The Very Thought of You

by Lynn Kurland

  She realized her mistake the moment his muscles jumped under the cloth. Nay, she knew what it felt to be crushed up against this broad expanse and feel those steel-banded arms encircling her. Aye, offering to bathe him had been a very foolish thing to do.

  The door burst open, making her jump in surprise. Amery ran across the chamber, obviously prepared to cast himself upon Alex. Margaret caught him around the waist.

  "Be still, little one," she said softly. "He is sleeping."

  Amery looked up at her with a heartbreaking troubled look. "Die?"

  "Oh, Amery," she said softly, feeling her heart melt at all the love that was behind that question, "nay, lad, he will not. But we must let him rest."

  Amery looked at her doubtfully.

  "It may be several more days that he sleeps. That is why we will stay near him and tend him. See you the fire over there?" she asked, pointing to the hearth. After he nodded, she took his small hand. "That is where you will sleep while Alex is resting. Frances will make you a pallet on the floor so you may rise and see him when you wish it. Perhaps tomorrow you will help me tend him, aye?"

  Amery nodded solemnly.

  "There's a good lad. Run off and play with Frances now. Alex needs to sleep."

  She watched Amery scamper off, then turned her attentions back to the man who lay as still as death on her father's bed. She hoped she'd spoken truly and that Alex merely needed sleep.

  He had to wake, she thought with a scowl. She had several questions to put to him, and she had no intention of him going to his grave before she had her answers!

  Thirteen

  Faint light forced its way through the shutters covering the window. Margaret blinked. Perhaps the rain had stopped. Rain didn't trouble her as a rule, but four days of the bloody stuff, unrelenting and unceasing, was enough to drive a woman of the strongest mettle daft.

  She stretched, groaning as she did so. Every muscle in her body screamed from the abuse she'd put herself through over the past several interminable, exhausting, terrifying days. She'd passed most of her time wondering if Alex would live or die.

  "Margaret."

  She jumped at the sound of that hoarse voice. Immediately she dropped to her knees by his bedside. She put her hand to his head.

  "The fever is still abated," she said, relieved.

  "How long have I been out?" he croaked.

  "Five days."

  He groaned. "Do I have all my appendages?"

  "Aye. All of you is still intact."

  He opened his eyes and looked at her. "Have you been here the entire time?"

  She pursed her lips. She could lie, of course, but no doubt some fool would tell him the truth of the matter. But the last thing she wanted was for Alex to think she'd remained by his side willingly. No matter that she'd spent much of her time on her knees praying he would live. That didn't mean she'd forgiven him for hurting her.

  He reached for her hand. "I think you must have been here," he whispered. "I did nothing but dream of you."

  Saints, but the man was easier to manage when he was senseless and drooling. She frowned at him.

  "You didn't have to," he said. "Care for me, that is."

  "Nay, I did not," she said. What she should have been doing was escaping his grasp on her hand and fleeing for safer ground. Somehow, though, she just couldn't make herself move.

  "Then why did you?"

  She mustered up her remaining wits to search for an appropriate answer. Coming up with nothing, she merely scowled at him.

  Alex smiled. "Could this mean you're having kind feelings toward me?"

  ''My arm was too sore to allow me to train. I sat in this chamber because the, um"—she cast about for something plausible—"the sun is brighter here, and I thought it would serve me to bask in it."

  "With the shutters closed."

  Margaret was on her feet before the thought took shape in her mind.

  Alex kept hold of her hand, and she had to admit he was strong even in his sickness. When she tried to pull it from him, he clasped it with both hands. She contemplated the merits of dragging him out of bed and across the floor to prove her point, then realized such a movement would dislodge his coverings, and the saints knew she'd seen more of his naked self than was good for her peace of mind.

  So she remained standing, immobile, and instead delivered to Alex her most formidable glare.

  And he only gave her a contrite look.

