Courage Of A Highlander_Lairds of Dunkeld Series

by Emilia Ferguson

  Abruptly, the lilting, colloquial tone disappeared from the old noblewoman's voice. “Right,” she said. “We need to get a kettle on. Rubina? You set some water on the fire. Miss Marguerite? Fetch the tansy out of the rafters there.”

  “The...oh!” Marguerite saw the direction of the older woman's gaze. She was staring up at a bunch of gray-green foliage hanging from the rafters. Marguerite, tall and nimble, shinned up the stool and untied it. “Here, my lady.”

  Lady Joanna sniffed dryly. “You're scared of me. No need to ‘my lady’ me to hide it. I'm not a witch, whatever people think. Now. Put that in the water.”

  Marguerite gulped. If she really could read minds, she might at least try not to make it so disconcerting! Shaking her head at herself, she started to take handfuls of the leaves. The old lady was whispering to Mara, who left.

  “Where's she going?” Rubina asked as she directed Marguerite about how much to add.

  Lady Joanna grinned. “To get the patient.”

  Marguerite and Rubina looked at each other. Rubina gave her a friendly grin.

  “Grandma doesn't like to have to argue with the priests,” she said.

  “The priests think Grandma is a witch,” Grandma dryly interjected. “And the last thing I need is a battle of wills with them. I'll not fight about clearing my name when they're the only ones who sullied it in the beginning.”

  Rubina nodded. “Yes, Grandma.”

  “And another thing. That daughter of yours. I think when she grows up – if she grows up, if you don't spoil her to death first – she'll have the sight.”

  “Oh?”

  Marguerite felt a prickle of hairs rise on her neck, watching Rubina's reaction to that information. The sight was a gift passed down the ancient female line of Lochlann, of which Rubina was part. Not every woman received it, though. Rubina herself had not. Strange, then, that little Joanna would have been the one to get it. Or not so strange, she thought, given her namesake.

  “Ah, Mara,” Grandma said suddenly. “There you are.”

  Marguerite instantly lost all focus on her friend, her relations or the disturbing prophecy involving her. A resonant voice spoke from the doorway.

  “I should go to the infirmary. I don't deem myself fit for privileged treatment. I...”

  Marguerite's eyes hung on that pale, gray-lipped face. He was clearly in a lot of pain and trying not to succumb, and Marguerite's heart reached out toward him even as she wanted to smile. You big stubborn fool. She covered her grin even as she stepped forward.

  “You can go and assuage your guilt and get gangrene then,” Lady Joanna briskly retorted. “I find the two are quite similar in their nature – gangrene rots the flesh and guilt rots the joy of your life.”

  That silenced all of them then.

  Even Mara, who was reaching for a pestle and mortar to grind a salve, looked surprised, and then turned quickly away – either shocked or trying not to smile. Marguerite couldn't tell. She just stared at Sean, who was swaying on his feet, gray-faced and shocked. She carried on staring at him, trying to will her strength into him.

  Sean looked back. In that moment, the space between them dissolved. His brown eyes met hers and locked. His lips moved, as if he wanted to say something. Marguerite felt her heart ache to help him. It felt as if he was looking right into her soul.

  Lady Joanna sniffed dryly, the sound shocking Marguerite out of her reverie. “Right. Rubina, how's that tansy coming on?”

  “Well, Grandma.” Rubina, of them all, sounded cheerful. “I think it's ready when you need it.”

  “Good.”

  “My lady, I...” Sean said, starting his objections again.

  Lady Joanna focused her withering stare. “Just what I need. A noisy patient. Mara, if he talks again, put that Valerian under his tongue. Bit of that ought to knock him out.”

  The gaunt, skull-like woman said it in a mirthless monotone. All the same, Rubina giggled. The black eyes shot a look at her, warning, and then Lady Joanna laughed.

  “Och, lass,” she grinned, “I'll no' put the lad to sleep really. Just threatening. He has to be awake to do the treatment.”

  Marguerite winced as Lady Joanna took hold of Sean's wrist. Her thoughts of everything else washed away in her concern for him as she saw him flinch and his lip go white as he bit down on it.

