“Go!” he roared at her as he swung his sword in a death blow to the kneeled guard’s stomach while Eve ran past the two of them. The knight’s eyes went wide as he dropped his sword and fell face-first to land at Grant’s feet.
Relief gripped Grant once more, but then Ross bellowed from behind him, “Eve, nay!”
Grant turned, seeing only a blur of Eve launching herself in front of him. She grunted and fell into him, crumpling into his arms. He gripped her to him, and shock froze him for a breath. Then rage unlike anything he’d ever known flooded his veins, surging from his heart to his limbs. He looked up and saw a horseman riding toward them, bow drawn, and behind the man, in the distance, Decres’s men rode hard toward them while Ross, to Grant’s shock, fled past him.
Grant jerked his gaze away from Ross and back to Eve. Her eyes were closed, and she was limp in his arms. When he moved his hand to her back, he felt an arrow protruding from her body. Fear ripped through him, shredding him.
“Unhand my niece!” Decres roared as he approached. The horrified look that swept his face when he looked at Eve told Grant that Decres hadn’t realized he’d missed his target and shot Eve instead. Grant kneeled, laid Eve down, and came up with his sword in his hand.
“My men will reach us before you can strike me and get away,” Decres shouted.
“Ye have nae ever seen how fast I can kill a man,” Grant snarled, shifting his sword from his right to his left hand while drawing his dagger with his right. He jerked it up, and threw it straight at Decres’s black heart. It stuck true, and the man was falling forward to his death as Grant was bending to reach for Eve. When he came up, Ross galloped toward him, leading Grant’s horse.
“Ye did nae think I’d left ye, did ye?” Ross asked.
Grant snapped his jaw closed as he laid Eve across the destrier and mounted behind her. “Thank ye,” he breathed to his friend as they turned the horses and rode toward freedom.
Chapter Fifteen
“Will she die?” Grant asked, hovering behind Esme, who was the healer of the clan and was bent over Eve, tending to her puncture wound. Esme had sent everyone else, including a loudly protesting Clara and a grumbling Thomas and Allisdair from the room. His sister worked best alone, but she had not even attempted to make him leave. A good thing, too, as he would not have parted from Eve no matter if the king himself ordered it. He looked down at Eve, and his gut twisted. A sheen of perspiration covered her brow, and she was white as the thick fog that covered the rolling hills in the morning. She could not die. He could not fail to have protected yet another person he cared for.
Cared for. The term was not enough to describe the depth of emotion that Eve evoked. She stirred a storm inside him that threatened to destroy him if he lost her. He could not explore the myriad soft emotions trying to break through the barrier he was desperate to hold in place. He could not face the tenderness, the longing, the lo—He blocked the thought before it could fully form. His pulse pounded, as did his temples. Hollowness filled him. “Will she die?” he asked again, his voice a whisper.
“I kinnae say, Brother. She’s caught in the throes of a fever. How long did ye say she’s been like this?”
Had he said? Tiredness made his thoughts feel like sludge. They had journeyed from Linlithian to Dithorn in a day when it normally took two. He’d never ridden so hard or so fast, and he’d fled for his life many a time. They’d lost the Decres knights who had been pursuing them soon after reaching the woods. Eve’s men, for they were Eve’s men by rights, were not well trained in tracking men. He’d rectify that once he took the castle back in Eve’s name.
“Grant?” Esme asked, her fingertips brushing his shoulder. “Go take a respite. Ye kinnae aid Eve at the moment, and ye are barely standing on yer own two feet.”
“She’s been like this since midafternoon yesterday,” he said, only just remembering he had not answered his sister’s question.
Esme nodded. “If fever is going to set in, ’tis about the time it takes to do so.”
Eve moaned just then and thrashed her arms. He bent down beside her and set his hand to her forehead. “Shh, Eve,” he whispered, his chest squeezing. “I’m here.” Immediately, she stilled, and he relaxed.
“Ye care for her,” Esme said, the awe in her voice apparent. He nodded, too damned tired to deny it to his sister, even though it was private. He’d not even explored it, the deep endless cavern of it, himself. A powerful ache took hold of his chest and squeezed until he took a shuddering breath.
