“And do no’ ferget the other thing, mistress,” Gylys added with a smile.
Leona’s face burned crimson. “Almost, Gylys. Mayhap in a few weeks time.”
“What other thing?” Alec asked her. Forgetting the task at hand, he had filled the basin to overflowing. “Bloody hell,” he cursed under his breath as water splashed onto his boots.
“I will no’ tell ye about the other thing,” Leona answered in a firm tone.
“Why the hell not?” he asked, growing more irritated with what he was learning. He dropped a cloth on the floor and using his booted foot, tried to wipe up the spilled water.
“Because it be a surprise,” Gylys explained happily. “And I’ve been sworn to secrecy, so do no’ even think to try to get me to tell ye. I’d rather be drawn and quartered.”
Leona giggled at Gylys’ reply to his laird and chief.
The more he learned this day, the more he realized he didn’t know a damned thing about his wife or the goings on in his own keep. Gylys knew more about her than he did. Infuriated and filled with self-reproach, he had no response. His mind went blank for a long moment.
“Well ye can tell the men they can do their own laundry from now on. Me wife is the mistress of this keep, not a bloody laundress!” His heavy boots thudded against the wood floor as he went to tend to his wife’s injuries.
Angrily, he set the basin on the table beside the bed and sat beside her.
“But Alec, I need the coin,” she argued, visibly horrified that he’d even suggest she give up her laundry services.
“I will give ye whatever ye need.” He dipped a cloth into the basin and wrung it out.
“But I must do this one thing on me own.”
“Why?” he asked as he began to gently wash away the blood from her forehead.
“Ye would no’ understand,” she told him.
He sighed inwardly. Aye, there were many things that he did not understand, especially when it came to his wife. “Ye think me so dumb? Too dumb to understand a thing?”
“Nay,” she said, wincing when he touched the cut. “I think ye’re too easy to anger.”
The cut began to bleed again. Cursing again under his breath, he shouted at Gylys. “Where the bloody hell is the healer?”
Startled, Gylys gave a curt nod to each before quitting the room in a hurry.
“Please do no’ yell, Alec. It hurts me head.”
“I am no’ yellin’!”
A quirked brow told him she begged to differ.
“’Tis impossible no’ to yell this day,” he began in a harsh tone. “Me wife is nearly killed no’ once, but twice. Then I learn she’s been carryin’ countless buckets of water above stairs each day fer me bath. I also learn she has been hired by me men as a laundress. What will ye tell me next, lass? Have ye been choppin’ wood as well?”
“No’ any more,” she replied. “Willem Bowie does that fer me in exchange fer a hot meal or two. He also gets water from the well for me, that is when he remembers and is sober enough.”
Chopping wood. Hauling water. Laundry. Cooking, cleaning, and God only knew what else his wife had been doing these past weeks. ’Twas enough to make a grown man lose his mind.
None of it made a damned bit of sense. “I had agreements with men to take care of those things for ye. The milk, the wood, the water, venison, all those things were to have been given to ye or done fer ye.”
Embarrassed, her cheeks flamed red. “I ken that. But, well …”
“Well, what?”
“Charles had one problem after another with bringin’ me the milk. First, his child was sick, then the cow kicked over the bucket and he had none to spare. Another day ’twas too rainy. And another day, he was ill. I finally sent word that he need no’ bother, I’d buy me own cow.”
“And the wood? The water?” He wasn’t so sure he wanted to know the answers.
Ashamed, with eyes downcast, she answered, “Much the same.”
His anger flared again. But this time, for far different reasons. He crossed the floor in a few short strides and flung open the door. “Gylys! Kyth!” His deep, booming voice rattling Leona’s nerves.
“I asked ye no’ to yell,” she whispered. Apparently, he hadn’t heard her plea for quiet.
“Gylys! Kyth!” he yelled again.
“Ye’re goin’ to run them ragged with all the runnin’ up and down the stairs,” she told him.
A moment later, the two men appeared, out of breath.
“Bring Amartha and Felicia Bowie to me, along with their oldest sons.”
