Her own thoughts made Lucy pause as she realized how far she had sunk. She’d stolen a dress, fed a youth to Tearlach the other night, and now planned to find and feed a woman to him too. Surely she was going to hell.
Nay, her mind argued at once. She had stolen the dress out of necessity. Besides she could give it back after Tearlach had fed on the woman. As for feeding him the youth and now this woman...well he had fed from Lucy herself and it had done her no harm that she could see. She was alive and well, her soul still intact as far as she could tell. As were all the others he’d fed on. The only person who had been killed was the man now blocking the doorway of the bothy and he’d died from a sword through the chest in a fair battle after trying to force her to go with him.
Speaking of the man in the doorway, she suddenly realized she would have to move him. She could hardly leave him there to draw the attention of anyone passing. The very idea of the effort needed for the task was enough to make Lucy sag where she stood. She was so tired.
Suddenly overwhelmed by it all, Lucy paused and rested the tip of the sword in the dirt, then lowered her head and wearily closed her eyes. Just a moment, she told herself. She would rest for just one moment and then go in search of the woman.
“You bitch.”
That soft hiss brought her head up with a start. Lucy stared wide-eyed at the man now standing in the bothy doorway. The sun was behind him, casting his features in shadow and for one mad moment, she was sure the soldier had risen from the dead to smite her. But then she realized the man filling the doorway stood with his feet planted on either side of the fallen man. It was the second man from the clearing, and he was furious, she saw as he shifted and his stark glare was briefly caught by sunlight. She watched warily as he peered down at his dead comrade, noting with dread that his sword was out, clutched in a tight, white-knuckled hold.
Her eyes were still on the hand holding the sword when it started to move upward. Heart leaping, Lucy instinctively lifted Tearlach’s sword as the man stepped over his friend and rushed her. She was too slow, however, or perhaps it was fairer to say that he was simply faster. She barely had the tip of the sword off the ground before he slapped it away with his own, sending Tearlach’s weapon flying. Trinket whinnied and scooted out of the way of the flying missile. However, it really was tight quarters and she was forced to leap over the prone man in the doorway and out of the bothy to escape it.
Rather than move closer to Tearlach to escape the man, when he continued forward Lucy shifted into the space Trinket had been filling just moments ago. It took them both away from Tearlach and also drew her closer to the sword and a bit of wood leaning up against the wall at her back. They were the only weapons in the hut and she had no doubt she was going to need a weapon. The Scot she faced appeared to be in a cold rage over the death of his comrade. She didn’t like the way he was brandishing that sword.
“It took me a bit o’ time to realize who Hamish meant when he said, ‘’Tis her,’ the man growled, following her step by step. “But he was at the inn when ye were taken and talked endlessly about ye when he returned to Rosscurrach with the others. Goin’ on about yer pretty blond hair and yer full lips, the kind that put pictures in a mon’s head.”
Lucy risked a glance back, trying to place the distance to the piece of wood she had her hopes on.
“Had he just said ye were Lady Blytheswood, I’d ha’e been hard on his heels, but he didnae and by the time I sorted it oot, the two o’ ye were well ahead o’ me. I had to track ye...else I’d ha’e been here in time to save him.”
Lucy stumbled slightly as her foot came down on Tearlach’s sword, but she kept her balance and forced her shoulders straight as she said, “Aye. I am Lady Blytheswood. The woman your laird’s partner Wymon Carbonnel wishes to marry. You would do well not to harm me.”
She wasn’t encouraged when this brought a short, angry laugh from the man. “The last I heard, Carbonnel wants ye back dead or alive. I’m thinkin’ it’ll be dead.” He smiled coldly and withdrew a sgian dubh from his waist even as he tossed his sword aside. “But first I’ll be makin’ ye pay fer killing Hamish. He was a big stupid oaf but he was me friend and I’ll enjoy makin’ ye sorry ye killed him.”
