrick, fear and shyness keeping her well away from the smithy even though she had been in the village both days to visit her patients. How could she simultaneously long to see him and be terrified at the power he seemed to have over her?
Last night, she had resolved to straighten her spine and face him. Even the thought of being in his presence twisted her stomach into knots and made her feel foolish and clumsy, but he might not be here very much longer—perhaps only a few more days—and she knew she would regret not seeing him again.
There was no point in denying, especially to herself, that she was drawn to him, attracted to him. She wanted to know more about him, to simply feel the intensity of his presence.
And in order to do that, she had to stop being such a ninny. She had to get out of bed, go to the village, and stop avoiding the smithy like a skittish cat. Besides, from the look of the yellow light coming in behind the furs, it would likely shape up to be another beautiful summer day. She only had a few more days until Gordon was well enough to resume his watch over her, and even though sneaking around like a snake wasn’t ideal, at least she had freedom from her brother for a while yet.
With that thought, she flung off the covers and scurried to the armoire, selecting a simple blue dress for the day’s work ahead. She quickly scrubbed her face in the cold water left in the pitcher from the night before, but took extra time to plait her hair, making two smaller braids going back from her temples and feeding them into a larger braid that swung down her back.
She breezed through the kitchen on her way to the yard, tossing an apple and a few heels of bread into her herb basket. Then she was across the yard and past the large stone walls of the keep. The sun was already climbing in the bright blue sky, and the air, though cool and fresh now, promised another warm day ahead.
Before going to the smithy, she would check on just one patient, Laura’s brother Thomas, who had been suffering a toothache. It was on the way anyway. She wasn’t stalling, she told herself stoutly.
Thomas was already doing much better, so there wasn’t much for her to do besides give him some more lemon balm. Then it was time. She wound her way out of Thomas’s hut and through the back alleys toward the smithy. Perhaps if she approached from the alley rather than the main village road, she would be able to see if there was any activity going on in the workspace behind the building before having to knock on the door.
Lost in her thoughts and trying to rein in her nerves, she nearly walked right by the backside of the smithy. She jerked to a halt and looked up, only to nearly gasp in shock.
There in the small uncovered yard behind the smithy, Garrick was working in the morning sun. Shirtless.
The rippling planes of his torso glistened and twisted in the light as he brought a hammer down with a steady rhythm onto the horseshoe he was shaping. Her eyes widened as she took in every honed muscle, every perfect, sweat-covered line. His broad shoulders and wide chest narrowed into a trim but muscular waist. His rhythm was hypnotic, and she probably would have kept staring open-mouthed at his unbelievably strong and honed body, but then suddenly, as if sensing her eyes on him, he looked up and locked his stare on her.
She nearly bolted, overcome by her own longing to drink him in with her eyes, and the embarrassment of getting caught doing so. This wasn’t going according to plan. Taking a steadying breath, she forced herself to close her mouth and take a step toward him.
He could feel eyes on him. He wished he had his bow, a knife, anything to reach for, since being seen usually meant being dead in his line of work. At least he had a giant hammer in his hands. Tensing slightly, he allowed himself to look up.
He nearly dropped the hammer on his foot.
Standing like a statue in the alley a few yards away was the impossibly enticing healer lass again. Jossalyn. Her green eyes were wide and those pert, berry-red lips were parted once more in surprise. A ray of morning light was hitting her from behind, illuminating her hair like polished gold, and highlighting her shape—rounded breasts, narrow waist, and slightly curving hips, all covered in a fitted blue gown. She looked like a goddess of the dawn, or like the morning sky itself.
She seemed to give herself a little shake and began walking toward him. He lowered his hammer and drew the back of his forearm over his forehead, though both were sweaty.
“Good morning. I came to check on John and to see—” she faltered but recovered, “to see how you and your cousin were getting on.”
As if on cue, Burke pushed through the back door of the smithy, but halted abruptly at the sight of Jossalyn standing in the small open area.
“We are fine, thank you,” Garrick said, more curtly than he had intended. He couldn’t seem to think straight whenever the lass was nearby.
“How thoughtful of you, my lady,” Burke said smoothly, covering Garrick’s brusqueness. “We have settled right in and have helped John tackle these languishing jobs. You’ll also likely be pleased to know that John has been able to rest a bit more with us around to help. He said this morning that his hip is feeling better, and he has gone to deliver some of his work to his customers.”
“That is indeed good news!” the lass said brightly, but then stood there moving her slippered toe in the dirt of the smithy yard for several more moments.
The silence stretched. She clearly wanted to stay, but Garrick wasn’t sure why.
“Perhaps your visit to check on John won’t be a complete waste,” Burke said, jumping into the silence. “Garrick, haven’t you been complaining of a sore shoulder lately?”
Garrick started to object, but caught the sharp look Burke was shooting at him.
