by Kira Morgan
He swung his head toward her. “Florie!” Lunging forward, he took her face between his hands. “Are ye all right? What’s wrong? What happened, lass?”
“C-cold,” was all she could manage. “S-so cold.” She scowled. But that wasn’t the truth. She was hot, sweltering, drenched with sweat.
“The wound,” he muttered. Without asking her leave, he rooted under her skirts to examine her injury.
“Too t-tight,” she scolded him weakly. Lord, where was her strength? Her limbs felt as malleable as molten metal.
Whatever he saw when he loosened her bandages made him curse most foully. And when he pressed lightly upon the edge of her wound, fiery pain streaked up her leg, making her arch up from the ground with a thin cry.
“Bloody hell,” he mumbled. “Wait here, Florie. Wait. Don’t move. I’ll be back.”
She caught at his sleeve. She didn’t want him to go. She didn’t know what was wrong, but if he left her, she’d be alone with the pain and the cold and the fear.
His fingers clasped hers momentarily. “I’ll be gone but a moment. Stay here. Promise me.”
She wondered where he thought she might run off to. She couldn’t stand, let alone walk. She reluctantly let her fingers fall from him, and she closed her eyes for what she believed was a brief moment.
But ’twas full dark when Florie emerged again from her dreamless slumber. A single wan candle burned at her feet, casting the demonic shadow of Methuselah across the stones as the cat skulked past on his midnight rounds.
Florie’s throat was as dry as chalk. And yet she thought she would burst if she didn’t empty her bladder soon.
She remembered now. She’d fainted the last time she’d tried to get up. But how could she have slept the day away? Faith, what was wrong with her?
She flung out an arm, banging it on the fridstool.
“Florie?” Rane’s whisper sounded, less than a yard away.
There was no time to be delicate. “I need the privy,” she croaked.
It seemed as if he vanished then, or she must have drifted off, for she awoke to a sudden bang and the splintering of wood. When Rane returned, he bore a great bowl enameled with vines and various beasts.
She frowned. “Is that…”
Rane eyed her sternly. “’Tis a jordan.”
She hadn’t the strength to argue with him. She barely had the strength to use it.
For hours afterward, Florie floated between waking and sleeping, recalling only disjointed fragments of the day: the Father bringing fruit tarts, which she had neither the appetite nor the strength to eat, Methuselah sniffing at her wound, Rane chasing him away, a cool cloth bathing her forehead and throat, Rane poking and prodding and pressing upon her wound as if to torment her further, weak ale dribbling down her throat, Rane drizzling her leg with some burning potion… Rane brushing the hair back from her brow… Rane tucking the plaids around her… Rane, Rane, Rane…
She was growing to despise him more with each passing hour. Every time she was about to surrender to the bliss of unconsciousness, he did something to rouse her again. Usually something unpleasant.
He lifted her head, forcing her to drink. Or he loosened the neck of her kirtle, leaving her shoulders bare. Or worst of all, he pinched brutally at the tender flesh of her wound. King Henry’s gaoler could not have tortured her more skillfully.
Somehow she managed to drowse, alternately shivering under the plaids and kicking them off when she became too fevered. And by afternoon, despite the agony Rane had put her through, ’twas he who looked worn and weary. Stubble darkened his jaw, and shadows ringed his eyes. He looked gaunt in the yellow candlelight, and the corners of his mouth turned down with grim fatigue.
The last image she had of him before she slipped into darkness again was in profile. He sat beside the fridstool, one long leg drawn up, his arms draped over it, his head bowed. His long hair fell forward over his shoulders, and his brow was furrowed anxiously. Now and then, a muscle in his cheek would tense. Florie wondered, just before she succumbed to her own ragged slumber, what troubling thoughts disturbed the archer’s repose. She hoped someone tortured him in his sleep.
Like a nagging mistress, a final brilliant shaft of fading sunlight goaded Rane from his afternoon nap after too few hours of rest. Nonetheless, he sat up wearily, his eyes as gritty and raw as shucked oysters, and shook the clinging cobwebs of dreams from his head. He ran his fingers over his bristled jaw, then back through his snarled hair, not because he cared ’twas tangled, but out of worry. Then he sought out the one who caused him that worry.