He lunged for her then, but Lucy had already reached back for the wood and now swung it around, aiming for his head. The wood connected with a crack that echoed in the small hut and the man stumbled back, a stunned look on his face as his hand rose to the wound she’d given him.
Lucy would have hit him again then, but she’d swung the wood one-handed and the impact had made it vibrate painfully in her hand. She almost dropped the weapon, but managed to get her second hand on it and hold on. Before she could deliver a second blow, however, the soldier recovered enough to launch himself at her. Lucy grunted in pain and fell back as he crashed into her. Her head hit the ground hard enough that Lucy lost her hold on the wood she’d been using as a weapon, but she hardly noticed the loss as pain radiated through her stomach as the Scot followed her down.
His full weight only rested on her a minute before he pushed his upper body up and away from her to peer down the length of them. When he turned his gaze back to her face there was an unholy satisfaction to his expression.
“Are ye sorry yet?” he panted with a vile grin.
Lucy stared back with incomprehension, and then glanced down as he had done. Her eyes widened and her breath grew shallow as she saw his knife impaled in her upper stomach. He’d stabbed her as he tackled her, that and not his weight had been the source of pain.
“Nay?” he asked, catching a handful of her hair to force her head viciously back until she returned her stunned eyes to him. Once she met his gaze, he promised, “Ye will be.”
He then reached to begin dragging up the long skirts of the gown she wore. Lucy immediately began to struggle, but her efforts were feeble at best. Her strength was failing her as quickly as she was losing blood, and she knew it was pouring from her quickly. She could feel it dampening the front of her gown and smell it in the air. It smelled like death. Hers. And she slowly realized that this was it. This was how it would all end, raped and murdered in a Scottish bothy.
The soldier had managed to drag the dress up to her waist and now turned his attention to freeing himself. That’s when she became aware of the low growl coming from the shadows along the side wall. For a moment, she thought a wolf had somehow got into the bothy, and then Tearlach rose behind the man, a great dark shadow in the waning light that swooped on her attacker.
Lucy grunted as the weight of both men was briefly on her. She saw the fury on Tearlach’s damaged face, saw his mouth open to reveal his fangs, then squeezed her eyes shut and turned her head quickly to the side, shutting out the sounds of the attack. When the weight of both men was removed a moment later, she still didn’t open her eyes. It simply seemed too much effort. Instead, she curled onto her side with a little moan and allowed unconsciousness to claim her.
Tearlach straightened from the man he’d been feeding on and leaned briefly against the wall of the hut as his body repaired itself. The soldier wasn’t dead, but he would be soon if no one tended to him. Tearlach planned to make sure no one tended to him. He’d drop him into the pit under the bothy to breathe his last breaths. It was little more than the man deserved for daring to touch his Lucy.
That thought made him open his eyes and search out her prone figure, but he didn’t immediately rush to her side. Tearlach found he was suddenly afraid to approach her. Afraid she lay so still with her back to him because she now found him disgusting. Monstrous.
It was the scent of blood and his need for it that had roused Tearlach several moments ago. Rage had quickly followed when he’d seen the struggling figures on the other side of the bothy and realized someone was trying to rape Lucy not more than a couple feet away.
Rage and hunger fueling him, he’d shot to his knees and lunged on the man, growling with his fury as he’d ripped into the man’s throat. It hadn’t been
his usual feeding; a kind bite, using his own thoughts to cover the benefactor’s pain. It had been the attack of an enraged animal and he was sure he’d even snarled as he’d dragged the man off of Lucy to feed on the blood gushing from the throat wound. She was probably horrified, repulsed by the very sight of him.
In one way, it may be for the best, Tearlach supposed. If she was now disgusted by him, there should be no difficulty keep his distance with her from now on. But that didn’t lessen the pain he felt at the thought of her now viewing him with loathing and possibly thinking him an animal.
Sighing, Tearlach stood and moved the few feet to her side, then squatted next to her and gently touched her upper arm.