“Don’t leave me,” Eve cried out, thrashing her arms once more. “Don’t leave me, don’t leave me.”
Grant gripped her wrists in a gentle hold and placed her arms by her sides as he whispered to her. “I’ll nae ever leave ye, ye wee stubborn lass. Dunnae ye leave me.” Eve sighed and stilled once more, but he frowned at the searing heat from her body. He glanced at his sister. “Is there nae anything we can do to ease her discomfort?”
“Sometimes cool baths help,” Esme said. “I can—”
“Nay, I wish to do it,” he said. “Tell me what to do.”
“Simply dip a rag in cool water and run it over her skin.” Esme walked to the washbasin and brought it to him. Grant pulled the bedcoverings down past Eve’s long, slender legs. She was wearing only a thin léine, and the outline of her lush breasts and curve of her hips through the linen made him want to run his hands over her body and worship her. Protect her. “Eve,” he whispered close to her ear, “I vow I’ll nae ever let harm come to ye again,” he said as he lifted the léine to drag the cool rag over her taut belly.
“Such a promise is impossible to keep, Grant,” Esme said, “and she would nae like to be treated as if helpless.”
“Nae helpless,” he corrected. “Protected. I promised her that I’d teach her to defend herself, and she vowed to me that she’d nae go courting trouble, a vow she broke immediately.”
Esme scowled at him. “Only a man would see a woman saving his life as the woman courting trouble. Did ye want her to stand there and watch as the arrow her uncle shot at ye struck true?”
“Aye,” he said, his temper flaring. “That’s exactly what I wanted, since it meant her risking her life otherwise. ’Tis my duty to protect her, and ’tis her duty to stay alive!” he thundered, an image of his mother coming unbidden to his mind. He turned away from Esme’s probing stare and dipped the rag in the cool water once more, then trailed it up each of Eve’s arms before laying it on her forehead.
Esme kneeled beside him. He could feel her looking at him, but he kept his stare on Eve. For one, he wanted to see any change in his wife that might occur. But also, Esme had the uncanny ability to read people’s inner thoughts sometimes, and he’d rather keep his plaguing guilt over his mother’s death to himself.
“If that is the only duty ye allow her, Grant, she will grow to hate ye. The two of ye will nae ever have a marriage of love.”
Love? The word struck a chord deep in him. It echoed in his ears and reverberated in his mind. He could not love her. He could not allow it. Clenching his teeth, he fought against the rise of emotions in him once more. Devil take it. He wasn’t sure he wanted any part of such a thing. Just caring for Eve had made him crazed. What would love do? He’d loved his mother, and losing her had sent him reeling for months and had changed him forever. Loving Eve would be even worse. He knew it to the depths of his soul.
“I dunnae need love,” he choked out, the feeling that he could not breathe gripping him once more. “We have desire, and I like her, certainly—”
Esme snorted at that. “Ye fool yerself.”
Possibly. Hell, quite probably. But all his warrior instincts told him to fight the tide of his feelings for Eve, a tide that was threatening to sweep him away. “Then let me,” he finally ground out when Esme poked him.
“Grant Fraser,” Esme growled, “just why do ye think Mother went to our enemy clan to aid them?”
“Foolishness,” he snapped as he ran the cool, wet rag
over Eve’s legs now. She kicked out then; she would have kicked him in the face if he hadn’t caught her ankle gently and lowered her leg to the bed.
“That’s yer wife stating her opinion,” Esme said, matter-of-fact.
“She can have all the opinions she wants, but I’m her husband and her laird, and she will obey my orders.”
“Mother liked to feel needed, and Da made her feel useless,” Esme went on, ignoring him. “He allowed her nothing but trivial duties, and her mind and spirit were too great for that.” His sister met his eyes. “Eve is like Mother.”
He looked away and studied Eve, half-amazed at how simply looking at her made his chest ache and half-concerned that she had such an effect on him. Eve was very similar to his mother in many ways. “I’ll make her feel important,” he vowed aloud. She did not need to be a warrior to feel important. Running the castle was a great duty, and his wife would be the one to oversee it all.