  "I'm a very sick man, Margaret," he said humbly. "The radiance of your presence is the only thing that will cure me. Don't take it away."

  "You've been spending too much time listening to Baldric spin his foolishness."

  "He wasn't in here while I was sleeping, was he?"

  "Aye, he favored me with a verse or two."

  Alex groaned. "I knew it. I was having nightmares in iambic pentameter—not that he'd know what that was if it bit him on the butt."

  "Alex!"

  "You have to admit he's not very consistent."

  Margaret agreed, but she'd be damned if she'd say as much. "He has a unique sense of rhythm and rhyme. Generally it is most acceptable. Over the years he has simply developed his own style and forms."

  " 'There was a young maiden from Falconberg, which lies to the west of Brackwald where dwells the foul-smelling, horrid-looking' ... though I have to agree with his assessment of Ralf. I seem to remember something about trolls and ogres. Or did I dream that?"

  "Nay," she said, trying to tug her hand from his. "He favored me with a rousing rendition of 'The Ogre and the Troll.' "

  "A little poem about romance among the short and ugly?"

  "Short, ugly, and green, actually."

  He laughed, but the laughter made him start to cough and that seemingly pulled on his shoulder. He released her and doubled up in pain. Margaret took him gingerly by the arms and held him down.

  "You must be still," she commanded. "The fever has been fiercely upon you."

  "Thanks," he gasped, "I can feel that."

  She resumed her seat in her chair. ' 'Perhaps you should sleep more."

  He shook his head. "We need to talk."

  "Of what?"

  "Us."

  "Us?"

  "Yes, us. You and me. Where we're going."

  "We are going nowhere."

  He took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. "I have things to tell you."

  Margaret found herself on her feet with her arms wrapped around herself. She had intended to fold her arms over her chest in a pose designed to intimidate. Instead she found herself hugging herself as if she prepared for a blow. So, now she would have the truth. Perhaps it was just as well. It couldn't be any worse than what she'd imagined.

  "You are wed," she said flatly, then she could have chewed off her own tongue. As if she should care about his marital state!

  "No, I'm not. Once and for all, Margaret, I am not married. I have never been married."

  "But you will marry," she said darkly.

  He smiled and she had to turn away before the beauty of it hurt her more.

  "Definitely. The sooner the better."

  She stared past him, out the window. "And what other truths do you have for me?"

  "If you could find me something to eat, I'll tell you whatever you want to know."

  "And why couldn't you have done so before?"

  "When you know everything, you'll understand. I promise you."

  Margaret turned and walked away. The promises of a man. Ah, what a fool she was to even think to believe in them!

  But she fetched him food anyway.

  And she waited while he ate. And she wondered what he would tell her. At least he was concentrating completely on his food. Alex was, at the very least, consistent when it came to ingesting his meals with singleness of purpose. And at least he'd managed to dress the lower half of himself in her sire's clothes. Margaret took a small quilt from off the bed and draped it around his shoulders. It would be much easier to concentrate on sorting tr
uth from lies if she weren't distracted by sight of his bare flesh.

  And once the small table had been cleared away, Alex rose and held out his hand for her. She looked up at him narrowly.

  "You're too ill to go walking abroad."

  "Let's go sit in the alcove. Where the sun is," he said with a faint smile.

  "Of course," she said, as if she'd been planning to do it all along. She had, after all, claimed she had been in his chamber for that purpose only. No sense in becoming as much a liar as he was.

  She sat down across from him, but soon found herself distracted by the play of light on his features. The fever had taken its toll. He was pale, and there was darkness under his eyes. His cheeks were stubbled and his hair mussed. But his eyes were still that pale bluish green that her own witless eyes seemed to find so attractive. It was surely the only reason she couldn't seem to tear her gaze from his. Aye, to be sure, his eyes had been the start of all her grief.

  "I am going to tell you the truth."

  "As you should have from the beginning."

  "I don't know that you would have believed me."

  "And I will now?"