“Before or after we find out where the healer be?” Kyth asked.
The intense throbbing in his head intensified. Oh, he tried gallantly not to yell, he truly did. “I think betwixt the lot of ye,” he began in a low voice. But his anger continued to swell. “Ye might be able to do both. Before I hang ye! Fer the sake of Christ, ask someone to help ye if ye must!”
Alec slammed the door shut on the two men before spinning around to face his wife.
Reposed in the bed, with the bloody rag once again pressed against her injury, she looked utterly and wholly exhausted. Worry settled in around his heart. From experience, he knew a head injury, even a seemingly insignificant one, could kill a man. Or, at the very least, leave him addlepated and unable to function normally. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he began to pray. Pray silently that God would watch over his wife and not take her from him. Please, he said silently. Please do no’ take her from me.
With the men off to find the healer as well as the other people he’d asked to see, he was left alone with his wife. She leaned back against the headboard with her eyes closed, and the rag still pressed against her forehead.
“Leona.” He had to clear the knot from his throat before he could continue. “I…” The words were there, in his heart, but he’d grown cowardly. No matter how much he wanted to speak them, he couldn’t.
Finally, he went to sit on the bed beside her. Gently, he took her free hand in his own. “Leona,” he began, in a low, hushed tone. “I will no’ have ye workin’ so hard again. I swear it.”
She said not a word. A long moment passed by before he realized she had fallen asleep. “Leona,” he called to her again, more loudly this time.
Her eyes flew open at the sound of her name. “What?”
“I need ye to stay awake, lass. At least until the healer gives ye permission to sleep.”
“I was no’ sleepin’,” she groused. “I was merely closing me eyes.” And doin’ me best no’ to clout ye over the head with a candlestick.
“Ye can no’ sleep until the healer sees ye,” he told her, ignoring her previous declaration that she was doing no such thing.
“Why no’?” she asked, irritated with him as much as she was with her self.
He gave her an incredulous look. “Because ye have had a serious wound to yer head.”
“We have already established that. Now, tell me, why I can no’ just close me eyes fer a wee moment.”
“Because ye might no’ wake again.”
Skeptically, she rolled her eyes. “Ye’re daft.”
“Am I?” he asked. “I’ve seen it happen. In battle.”
Before he could explain what he’d seen in battle, Gylys reappeared at their door. He had Derrick with him.
Leona watched as the men huddled together. She couldn’t hear what they were discussing at first. Occasionally, they would look her way. They were behaving like conspiratorial spies, speaking in hushed tones that were at times, harsh, and others, nearly sorrowful. Instinctively, she knew that whatever they were discussing, it was not going to bode well for her.
“The healer is over at Tom Bowie’s,” Gylys told him, in a low voice, as soon as Alec opened the door. “His wife is birthin’ their first bairn and is havin’ problems. They say she might no’ make it through.”
As much as Alec cared for his own wife, there was no way he would drag the healer away from her current sit
uation. “Damn,” Alec whispered his reply.
“I’ve sewn up plenty of wounds,” Derrick told him. “But I’ll no’ lay a hand to yer wife.”
“Why the hell no’?” Alec demand to know.
“Because she be yer wife. And ye’re fond of her. And I fear if I cause her the slightest discomfort, ye’ll gut me like a trout.”
Alec let out a long breath as he raked a hand through his hair. “I would do no such thing,” Alec told him. Without saying a word, Derrick’s expression said he knew Alec was lying through his teeth.
Derrick spoke nothing but the truth.
When next he looked to Gylys for help, the man shook his head. “Nay, do no’ ask me to do it.”
There would be not a Bowie man around who would volunteer to sew up his wife’s head. Not because they did not care, but because they were not brave enough to anger their chief and laird.
“Verra well,” he ground out. “I shall do it meself.”
They all turned to look at Leona then. Her brow furrowed with a good deal of suspicion.
“I shall get the mendin’ kit,” Derrick offered hastily.
“I shall help him,” Gylys said with a curt bow as they both left the room in a good deal of haste.