They had already spoken to several villagers, casually chatting about the weather, this year’s harvest, and then slipping into questions about the activity of the English army, the visitors at Dunbraes, and speculations about just when war might break out. So far they had learned that Raef Warren was away visiting Longshanks, which didn’t bode well. Warren had grown increasingly powerful of late. If he had the King’s ear, he was poised to launch a major attack on Scotland, especially considering his ideal position in the Borderlands. Other villagers had mentioned that the castle’s men-at-arms had been training more that usual lately—another bad sign.
Jossalyn seemed well-connected throughout the village, yet she had disappeared after that first day. Perhaps now was his chance to probe her for information. Besides, Garrick thought grudgingly, he could think of worse ways to pass the morning that spending it with a pretty lass.
“Yes, my shoulder. It’s…sore,” he said, rolling his right shoulder a few times for emphasis.
“Why don’t you two go into the smithy while I finish up this horseshoe,” Burke said as he moved to take the hammer from Garrick. As he released the hammer into Burke’s hand, he gave the other man a glare in return for his earlier sharp look. Burke was being rather heavy-handed in insisting that the two talk alone. Did he have other intentions besides creating an opportunity for Garrick to gather information? And why did he lift the corner of his mouth at Garrick like a damn sly cat?
Not wanting to draw attention to their silent conflict, Garrick let it go and instead turned and pulled open the door to the smithy. As Jossalyn glided th
rough the door ahead of him, he caught that smell again—wildflowers and sunshine. Damn, but why did the lass have to smell so good?
The smithy was warm, as usual, but the shutters were pulled back from the windows, letting more of the morning light in.
“Why don’t you sit here while I examine you,” Jossalyn said, gesturing toward a footstool near one of the windows.
He obliged, sinking down on the low stool. As she approached, he realized that her breasts were on a level with his face. Damn. It was one thing to go a while without enjoying the company of a lass. It was quite another form of torture to have a strikingly beautiful lass’s perfectly rounded breasts shoved in his face while he was working a covert operation and couldn’t get involved.
She bit her lower lip as she approached him nervously. Perhaps his still-naked torso made her maidenly sensibilities squirm. For some reason, he liked that thought.
“Show me where it hurts,” she said, a little shakily.
He rolled his right shoulder again. “It hurts when I…move it a lot,” he said lamely.
She furrowed her brow and placed her fingertips on his shoulder lightly. Even the soft contact made him twitch. His muscles flexed involuntarily under her touch. Christ, he was acting like an untried lad!
She poked and prodded him, telling him to say when it hurt. At random intervals, he would say, “That” or “There,” trying to guess how to fake an injury. As she worked, she leaned over him, and her golden braid swung over her shoulder, the tale of it brushing against his bare stomach. He gritted his teeth, resisting the urge to wrap that blonde braid around his fist and pull her down onto his lap.
She didn’t seem to notice how she tortured him, or perhaps she just thought that his twitching jaw was an indication of the pain his shoulder was causing him. Either way, his thoughts didn’t seem to penetrate her concentration. Her nervousness dissipated as she focused on his shoulder. He could see from the absorbed look on her face that she was lost in thoughts about how to heal the imaginary injury.
“Have you ever hurt it before?” she said softly, her breath brushing his exposed skin.
“Nay,” he gritted out, not caring that he had slipped into a thicker Scottish accent.
Finally, she turned away from him and toward her basket of herbs, which she had deposited on one of the smithy’s tables. Trying to remind himself of what he was supposed to be doing—which was not to stare at her curved bottom—he cleared his throat.
“I’m curious—why does John bow to you?” To be honest, that question had less to do with their mission and more to do with his own suspicion that the lass was more that she seemed.
She spun around, her eyes wide, but then she casually waved her hand as if brushing away his question. “Oh, you know. I suppose he feels grateful to me for easing his pain. I am the village healer, and many of the people I treat do that.” She spun back around to dig furiously in her basket. What was she hiding?
Trying to shake his suspicion, he forced his mind back on topic. “I suppose you’ve had to do a lot of extra healing lately, what with more soldiers moving through Dunbraes, and the increasing number of skirmishes here in the Borderlands,” he said, summoning all of Burke’s smoothness he could muster.
“Yes, there are far more war wounds now, though my brother doesn’t let me—” She stiffened suddenly.
“Your brother?” Garrick said lightly, sensing a moment to strike.
“Um, yes, my brother. Ranald Williams. He worries about me, that is all. He doesn’t like me to come too close to the war, even though I could help.”
Garrick could hear the strain in her voice, sensing a lie, or at least an omission, but he could also hear the pain there.
“So he forbids you to use your skills?”
She turned around, holding a brownish-looking root. “He…doesn’t approve.” She moved to the fire, which burned cheerily in the back wall, and tossed the root into the caldron that hung there. Then, using the bucket next to the fireplace, she poured water into the caldron over the root.
“But you are clearly very talented.”