  “Aye, it's strained, eh?” Lady Joanna said. Sticking for the moment with her colloquial accent, she inclined her head to Rubina. “Bring that tea here, lass. It's to stick his arm in while we try to set it. Reduce the swelling while we work, so we will.”

  Marguerite found herself standing against the wall, feeling ineffectual but interested, as her friend, Lady Joanna and Mara all clustered round Sean. His wrist was immersed in the warm water, infused with tansy, while Lady Joanna worked on his wrist. Marguerite would have enjoyed watching the process in a more detached way – she was interested in medical things and spent time with the priests at her father's house, listening to their discourse on medicine. Now, her interests were all personal. All focused on the patient. Sean was pale and sweat stood out on his brow, and, as the older woman gripped his wrist and twisted firm and hard, he yelled in torment.

  Marguerite felt her own heart flinch as his wrist gave a wringing snap that even she could here. He slumped forward, white faced.

  “That's better, eh?” Lady Joanna nodded. “Now. We'll strap his shoulder and send him off to rest. And that rib can do with strapping. Not broken, I think. But it'll swell like the blazes were in it if we leave it to its own devices, eh?”

  Marguerite watched, round-eyed, as the dignified seer and Mara worked on Sean. Rubina was helping them, holding him in place while they bandaged his shoulder with some complicated-seeming strapping.

  “I can help,” she said softly. Lady Joanna heard her.

  “Right, lass. Hold him steady. I'll get the shoulder where it should be...there. Hold him still.”

  Marguerite laid her hand on his shoulder, feeling a shock thrill through her as she touched his hard, lean body. She felt his pulse jump under her fingers and felt a delicious warmth flood her, making her womb tingle, as she thought about it.

  I never dreamed to feel such closeness to him.

  She looked into his eyes and he looked back, his brown gaze unwavering. Close and strong, that gaze held hers and it felt as if her heart touched his.

  She could feel the thready, slippery jolt of his pulse as the seer bound the bandage tight around his wrist and then his shoulder. She could see the throb of the blood vessels in his neck, pale green against the paler skin. She could even see the softness of his hair and had to fight the urge to touch its satin-smoothness.

  He moaned and, as the team of Joanna and Mara moved down to his ribs, his eyes met hers. Marguerite swallowed hard. In their level stare was such a look of love that her heart almost melted. She felt like she was floating. She smiled.

  “Almost done down here,” the seer informed them, breaking her reverie. “Now. I'll need a salve of arnica made up to treat this swelling. Rubina? You know where I keep the dried plants. Fetch it, will you? Mara? You can make the salve. Marguerite? Take the patient out.”

  Marguerite stared at her. She supposed it was logical to assign her – the one person with no expertise in herbal craft – to do the easy job. All the same, though, it seemed almost as if she knew this was something her heart longed to do.

  “Y...yes, my lady.”

  Joanna made a noise that sounded like a snort, but she was looking down at her work when she did it, so it was hard to tell whether it was meant to be derisive or gentle. Then she looked into that pale, gaunt face and her thoughts all flew away.

  “Come on,” she said gently. “Let me help you to your room.”

  Sean swallowed hard. “No, I mean...no, my lady. I can walk unaided. I'm sure I...” He stood, stumbled and sat down, hissing through clenched teeth.

  “Tell him, Marguerite,” Joanna sniffed. “Stubbornness makes a long recovery. You
want to never regain full use of your shoulder? Do what you're doing.”

  Marguerite blinked. “Come on, Sean,” she said gently. “Let's go.”

  Sean nodded. He clenched his lip in his teeth and stood. Marguerite clutched his arm as he wobbled. Sean tensed and she would have let go, but for the voice out of the darkness.

  “That's it, Marguerite. Keep him on his feet. Slow and steady.”

  Marguerite nodded, tightened her grip on his thick, muscled arm and headed out.

  In the hallway, Sean stopped dead. He looked into her face. His mouth was stern but his deep, dark eyes held another message. They glowed.

  “Marguerite,” he said quietly. “I can manage. Truly.”

  “Oh, Sean,” Marguerite said softly. “I can help.”