She dozed fitfully, twitching beneath plaids that bunched beneath her chin but bared her legs. Her brow was pale and glazed with moisture, and her eyes seemed sunken into her wan face. Her hair hung in damp strands over her shoulders like black seaweed on a sandy shore, and the breath she drew harshly between her lips sounded strained.
For two days he’d tended her, mopping her forehead, drenching her thigh in carmine thistle, trying to draw the poison from her festering wound. He’d dozed only briefly, awakening to every hitch in her breathing, every moan she made in her sleep. He’d never forgive himself if she worsened, and so he willingly cared for her, using the herbs he carried and healing skills honed from many a hunting mishap.
Yet for all his pains, she likely abhorred him. After all, ’twas he who kept her from the peaceful sleep she desired, he who bullied her with stinging elixirs and prodding to leach out the infection. And soon he was sure he’d have to embarrass her again with the indignity of helping her with the jordan. He wouldn’t blame her if she longed to roast him alive when this was over.
But he didn’t dare soften in his treatment of her. If he hoped to heal her, ’twould be only through battle, brutal and ruthless, her hatred be damned.
Gray spots danced before his eyes as he arose, and he realized he’d not eaten in nearly a day. The Father had kindly left a pair of Kate Campbell’s apple tarts this morn, but when Florie refused hers, Rane had forgotten about his as well. And last evening’s supper, Dame Malkin’s cabbage skink in a stale trencher, still sat atop the fridstool. He hadn’t the stomach for food, even now. Yet he knew he must care for himself to be of any use to her.
So he devoured the cold skink, washing it down with the watered ale the Father had brought. The apple tarts he saved for Florie. He might not get her to eat cold cabbage, but no lass he knew could resist apple tarts, especially Kate’s. Like them or not, she would eat today, if he had to stuff the things down her throat.
Steeling himself for another night of unrelenting warfare, he pushed up her skirts to examine the loosely wrapped wound. She murmured a weak protest but didn’t waken as he sliced through the bandage.
Her thigh was still warm to the touch, her body fevered, and the flesh around the puncture was yet swollen with infection. The carmine thistle had done as much as it could. ’Twas time for stronger measures.
His fingers strayed in painful memory to the scar that marked his own flesh in the hollow between his shoulder and his chest. He remembered what needed to be done. He must revive the stoked fire he’d built beside the pond so he could begin boiling water.
He carefully replaced the bandage and spread the plaids over Florie’s limbs. Then he ventured outside.
The steel jordan Father Conan had finally thought to bring served Florie better as a vessel for boiling water, and for once Rane was glad of the priest’s blindness, for if the Father had seen either of his vessels so misappropriated, ’twould have turned his white hair even whiter.
Once the water was set to boil, he added several cloves of garlic from the Father’s overgrown plot of herbs, then returned to the sanctuary to find Florie out from under the plaids and shivering again. He replaced the woolens, leaving her thigh exposed, then drenched a piece of linen with the carmine thistle extract.
She awoke abruptly when he began swabbing the wound, kicking out reflexively and catching him in the ribs. He grunted. By Odin, she had a fierce
kick for such a tiny thing.
“Nae!” she cried, thrashing.
“Hold still,” he said gently.
“Ah, God,” she groaned. “Why do ye torment me?”
Her voice, so puny, so helpless, caught at his heart. But he knew he had to be firm. “I must. ’Tis the cure for your ills.”
“Stay away,” she commanded weakly. “I’m weary o’ your cures.”
He tenderly brushed her forehead with the back of his hand. “I know.”
To his sorrow, she recoiled from his touch. “Just leave me alone,” she breathed.
A muscle jumped along his jaw. ’Twas his doing, all of this. He had shot her. And now he tortured her with painful remedies. But, damn his eyes, he was bound to her. He couldn’t leave her alone.
“Ach, Florie, I’m sorry,” he said. But she was already asleep.