Esme yawned. “Are ye certain ye dunnae want to lie down?”
He nodded, brushing a loose tendril of hair from Eve’s damp forehead. “I want to be here if she needs me.”
“Because ye care for her much more than ye are admitting to me or yerself,” Esme said to his annoyance. He waved a hand at her, and she chuckled. “I’ll return in the morning, but if ye need me or if her fever increases”—her voice dropped low with concern—“come rouse me immediately. There’s a root called bane weed that I can give her if truly needed. It has been known to aid fever, but it also carries a great risk of making a woman unable to bear children. I myself have had to give it to two women, and neither of them have conceived a child since taking it.”
He nodded, praying to God he did not have to make that choice for Eve, for he knew how he’d choose.
After Esme left his bedchamber, he dipped the cloth in the water and gently drew down Eve’s léine to sponge her chest, neck, and face. Unexpected desire stirred deep within him, but he pushed it away. It would be a long while before he allowed himself to touch his wife. He would ensure all of her strength had returned first, so she did not overtax herself and have a setback as Loranna, Simon’s late wife, had. She had been injured, and seemed to be recovering, so she took up her duties at the castle once more, and her fever had returned and became so severe that she died.
Grant dropped the rag into the water basin, leaned back in the chair, and closed his eyes, recalling the past. Grant had thought Simon indifferent to Loranna’s death, as his brother had left while she had been sick, and Loranna and Simon had been estranged. But he’d discovered later that Simon had not actually known how much danger Loranna had been in from the fever. Grant turned his right arm over to look at the inside of his wrist where the brand he’d given himself was. He traced his finger over the mark.
God, how he’d wanted to be in his brother’s circle of renegades, but Simon had kept him out to protect him, almost to the detriment of their relationship. He’d thought Simon a traitor because Simon had kept what he was doing a secret for so long. Thank God they had reconciled before he’d died. Still, Grant balled his hands into fists. They’d lost much time as true brothers due to the rift, and for that, Grant was to blame. But he would avenge his brother. He had not forgotten the MacDougalls or what they had done. He would not let Simon down again. He would get vengeance, but it would be carefully achieved so as not to put any of his men in unnecessary danger. And his first order of business would be to go to Linlithian and establish himself as the new lord. It should be a simple matter of returning there with Eve by his side, but he was not such a fool as to go without a contingent of men to hold order against any of Decres’s knights who may not wish Grant as their new lord.
Nor was he so naive as to simply believe it would be that easy when the matter relied on King Edward keeping his word to acknowledge Eve as the rightful heir. He’d seen the English king break his vows to men too many times, to take back land he had given or castles that had long belonged to families, merely because it pleased him to do so. No, Grant needed to be prepared for the worst possible scenario: that he would have to battle the Decres knights, King Edward, and quite possibly the MacDougalls, for control of Linlithian.
The images he’d noted while at Linlithian rolled through his mind now. He sat with his eyes closed, the need for sleep tugging at him, but he battled it by recalling all the details that would be useful in seizing the castle. Now that Frederick Decres was dead, the king would make a move. Grant had hoped to take Linlithian before the king had even been aware of what he was doing and establish Eve there to hopefully gain the trust and favor of the men who once served her father, but that opportunity was likely now gone.
He knew King Edward was not far from Linlithian, and the Decres knights would surely send a messenger to him before Grant could return with Eve, or even Clara in Eve’s place if she was too weak to travel.
With nothing but time, he lay there carefully considering how to take Linlithian by force and how to win over the Decres warriors—or banish them from the castle, if necessary. And then he turned his mind to Eve’s sister, Mary. He wanted to reunite Eve with her, if possible, and in order to do that, he needed to know all the details of the night that Eve had last seen her. He would ask Eve, of course, but she was young and had likely forgotten much. But Clara might remember something useful. Next time he spoke with her, he’d question her about it.