“Lucy? Are you all right?” he asked, and frowned when her only response was a low moan. For a moment he feared he’d been too late and had caught the man at the end of raping her. The scent of blood had to have come from somewhere, mayhap it had come from the raping. Horrified at the thought, Tearlach drew her onto her back to get a look at her expression, sure it would tell him whether he’d been too late or not.
The moment he rolled her onto her back, however, he knew where the scent of blood had come from. Lucy was covered with the warm liquid still oozing from a wound in her upper stomach.
Cursing, Tearlach ripped open the tear in the dress where she’d been stabbed attempting to get a better look at the wound. Part of his mind was puzzling over why she was in a dress rather than the Carbonnel clothes, but staunching the flow of her blood was a more urgent matter and he left it for now and glanced around until he spotted the clothes she’d previously been wearing. Snatching up the tunic, he tore it in strips and began to bind her wound. It was bad and she’d lost a lot of blood. She needed a healer, a skill Tearlach knew nothing about. His people had little use for healers.
“Betty,” he muttered, suddenly recalling Lucy telling him that the woman was a skilled healer as well as her maid. He had to get her to Betty. She was the only healer he even knew of.
“Tearlach?”
He paused in his binding to glance to her face when she whispered his name. Much to his relief there was no disgust or loathing there for him, just a mild confusion as she peered from the wound he was binding then to his face.
“Rest,” he whispered, continuing his work. “Ye need tae save yer strength, lass. Yer sore wounded.”
“Have to tell you,” she breathed and a band tightened around his heart at how weak her voice was. She was fading on him. He was going to lose her.
“Nay, save yer strength,” he insisted. Nothing was as important as her surviving this in his opinion, but she was just as stubborn now as when she was well and persisted, gasping, “Heming escaped.”
That brought his head up sharply.
“Escaped?” Tearlach echoed, shocked to realize that after all they’d been through to get here to save his cousin, he’d forgotten all about the man in the face of Lucy’s injury.
“They are searching...for him. He escaped...like us,” she got out faintly, but it seemed to take the last of her strength and her eyes closed with a little sigh.
For a moment, Tearlach feared she’d up and died on him, but when he pressed an ear to her chest he could hear her heart still beating. It didn’t sound a very strong beat, but it was a beat. She wasn’t dead, and wouldn’t die on him if he had any say in the matter, he thought grimly, finishing binding her as tightly as he could to keep any more blood from leaving her.
Lifting her in his arms, he straightened then and turned to look for Trinket. The horse wasn’t in the bothy and he felt a moment’s panic, fearing the mare was gone, but then he spotted her through the open door of the hut. The animal stood serenely in the waning daylight, munching grass in front of the bothy.
Grateful he’d been too weary to unsaddle her that morning and he would not now need saddle her, Tearlach took a deep breath and then stepped over the dead man in the doorway and out into the dying day. Holding Lucy close to his chest, he bowed his head to protect his face as much as possible and hurried to the mare, hoping that if he got mounted and to the shade of the woods the sun wouldn’t get the chance to weaken him terribly.
“We need speed this night, Trinket,” he muttered as he struggled to get in the saddle with Lucy still in his arms. “Yer mistress needs help. We moost travel swiftly.”
He didn’t know if the horse understood him, but she did set off for the woods at a gallop the moment he took up the reins.
Eight
Lucy was dreaming of Tearlach. She knew it was a dream because he wasn’t being cold and silent with her. Instead, his expression was concerned, his voice deep with worry. He also wasn’t keeping her at a distance or being stiff and unbending. In her dream he was cradling her in his arms, whispering soft words in Scottish. She didn’t understand a word he was saying, but his tone and eyes were so soft and full of caring, she decided they must be words of love before the dream faded into blackness again.
When next she opened her eyes it was to find a woman bending over her. Lucy blinked and then smiled uncertainly as she recognized her maid.
“Yer awake.” Betty’s smile was full of relief as she withdrew the damp cloth she’d been running over her face.