“Really, Alec, I do no’ think stitches be necessary,” Leona told him as she tried scooting away from her husband.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed, with Derrick, Gylys, Dougall, and Kyth flanking them on all sides.
“Leona,” Alec said as he scooted her back to the edge of the bed. “This needs to be done. The gash continues to bleed.”
She stared into her husband’s eyes, her own filled with a good deal of trepidation. “It will eventually stop,” she argued.
“Aye,” Alec said. “When ye’ve lost every drop of blood in yer wee body.”
Certainly he must be exaggerating. She looked to the men surrounding them. Nay, she’d find no help there. Each man looked quite serious, and kept nodding their heads in agreement with her husband.
“Mayhap, we should wait for the healer?” she all but begged for a delay.
Alec was doing his best to maintain his composure. “It could be hours before she is able to help. By then, it could be too late.”
Too late?
Convinced her husband was simply over-reacting, she ignored the threat in his comment. She also realized there was no other way around it. If he had to drug her and have his men hold her down, he was going to stitch up her head. No matter her own opinion on the matter.
With a roll of her eyes, she sat up in the bed and straightened her skirts. “Verra well,” she began. “But do no’ tarry. I have much work to do.”
Her statement elicited expressions from each man of astonishment that questioned her soundness of mind.
“Would ye like me to knock her out, Alec?” Derrick asked thoughtfully. “So she will no’ feel anythin’?”
“Ye’ll do no such thing!” Alec and Leona replied in unison.
Derrick replied with a shrug of his shoulders and nothing else.
“What about a tonic?” Gylys asked. “I could make one up that will put her to sleep.”
“That might no’ be a bad idea,” Alec replied.
Leona held up her hand. “I would appreciate it if you would all quit behaving as though I’m no’ even here. I will no’ be knocked out. No’ by Derrick or by a tonic.”
“Stitches can be a might painful,” Dougall offered up.
“Aye,” Kyth replied. “Ye’re such a wee thing, mistress. ’Twill hurt like the devil.”
Just what her size had to do with the matter, she could not begin to guess.
“If I were a Bowie woman, would ye still wish to knock me out?” she asked them.
“Ye are a Bowie woman,” Alec replied, his tone firm and resolute.
Her heart swelled with pride then, and the tears began to fall.
The men shared puzzled expressions. “What be the matter, mistress?” Kyth asked.
“Be ye in pain?” Derrick asked with a hopeful expression. As if he could not wait to knock her out.
“Nay,” Gylys answered for her. “I fear she does no’ want to be a Bowie.” He was unmistakably sorrowful with that thought.
Alec let out a long, heavy breath as his men discussed why his wife was crying. “Lads,” he called out to them. When he’d gained their attention, he said, “Shut up. Me wife is neither sad, nor in pain, nor does she not wish to be a Bowie.”
“Then why be she cryin’?” Gylys asked.
Leona sniffed, swiped away a few tears, and smiled up at him. “Because I be so happy!”
It took every ounce of strength Alec had to keep his hands from shaking. With nerves of steel, he stitched together her skin, wishing for all the world the needle was in the hands of the healer and not his own.
He had to give credit to his wife, though, for she barely flinched as he poked the bone needle through her skin. She didn’t utter a word of protest, neither did she complain it hurt. Nay, she lay as still as death, with her eyes closed, as she held onto Dougall’s hand. The rest of the men watched with keen interest, occasionally offering words of encouragement.
“Thank ye, Alec,” Leona said when he announced he had completed the task. She wasn’t certain, but she thought she heard a tremor in his voice.
When all was said and done, it took seven stitches to mend the gash. Gylys smiled proudly, as he stood at the foot of the bed and held out his hand, palm up. One by one the other men placed a coin into his palm. Apparently a wager had been set betwixt them.
Staring at the sight, she asked, “What on earth?”
The men smiled at her. Alec busied himself with the basin filled with bloody water and pretended not to know what was happening. He didn’t care. All he wanted was to sit in a quiet corner and knock back a few drams of whisky.
It wasn’t as if that was the first time he’d ever stitched someone back together. But they’d all been men. Not his wee, sweet wife. ’Twas an altogether unsettling ordeal and one he wished never to repeat.