Eve stirred suddenly and then moaned, but it was different from before. Grant’s eyes flew open, and he sat upright, reaching for her hand. She whimpered in her sleep when he touched it, and then she snatched her hand back, curled into a ball, and began to shriek.
“Eve!” He shoved out of his chair and thought to take her in his arms, but she cried out even louder when he touched her again. Stark fear battered him as he looked between Eve and the door. He had to get Esme, but he didn’t want to leave Eve alone.
The door crashed open with a bang, and Thomas ran in. “What is it? What’s wrong with Eve?”
“Fetch Esme!” Grant barked, not even questioning what Thomas had been doing lurking at the door.
His younger brother nodded and hurried out of the room. Grant turned his attention back to Eve, reaching for her again but stopping short of touching her. He didn’t want to cause her any more pain. She writhed and moaned on the bed, now clutching her skull.
“My head!” she bellowed. “You are splitting my head in two!”
“Eve, hold on,” Grant urged, feeling as if worry was shredding him.
“Stand back,” Esme demanded as she pushed past him with Clara at her side. She set a hand to Eve’s forehead and hissed. “The fever is much, much worse, Brother. I fear…I fear it will kill her.” She turned to Grant with tear-filled eyes. “I brought the root. What do ye want me to do?”
Grant returned his gaze to Eve, skimming over Thomas, who was standing there gaping, and Clara, whose face was drained of all color. “Give it to her,” he choked out, a numbness descending upon him.
“Ye recall what I said—”
He waved Esme to silence. “Aye. Eve’s life means more to me than an heir she might give me.”
Grant did not miss the relief that passed over his sister’s face or Clara’s rush of breath that she pushed from her lungs. Had the women doubted that he would choose Eve over an heir?
“Hold her by the shoulders,” Esme ordered.
Grant did as she said, and Esme pried Eve’s jaw open, dropped the tiny bits of root into her mouth, then held a wine goblet to her lips and tilted a bit of liquid in. She shut Eve’s mouth and held it closed as Eve fought her. Clara moved to Eve’s other side and whispered reassuring things to her. When Eve finally settled, Esme released her and then indicated for Grant to do so, as well, but as he did, tears began to leak from Eve’s eyes.
Guilt stabbed at him. Would she be angry when she learned the truth or would she understand that it had been the only way?
“She will understand eventually,” Clara said, as if she’d read his mind. “After
the pain of discovering she will likely not have a child passes, she will understand.”
He nodded, appreciating Clara’s kind words, but all he wanted now was to be with Eve. “Leave us, please,” he commanded Esme, Thomas, and Clara, glad that they immediately obeyed. Grant sat staring at Eve, who panted with pain. A physical need to touch her burned inside him like a fire raging out of control, but he held himself still until the panting ceased, and she lay there, still as the dead.
His heart nearly stopped at the thought. He carefully put his finger under her nose, and her warm breath wafted over his skin. Abruptly, she turned on her side at the edge of the bed, and he gently lay down beside her, tentatively touching first her back and then her shoulder, arm, and hip. When she sighed and scooted back toward him, he trembled with relief. He moved closer to her, and gently encircled her in his protective embrace.
“Ye are a fighter, Wife,” he whispered into her hair. “Now if only I can make ye a listener, I think we will be verra happy.”
He lay there, listening to her deep, steady inhales and exhales, and gratefulness that Eve had lived made his throat tighten and his eyes water. God’s teeth, the woman made him soft as dough. He’d have to work on that. But sleep, which he’d not had in what seemed like forever, beckoned to him now with his wife nestled in his arms, resting peacefully. So finally, he allowed himself to give in to the desperate need, breathing her freesia scent as he drifted toward oblivion.
“Grant?” Bryden’s voice came from the door as he knocked.
Grant carefully rose from the bed and made his way to the door, opening it and stepping into the passageway.
“How is Eve?” Bryden asked.
“Better,” Grant replied, a rush of relief tingling through him.
“I’ve news ye are nae going to like.”
“Get on with it,” Grant said, impatient to return to Eve. She was his main concern at the moment. Though, God’s truth, as laird, the clan should always come first; he could not make it so in his mind.
Highland Avenger Page 19