An hour later, trudging back from the pond by twilight, Rane was filled with the same sick feeling he got when he had to finish the work of a careless hunter and put a deer out of its misery. His fingers quaked as he looped the bail of the jordan filled with boiling water over a thick branch to carry it to the church.
Florie still dozed. ’Twas tempting to do what he had to do without preamble. ’Twas the way he hunted. A stag scarcely knew what struck him when Rane let fly his arrow. The lass would awake with a shriek of agony, fighting like a wildcat, but ’twould be over quickly.
Then he remembered the brave lass who’d looked at him with trust in her eyes before he pulled the shaft from her wound. For all her feminine vulnerability, she was a strong lass, a sensible lass, not some unwitting animal he might attack unawares. She’d understand, and she deserved to know.
He set the bowl of still-simmering water on the flagstones, crushed several garlic cloves into it, and dropped in a clean square of linen. Then he unbuckled his belt, the belt that would soon bear two sets of her teeth marks. Finally, swallowing hard, he reached over and gently brushed her cheek with the back of his fingers.
“Florie,” he whispered. “Florie.”
She moaned.
“Wake up.”
Her eyes fluttered open. To his dismay, she averted her gaze as soon as she recognized him. “What do ye want?” Her words were slurred.
“There’s somethin’… I must do.” He plowed his hand through his hair. “I’ll not lie to ye, lass. ’Twill hurt like the devil.”
Her chin trembled, whether with fear or anger, he wasn’t certain. “Everythin’ ye do hurts like the devil.”
He supposed she was right. But ’twas for her own good. On impulse, he tugged apart the laces of his jerkin. “I want ye to see somethin’.” He dragged his shirt down to reveal the jagged scar beside his shoulder.
She glanced sidelong at the spot.
“I was pierced by an arrow once,” he told her. “My wound festered as yours has. Only one thing saved me. ’Tis the same thing I must do for ye.” He compressed his lips. He well remembered his suffering. “Florie, I need ye to be brave.”
That got her attention. She gulped and stared at him. “Why? What are ye goin’ to do?”
He held his belt toward her.
“Nae,” she breathed, fear wetting her already fever-bright eyes. Then she saw the bowl of ominously steaming water and stubbornly set her jaw. “Nae. NAE.”
“I must draw the infection out.”
“Nae!”
“It has to be done.”
“Ye bastard,” she whispered.
Her words cracked his heart. He scowled, dropping his gaze. “Bloody hell, lass,” he ground out in frustration. “Do ye not think if there was another way…”
He could hold her down if he had to. ’Twould be little trouble for him to force her. But he didn’t want to. Though it might mean the difference between life and death for her, still he wanted her consent. And at the moment, he could think of only one way to get it.
He blew out a long breath and shook his head. “I knew I should have done it while ye were unawares,” he told her softly. “Faith, ye’re only a wee lass. I can’t expect ye to be as strong as a man, as strong as I was. After all, ’tisn’t as if—”
“Fine,” she bit out, clamping her trembling lips shut and lifting her chin in a show of courage. “I won’t be bested by a Viking. If ye endured it… then so can I.”
“Ye’re certain?”
Her curt nod relieved him and helped steady his hands for the task ahead.
“But,” she added, “’twill come at a price.”
He stared at her, incredulous. Even under such dire circumstances, Florie bargained like a merchant. “A price?”
“If I hold very still for ye and do not… scream,” she said with quiet bravery, “ye must repay me.”
“I don’t have much coin,” he admitted.
“I’m not askin’ for coin.”
“Then what would ye have?” Anything, he thought. He’d promise her anything. Though he was certain she couldn’t keep her word. Rane himself had writhed in pain from the ordeal. And though she was courageous, she was also frail. “What would ye ask o’ me?”
For a long moment, she only stared at him. Then she whispered weakly, “When my leg is healed and the English are gone… if my foster father doesn’t come for me… help me escape from this place. Take me home to Stirlin’.”