  "I think now you're less likely to use me to fertilize your garden."

  "We shall see."

  He smiled briefly. "I'm sure we will." He rubbed his chin, then took a deep breath. "Okay, here goes." He paused—too dramatically for Margaret's taste, but she held her tongue. "I'm not from England."

  She snorted. As if she couldn't have divined that.

  "I'm not from Scotland, either."

  She frowned. 'Then you did lie."

  "No, I told you I was most recently from Scotland, which is true. Three weeks ago I was staying with my brother-in-law, James MacLeod, who lives in the Scottish Highlands. I went out for a ride about a half mile from his house, wandered into the middle of a damned faery ring, and the next thing I knew, you were shooting at me."

  "A warning shot," she muttered. "I should have kept to my mark."

  "I appreciate your forbearance."

  "I'm quite certain you do. Now, how is it you were at one moment in the Highlands and the next you found yourself here? This I do not understand."

  Alex drew in a great breath. Margaret watched him hold it, then let it out slowly. Perhaps he intended to spin a tale as fanciful as one of Baldric's.

  "The truth," she reminded him.

  "The truth," he agreed. "I think that faery ring is some sort of gate. Like your barbican. You're in the inner bailey one moment, you walk through the tunnel and the next you're outside the walls."

  "And?"

  He shrugged. "That's it. One minute I was in Scotland, the next I was in England."

  She grunted. It was all she could manage. The man looked perfectly sane, yet here he spouted complete nonsense.

  "And there's more."

  "Somehow, I suspected as much."

  "When I was in Scotland, I was in the year 1998. One thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight."

  "I can count, thank you very much," she said, but her disappointment increased with everything he said. Saints, but the man was daft.

  Alex blinked. "Then you believe me?"

  ''Of course not! What kind of fool do you take me for?''

  He began to frown, as if she had done him a great injury. "It's the truth. Can't you tell? I don't even talk like you do."

  She shrugged. "Perhaps you are a mason's bastard and have no learning."

  "Do I look like a mason's bastard?" he demanded.

  Actually, he looked like an outraged nobleman who had just had his parentage disparaged, but she wouldn't admit that even under pain of death. So she shrugged as carefully as she could.

  "What else am I to think?"

  "I'm telling you the truth! he exclaimed. "I'm from the future."

  "And I am simply to believe you?" she asked, feeling increasingly annoyed. ''That you are from—from what did you say?"

  "The future. 1998. I was born in 1966 in a land called America. You Brits don't even know the place exists yet."

  "Then how can you be from it?"

  "Because I just am!"

  "But it doesn't exist!"

  "It does exist," he said hotly, "you just don't know about it!"

  "Fanciful imaginings."

  He started to wheeze.

  Margaret frowned. "Perhaps the fever has addled your wits. Aye," she said, nodding to herself, "that must be it. You should return to your bed."

  He was already on his feet, and none too steady thereon. He stumbled to her father's trunk and pulled forth his strange garments. He returned to the alcove, shoved them into her hands, and collapsed on the bench opposite her.

  "There," he panted. "Have a look at those."

  They were indeed strangely made. The blue cloth of his hose was heavy, yet supple. She fingered a small silver disk, then realized there were several more descending from the first. Silver surrounding bronze and somehow welded to the cloth. She frowned. What purpose could those possibly serve? She shot Alex a dark look.

  "Buttons," he supplied before she could open her mouth to berate him. He reached over and held up the cloth facing the devices he called buttons. "Buttonholes. The buttons go through them to hold up your clothes."

  Margaret took hold of one of the buttons and after several fumbling attempts managed to slide it through the buttonhole. She blinked in surprise. Saints, what a fine idea.

  But this proved nothing of his story.

  "This proves nothing," she said, in case he misinterpreted her fascination with his clothing. "There are many strange things wrought in other places."

  "And other times."

  She waved away his words. "Cease with that babble," she commanded. "Now, tell me what it is you do in this America where you live. Is it in the Holy Land?"