“Aye,” Lucy said, or tried to. She frowned when her voice came out as little more than a dry croak. She felt horrible, dried out and weak, her throat sore, eyes gritty, and body aching. All symptoms of the aftermath of fever, she realized with confusion. “What happened? Where am I?”
“You are at Harold’s inn, my lady,” Betty said, her voice soothing. But her expression became worried in the face of Lucy’s blank expression and she prompted, “My husband, William? His brother, Harold? This is Harold’s inn on the border of Blytheswood and Oswald.”
“Oh, aye,” Lucy breathed, but had no idea how she’d got there. “What am I doing here?”
Betty’s eyebrows drew together. “Tearlach brought you. Do you not remember?”
Lucy frowned as she searched the foggy memories jumbling in her head. She remembered...For a moment her thoughts were blank and then she was suddenly bombarded with memory after memory, most of them featuring Tearlach MacAdie.
“I was stabbed,” she whispered finally.
Betty’s concern cleared from her face, chased off by relief. Straightening where she sat on the edge of the bed, she set aside the damp cloth she’d been using to wipe her down, and then turned back and admitted, “I was worried the fever had affected your mind. It got so very high a time or two I feared we would lose you. When it passed, I still worried that you might not come back to us as you were.”
Lucy gave a weak nod of understanding. Fevers could be dangerous. Even did they not claim a body, they might take the mind and one never knew if that would be the case until the person recovered. She was pretty sure all her faculties were still intact, however. Her gaze slid to the flickering candle beside the bed and then to the window and the darkness beyond.
“Where is Tearlach?” she asked, grimacing over the pain it caused in her throat.
“He is downstairs helping Harold’s wife in the kitchen while William helps Harold with serving the guests.”
When Lucy’s eyebrows rose at this news, Betty explained, “He does not show his face to the guests lest someone recognize him, but insisted he wanted to help out while here so settled on working in the kitchens.” She paused and gave a soft laugh before adding, “Harold’s wife, Louise, was fair surprised to have a man underfoot in the kitchens, but he’s been very helpful.”
Lucy smiled faintly, somehow not surprised that Tearlach would be willing to do what she was sure many lords would refuse to do. From all their talks and the time she’d been with him, she was quite sure that Tearlach would consider no chore beneath him and would simply set out to do what he could where he could.
“He is a good man,” Betty said solemnly and then added, “he has been terribly worried about you. The man was a sight when he arrived with you in his arms. He was pale and trembling fr
om his time in the sun, but would not let you go. We had to tend you in the cellar out of the sun because he insisted on holding you the whole first day while I tended your wound.”
“He arrived in daylight?” Lucy asked, eyes wide with alarm, but then confusion set in. She had seen the effects of sun on Tearlach and pale and trembling wasn’t it. The man burned under the sun’s harsh rays.
“Aye. He had several blankets wrapped around and over both of you. We had no idea who the two of you were when he first rode into the courtyard and straight into the stables. William followed him in and came running out shouting for me.”
“Blankets?” Lucy echoed faintly, suddenly having some recollection of being tight bundled and finding it hard to breathe in a warm cocoon.
“Aye, Lord Tearlach said he’d come upon a sleeping search party near dawn and stole the blankets so he could continue on to the inn with you.”
He’d probably fed at the same time, Lucy supposed and then glanced worriedly at Betty, wondering if they’d realized what he was.
“He’s a vampire,” Betty said, answering the question she hadn’t asked. She then frowned and gave her head a little shake. “I’ve heard stories of them, but didn’t think they really existed.”
“Vampire or not, he is a good man,” Lucy said firmly. “Wymon is the monster.”
“Aye,” Betty agreed at once and then added, “and he loves you. That is clear from the way he’s fretted over you.”
Lucy’s eyes filled with tears at these words, hardly able to hope they were true after how cold and distant he had been with her during the last night of travel that she actually recalled clearly.
Betty patted her hand gently and stood. “I shall tell him you’re awake and fetch you something to drink to ease your parched throat. You just rest.”
Highland Thirst Page 24