His heart plummeted. He’d expected her to ask for what most maids did—new stockings or a ribbon or the deerskin pouches he liked to make for them. He’d never imagined she’d ask him to betray his lord. Guilt sank over his shoulders like an ox yoke, made heavier by the trust in her eyes, trust he didn’t deserve.
He couldn’t keep such a promise. No matter how much he wanted to. Treating her wounds, seeing her fed, keeping her safe and sheltered were things he could do. But abetting in her flight…
“I pray ye,” she breathed.
He furrowed his brow at her faint entreaty, her wide, vulnerable eyes. Then he cursed silently. Why he troubled himself over the matter he didn’t know. The lass wouldn’t be able to keep her part of the bargain anyway. The moment he held the steaming cloth to her tender flesh, she’d yelp like a cornered vixen. Surely there was no harm then in giving her a hollow promise. “Agreed.”
He proffered his belt again, and now she took it, slipping it between her teeth while tears of apprehension seeped from the corners of her eyes. He blew out a hard breath, steeling himself.
“I’m sorry,” he growled. He carefully exposed her wound. Then he slid his arm along her calf to cup the back of her knee with one hand, tucking her leg firmly beneath his arm and against his side. With the stick, he retrieved the steaming rag from the bowl. When he met her gaze, she gave an infinitesimal nod.
Then, clenching his jaw against the brutality of what he had to do, he slapped the scalding linen to her open wound.
Amazingly, she didn’t scream, though she arched up in pain. He swiftly lunged against her, holding her down with his weight so she couldn’t shake the cloth loose. The skin of her thigh reddened and quivered, and the squeals caught in her throat were like slashes cut across his heart. But she didn’t scream.
A half dozen times he repeated the process, each time holding her tightly as the cloth cooled and her squirming subsided.
When he was finished, tears drenched her cheeks, and her chest convulsed with wrenching breaths that shook him to his core.
He felt like a monster. All he could do was take her in his arms and let her sob out her anguish upon his shoulder.
He rocked her, murmured apologies to her, cupped her head in his hand as her silent tears fell unchecked upon his shirt. He curled her hair behind her ear and swept away her teardrops with his fingers. He stroked her back, soothing her the way one would a heartbroken child. Then his lips grazed the crown of her head and lower, to her forehead, the arch of her brow.
For once, likely because she was exhausted, she didn’t pull away. Indeed, she rested her head against his chest as if he were her fondest companion. And when his lip
s moved lower still, touching the bridge of her nose, her head tipped back against his shoulder in surrender.
He never intended to kiss her.
Seduction was the furthest thing from his mind.
But the fiery fever of her skin begged for the cool brush of his mouth, and she made no protest as he pressed his lips upon her closed eyes, then along her cheekbone. Sweeping one hand along her neck, he lifted her chin with his thumb and, hesitating only a moment, kissed her full on the mouth.
It began as a sweet kiss, a kiss of atonement from him, a kiss of yielding from her. But as she melted against him, her fervid lips seemed to sear him with their touch, as if she repaid him in kind for the torture he’d dealt her. He felt her restraint dissolve as she branded his mouth again and again, snagging her fingers in the front of his shirt and making feminine moans.
Her rising passion fueled his own desires, and soon his hands moved with schooled instinct over her body, threading through her hair, caressing her face, tracing the curve of her hip. Her response was so ardent and so unexpected that, like a stag shot through the heart with a hunter’s shaft, he was felled by a bolt of raging lust. He felt the most overwhelming, ungentlemanly urge to pin her down again, to toss up her skirts, and sink his aching dagger into her maiden’s body.
But, God help him, he was not a monster.
And she was not herself.
Breathless, he broke off the kiss.
She gave a soft mewl of protest that he pretended not to hear. Instead, he merely held her against his pounding heart, saying nothing, until her breathing slowed and she succumbed to her fatigue.
His mind, however, was far from silent. Conflicting emotions warred within him: guilt and lust, compassion and self-loathing, shame and wonder.
He hadn’t imagined her ardor. Even now his lips tingled from her greedy kisses. She had wanted him. She had reached for him. Her desire, like a flaming arrow fired into a hayfield, had sparked his own, and now unquenched fire raged through him.