  “No,” he said gently. “No. It's better if I just go. Come on now. I promise I won't do it any more harm.”

  “Very well,” Marguerite swallowed hard. She unclenched her hand from his arm. He looked into her eyes.

  Gently, very deliberately, he stroked her cheek. Just as he had on the practice-field, when she had been crying. He smiled at her. His eyes were so soft and gentle.

  Then, just as suddenly, he moved his hand away and let it drop to his side. He turned and headed off, limping, toward the stairs.

  “Goodnight,” he called. “Please convey my thanks to Lady Joanna and also Lady Rubina. I am surpassing grateful for their work.”

  Gulping, Marguerite swallowed the lump in her throat. Then, eyes blinded with tears, she turned and headed briskly down the hallway.

  Infernal, wretched man! Why did he insist on confusing and misleading her? Why was it that she never knew where she stood?

  Sniffing angrily, she turned and walked away along the corridor, skirt swishing behind her. She clenched her fingers together, but no matter how she wrung them, she could not make them forget the sweet sensation of his pulse. Moreover, no matter how many tears flowed down her face, it would not wash away the softness of his fingertips, gently tracing tear-tracks down her cheek.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MAKING CHOICES

  MAKING CHOICES

  Sean woke in his own bed in his own chamber. His shoulder hurt. His ribs ached. His wrist, when he flexed it, was raw fire. He groaned.

  “Bollocks.” He stared up at the ceiling and tried to calculate how long, roughly, it would take for his wounds to heal. He guessed a month.

  Bollocks and more bollocks.

  He was just working up to a fizz of irritability when he heard a step in the hallway and looked out, seeing a white dress flicker in the darkness there. Marguerite? He tensed.

  He recalled seeing her the day before. He could almost have sworn she was an angel and he had safely passed over to the realm of death. She had looked so beautiful! The touch of her hand on his skin was something that would stay with him in every waking moment. While his whole soul ached to see her, he knew he was being ridiculous. He couldn't let himself in like this. Irmengard had trodden on his heart's gentle places, crushing them dead.

  Oh, aye? he mocked himself. What happened yesterday, then? When she held your shoulder and time stood still for you? He had been so close to kissing her, in that moment – so close to losing his heart. He didn't want to. Closing his eyes, he lay back on the bolster and pretended to be asleep. The white dress in the hallway slowed, and then stopped.

  “Sean?”

  Sean felt the sweet voice cut into his heart and he simply couldn't stay still and ignore that gentle summons. “Marguerite?” he said. He opened his eyes.

  He found himself staring into her eyes. She had a little worried frown on her brow, and he felt his own lips lift in a smile.

  “Sean!” she smiled softly back. “How are you?” she asked. Her voice was low and grave.

  “Better,” he replied. He sat up, winced, and lay down again. Why in perdition did his poor ribs have to ache so?

  “That sounded like it hurt,” she countered.

  He felt his cheeks lift in a grin. “I guess I'm not very convincing, am I? It did hurt, a bit.”

  “Oh! Poor Sean...”

  At once, she was at his bedside. Sean tensed as she reached over, her hand feeling down his chest for the crack in his ribs. He felt his whole body respond urgently to her touch. When she leaned over him like this, he could see the pale, soft expanse of her cleavage. It aroused him.

  He winced again, though this time in discomfort. If she saw the way his groin lurched the instant her small, pale hand contacted his chest, she would be horrified.

  Just as well I'm in bed.

  “I'm not in pain,” he managed to say. He grinned lopsidedly.

  “Poor Sean,” Marguerite continued. “I don't believe you.”

  When he didn't respond, she frowned. Standing, she took away her hand, seeming flustered. “Well, I think we can make it better,” she said in a small voice. “Lady Joanna promised to visit soon and bring some salve to ease your rib. She's sure it's broken.”

  “I think so, too,” Sean nodded. He tried to keep his own voice carefully neutral.

  “I suppose you could do with some fresh air,” she added, now turning away. Her demeanor had already changed – from the initial open sweetness she had shifted to a cool neutral tone. Sean felt his heart ache even as he felt glad that he'd managed to put her off. It's better to keep a distance between us.