She shot him a wide-eyed glance, but quickly averted her eyes, and he could see that sweet pink blush creeping to her cheeks again. “Perhaps you shouldn’t say such things until after I have administered my remedy to your shoulder,” she said, her eyes still shifting away from his but a smile quirking the corners of her mouth.
He very nearly smiled himself, which shocked him. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt happy or carefree enough to indulge in a smile, let alone a laugh. Forcing his thoughts away from the lass’s comely curved lips, he tried a new angle.
“Have you lived here long? In the Borderlands, I mean.” Perhaps she would have English relatives who might know something about the temperament of the country.
“Oh yes, years now. We moved to…find work, like you. I trained with the former healer of Dunbraes, and my brother…works in the castle.” She paused and stirred the brew she was making in the caldron. “I haven’t seen England since we moved here. I know this may sound strange coming from and Englishwoman, but I think of Scotland as more of my home than England now.”
That surprised him. An Englishwoman who cared enough about Scotland to call it her home? He wouldn’t push the issue, though. Allegiance in the Borderlands, and during times of war especially, was a sticky subject, one that could offend at best and end with a hanging for treason at worst.
Instead, he watched in silence as she rolled up the sleeves of her dress and reached for a wooden spoon to continue stirring the contents of the caldron. Something on her forearm caught his eye, though. Several marks, fading from purple to yellow, marred her creamy skin. A handprint.
Suddenly he bolted up from the footstool and crossed to her in front of the fire. She jumped at his lightning-fast movement, but he wrapped his hand around her wrist delicately, holding her in place.
“What is this, Jossalyn?”
Chapter Seven
His touch on her wrist was light, but his voice was dark with anger, and his gray eyes were stormy as they bore down on her. She nearly flinched under the weight of his stare and his question.
“It’s nothing. I just…it’s just an old bruise.” She hated the sound of the lie in her voice, but what was the alternative? Tell this strange Scotsman that her brother, Raef Warren, Lord of Dunbraes, had squeezed her arm so hard a week ago that the mark was still visible?
His eyes searched her face, seeming to see right through her, lies and all. “Your brother?”
She inhaled sharply, suddenly frightened that he knew too much. But she had told him that her brother disapproved of her healing. Lowering her eyes, she simply nodded, not wishing to either lie more, or worse, reveal the truth.
“He is so against you helping people that he uses force against you?” The incredulity and rage in his voice made her feel—safer, surprisingly. This stranger seemed to have more decency and regard for women than her own brother did.
She nodded again, but pulled her wrist back, breaking their light connection. She turned back to the caldron, where the comfrey root was turning into a paste the right consistency to apply to Garrick’s shoulder. Hopefully the same remedy that had John feeling young and spry again would work on Garrick as well.
“Jossalyn.”
The sound of her name on his deep voice sent a shiver up her spine. “Yes?”
“You don’t have to stay with your brother. Where I’m from, your gift for healing would be valued, and the people there would treat you as you deserve. People would…care for you.”
Her hand stilled in its stirring. Was she hearing him right? Was he suggesting…? No, he hadn’t said that he cared for her, or that she should leave with him. But the seriousness in his voice told her that he did want better for her. And she wanted better for herself.
She had always let herself fantasize when she was collecting herbs or roots in the forest next to the village that perhaps someday she would escape her brother
. This had often involved imagining getting married to some honorable English knight and living in the countryside where she had grown up.
But with her brother’s recent threats to use her marriage to forge an alliance for his benefit, those dreams of wedded bliss had been quashed. And even setting aside the nauseating thought of marrying some old lecher for her brother’s gain, she was no longer sure she wanted to move south back into England. She had never been farther north than the Borderlands, but she had become enraptured by the more rugged, wild country that she now inhabited. The longer summer days and the colder, snowier winter nights, the towering mountains in the distance, the violent storms and the tranquil lochs—these were the things that moved her, that made her feel alive.
And then there were the people. The village was a constantly changing hodgepodge of Englishmen, Borderlanders, and Scottish Lowlanders, most of whom were simply trying to keep their heads down and survive. No one would speak directly about it, but Jossalyn had been in enough backrooms and marketplaces to hear talk of the desire for Scottish independence. These people, on whose lands she was living, had been hammered by her countrymen, just as King Edward had set out to do. They sought their freedom—freedom from oppression, freedom to worship, to keep up their traditions, to live in peace—yet her King and countrymen had to have more, had to be in control.
Though she had never voiced such thoughts to anyone before, she had often felt a kindred struggle for her own freedom. She understood perfectly the value of independence and liberty from tyranny. She didn’t want to live under her brother’s control for the rest of her life, and certainly wouldn’t be married off to some cradle-robbing English nobleman, so what was left?
She had always pushed away the whispers inside her head, but now they were clear and loud: she should escape, move north, leave behind England and its constant quest to make Scotland come to heel.
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