“Will someone tell me why ye’re givin’ Gylys coins?” Leona asked, perplexed.
“’Twas just a friendly wager, mistress,” Gylys told her.
Appalled, she gave a slight shake of her head. “Did ye wager whether or no’ I’d cry or complain? Or that I’d pass out from fright?”
The men were doing their best not to smile or laugh. Dougall’s shoulders were shaking as he turned his back and stepped away. With one hand on the doorjamb, the other on his waist, he continued to shake, holding onto the laughter he wished he could let go of.
“Well?” she asked, growing more frustrated with their silence.
Gylys cleared his throat, came around the bed and bent down to whisper in her ear. “The wager was no’ about ye cryin’ or passin’ out, mistress. We all wagered on whether or not Alec would.”
Leona would rather die than admit to how badly it hurt. The entire ordeal left her feeling exhausted. But she’d not let anyone know that, least of all her husband. She’d do nothing to diminish herself in front of him or his men.
After the men left, Alec returned to sit beside her. “Would ye like to cry now?” There was a playfulness to his tone. One she didn’t appreciate.
“Ye act like I cry at the drop of a feather,” she groused. “Now, if ye will stop hoverin’ over me, I need to begin preparin’ the evenin’ meal.”
Alec reached out and held her hand down on the bed. “Ye’ll be doin’ no such thing,” he told her. “Ye are goin’ to rest.”
“But I thought ye said I could no’ sleep until the healer saw me?” she asked sarcastically.
He pinned her in place with a hard stare.
“If ye do no’ want me fallin’ asleep, then I must remain busy. Now, quit bein’ silly and let me leave. I have much work to do.”
“Ye’re no’ leavin’ this bed until the healer sees ye and until I say ye can.”
“Really, Alec, do you no’ think ye’re
overreactin’ just a might?”
He gave a slow shake of his head. “Nay, I do no’. Ye have worked yerself to the point of exhaustion as it is. Ye have blisters and callouses on yer hands. Ye nearly killed yerself twice today,” he ticked off his reasons one by one. “And I’ll be damned if ye’re goin’ to be cookin’ or cleanin’ or anything else this night. Or any other day.”
He left her alone on the bed while he went to her trunk. Searching around, he finally found what he was looking for. “Put this on,” he said as he handed her the garment. ’Twas one of her auld, heavy sleeping gowns. Since she’d married him, there had been no need for such things.
“Ye can no’ be serious.”
“Aye, I am,” he told her. As he was about to tell her she was not to leave this bed for the foreseeable future, someone knocked on their door. He hoped it was the healer and that she would be able to talk some sense into his stubborn wife.
’Twas only Kyth.
“Alec,” he whispered in a hushed tone. “Amartha and Felicia Bowie are below stairs.”
Alec had almost forgotten he had sent for them. He turned to speak to his wife. “Ye are to remain in that bed until I return,” he ordered. “And to ensure ye do that, Kyth here will be keepin’ ye company.”
Leona rolled her eyes for what seemed the hundredth time in the past hour. “Ye be a cruel man, Alec Bowie. A stubborn, cruel man!”
He smiled warmly at her. “Thank ye, kindly, wife. I am glad ye think so.”
To Kyth he said, “If she makes any attempt to leave this room, ye have me permission to tie her to a chair if ye must. And do no’ allow her to sleep until the healer sees her.”
“I’ll no’ let her leave, nor allow her to sleep,” Kyth said.
Alec studied him closely for a moment. With a heavy sigh, he quit the room. Knowin’ me wife, she’ll be orderin’ the poor man around left and right.
Amartha and Felicia Bowie stood perplexed before their laird, looking at him as if he’d just sprouted two tails. Where Amartha was squat and round, Felicia was tall and slender. Where Felicia’s face was clear from any blemish, Amartha’s sported a most distracting mole on her lower jaw. A prickly hair had sprouted from its center. Alec was doing his best not to stare too long at it.
The Bowie Bride: Book Two of The Mackintoshes and McLarens Page 26