  He looked at her in disbelief. "You really don't believe me."

  "Of course not. I am no fool. I have more learning than either my father or my brothers had, for my grandfather willed it so. I have never seen buttons or buttonholes or heard tell of anyone stepping through a blade of grass to another land that is not his own."

  Never mind the tales Baldric had made up of faeries and ogres and beasties. Those were a bard's foolishness. Margaret had two very good eyes, and she had never once seen anything remotely resembling a sprite. Alex perhaps had taken a blow to his head. Either that or he was as daft as Baldric. Infinitely more pleasing to the eye, but daft just the same.

  Regret swept over her. A pity. Alex was, despite his flaws of not being a knight and not possessing all his wits, a very fine looking man. And she certainly had found it pleasant to kiss him. Now what was she to do with him? Lock him in her dungeon?

  "All right," Alex said, folding his arms over his chest, "we're getting nowhere with this. Why don't you ask me the questions and I'll give you the answers."

  "Will they be different than the ones you've just given me?"

  "They'll be the truth," he said curtly. "Ask what you want to."

  Well, there was no sense in not trying a final time to wring some sense from him. "Very well. Did you live in Scotland?"

  "Yes."

  "And in York before that?"

  "New York. It's in America."

  "Which must be on the continent."

  "Right. It's on a continent."

  Margaret felt a curious lightening of her heart. "We begin to make sense of this," she said, relaxing. "Your French is poor, and your English strangely spoken. Perhaps this comes from traveling?"

  "Close enough."

  "Are you a healer's son?"

  "Yes."

  "How did you earn your bread?"

  He smiled and Margaret almost flinched at the sight. It wasn't a very pleasant smile. She had the feeling it was the kind of smile he gave his supper before devouring it.

  "I was a pirate."

  She blinked. "A pirate?"

  "A mercenary," he snarled.

  "Ah," she said slowly. "This answers several puzzling questions.
"

  "I didn't start out as one," he added quickly, as if it were something she should know. "I started out doing good."

  "And then?"

  "And then I found I earned more by laying sieges, taking over property, grinding into the dust anyone who got in my way."

  "Hmmm," she said, looking at him with new respect. "Indeed."

  "Indeed," he growled.

  "And yet you seem so pleasant on the surface." Well, this certainly shed a different light on the man.

  He laughed suddenly, though it wasn't a humorous one. "I'm rotten to the core, Margaret."

  "Are you?" she mused. "Surely a man who can touch a woman as you—" She shut her mouth with a snap. Saints, she was a babbling fool!

  Alex was smiling at her in that devouring way he had. Pirate? Whatever the word meant, it surely fit him. The man was born to plunder.

  "Where is your sword?" she asked, grasping onto something more comfortable to speak about. "And your gear?"

  "I don't have either—sword or gear. I gave it up."

  "Why? Were you so poor a pirate?''

  "I was a very good pirate," he countered. "I was disgustingly rich and unrepentantly ruthless."

  "Hmmm," she said, impressed in spite of herself. "And you had many victims?"

  "The list is incredibly long."

  "And you stopped because ... ?"

  He shrugged. "I decided I'd done enough damage. I hung up my sword for good."

  "As penance," she stated.

  "Yes."

  Well, this she could understand. She didn't necessarily agree with him, for a man had to earn his way somehow, but she could understand.

  And, despite herself, she found that once again she was looking at him with new eyes. If he could be believed, he had made great sums wreaking havoc, yet he had walked away from it all because he had simply chosen to do so. Such strength of will was something she couldn't help but admire. Surely there had been times he had been tempted to heft a sword, yet he had not done so, simply because he had said he would not.

  Until five days ago.

  She realized then what it had cost him to rescue her.

  "Ah," she said softly. She looked at him and felt her heart soften. "And yet the other day ..."

  "It was either you or my vow," he said. He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. "It wasn't a hard choice to make."