  He sat up on the bolsters. He watched her as she flitted over to the window, her long, golden hair loose and glowing in the firelight. How he would love to touch that soft hair, love to hold that narrow waist that was hugged so tight by the gown. However, to do so would mean putting his heart in her hands. He wasn't about to do that.

  She moved the tapestry away from the window arch, letting in a flood of light and fresh, fragrant air. “There,” she said, turning round to face him. There was softness in those brown eyes, something that said to him, I care about you.

  He winced and bit his lip. He didn't want to know that. “Thank you,” he said, breathing in deeply. “It's good to have clean air in here.”

  “I think so,” she said. Then she grinned, a real grin that brightened her eyes. “There are two schools of thought about that. Some physicians say air should be purified by fire, so it's better just to breathe air from indoors. Others say fresh air is better.” She shrugged slim shoulders. “Myself, I am inclined to believe the second school; that is, that of Paracelsus. The Hermetics think fresh air has poisons in it.”

  Sean stared at her. “You know a lot, my lady. I never even heard of Para...what you said. Or Hermetics and stuff.”

  “Paracelsus.” She grinned. Then she colored and looked at her hands. “It's unseemly for a girl, I know. I just can't help hearing these things and recalling them. Silly, isn't it?” She followed that dismissal with a forced laugh.

  “No. It's not silly. I like it. Imagine if all men just fought and all women just sewed! We'd have a world clogged with tapestries and casualties and nothing would get done.”

  She laughed aloud. “Oh, Sean. I like the way you see things,” she giggled. “You're very refreshing.”

  Sean smiled. For the first time, when he looked into her eyes, he had a sense that she was truly smiling at him, truly connecting. His heart soared. “Thank you,” he said.

  They stood like that, with her looking into his eyes. He felt as if the whole world settled in that gaze. Like that moment in the still-room, when she’d touched him and a thousand feelings flowed through him, making his heart soar.

  Then she coughed, looking at her hands. The moment broke. Sean felt bereft, as if a priceless glass from Venice had fallen, shattering into a thousand sparking shards. At that moment, he would do anything to have her look into his eyes like that again.

  She kept looking down, though, her face colored as if she was ashamed of herself.

  He cleared his throat. He had to say something. “Um, milady?”

  “Yes?” she asked in a gentle voice.

  “I should thank
you for looking in on me. And looking after me yesterday,” he added.

  “It's nothing. Truly.”

  “No,” he said. “It means a great deal to me.”

  When she looked into his eyes again, the connection was deep and true. “Thank you, Sir Sean.”

  Sean sighed. The ache in his heart was immediately followed by a stern reprimand from his head. Not too close. Not yet. Not now. Why do you trust her?

  “Sorry, milady,” he said, coloring. “I should find the privy closet.” He didn't actually need it, but it seemed the best way to be rid of her.

  “Oh!” Her hands flew to her cheeks in embarrassment. “Of course, sir! We should have thought of that. If you follow the hallway, it's on the left opposite the stairwell.”

  “Thank you,” Sean said. “I'll hie off there then,” he added with a wry attempt at a smile.

  “Of course,” Marguerite nodded. She swallowed and looked at the floor again, tension in every line of her. “I'll leave you now.”

  “Thank you for your help,” he said.

  “Not at all.”

  She disappeared hastily through the door, leaving him alone.

  Once she had gone, Sean struggled into an upright position. While he slid his legs to the edge of the bed and stood, he hissed as his ribs ached.

  “Stupid me,” he told himself, standing and stumbling toward the window. “How could I be so open? Next thing I know, I'll have lost my heart all over again.”

  Maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing. If he was honest, he'd loved Marguerite from afar since first he met her, two months ago at the ball. However, he was not ready to fall in love again. The moment he thought it, his mind sent him another message.

  Marguerite is nothing like Irmengard.

  It was true. He knew it was. Even the way Marguerite was being now was nothing like Irmengard had been. When he was injured in a bout, she'd been furious with him. She had simply walked past him, he recalled, and then not spoken to him for a week. At the time, his friends had tried to jolly him out of it, but he'd been ashamed. He'd let her down, humiliated her in front of her friends.