by Sara Bennett
A branch of candles was brought. The light shone across his face, illuminating flesh flushed and beaded with sweat. No wonder, Meg thought, when he had fallen into her arms, it had been as if his body burned and seared hers. It wasn’t so much that he was drunk; he had a fever.
But there was worse.
Blood darkened the sleeve of his green jacket. The fact had gone unnoticed in the confines of the inn, but now it was plain as the sleeve glistened wetly in the light of the candles. Meg’s stomach twisted. She had never been one of those women who dealt unflinchingly with wounds; rather she was the sort of woman who instructed, directed, or gathered about her those more gifted. However, there was no way on God’s earth she was leaving now, not until she had made certain that Gregor Grant would recover from whatever ailed him.
Malcolm Bain MacGregor was reviewing the sticky sleeve with a grim look, while Duncan Forbes shifted uneasily, clearly not keen to take charge. Meg sensed a tension between her tacksman and Gregor Grant’s man that puzzled her, but she had no time to tease out the riddle now. Whatever dark secret lay between them would have to wait.
Curiously, warily, as if she were approaching something half wild, Meg let her eyes take in the length of the man who sprawled on the chair before her. The candles flared, and his brown-gold hair gleamed in the changing light, as did the tarnished silver buttons of his green jacket. His plaid was woven in a pattern of blue and green, very faded, and a length of the woollen cloth left from the kilt section had been swept over one broad shoulder and fastened with a barbaric-looking brooch. The leather belt about his waist would be used for carrying sporran, dirk, and pistols. A thick sword belt came over his right shoulder to support the broadsword at his hip, and a narrower strap over the left held the priming flask for his pistols. It was the usual warlike fare for a Highlander, soldier or otherwise. Meg thought he looked more than capable of employing them all.
Where was her slim boy? Her pale and precious laird? This man was not he. He was too real. He made her uneasy, with his faded kilt and shiny coat. He was a Captain of a troop of Campbell dragoons who lived rough and tough, and drank desparately in gloomy taverns. This was no gentleman, no duine-uasal, as the people of Glen Dhui said in the Gaelic. He might be handsome enough, Meg admitted, to make some women swoon, but his high cheekbones and strong jaw and aristocratic nose did nothing for her. Nor did she admire his dark, slashing brows and eyes of amber that gleamed through equally dark lashes. No, Meg told herself, she was not in the least impressed by the man before her.
Why, oh why, had she allowed her imagination such free rein? Until she had fooled herself into believing she knew him? Many times she had perused the former laird’s sketches, dreaming of the hand that had made them, the eyes that had seen so true, the heart that had so loved the glen. Now she was forced to admit that that man didn’t exist, except in her own imagination. He wasn’t real. This man, this man, was real. And Meg didn’t know him at all.
His very maleness made her uneasy, threatened her in a way she had never felt threatened before.
“Och, Gregor lad, what have ye done to yersel’,” Malcolm Bain’s muttered words broke through her reverie. He turned to Meg and raised a hairy eyebrow. “I need to strip him, my lady, to properly see the damage.”
Meg raised a much slimmer eyebrow back at him. “Then go ahead and do so.”
Malcolm Bain and Duncan exchanged a look of resignation, their first moment of accord since they’d met. The two of them then proceeded to unbuckle Gregor’s belts, laying aside a dirk with care. They unfastened the brooch and dropped the plaid that had looped over his shoulder down to his waist. The green jacket was more difficult. Awkwardly they unbuttoned it, removing it from the unconscious man’s uninjured arm, but when Malcolm Bain attempted to ease the bloodied sleeve down his injured arm, Gregor gave a loud groan.
His lashes fluttered and lifted, the amber eyes blazing in his white face. “What are you doing to me, Malcolm, you ham-fisted oaf!” he said between clenched teeth.
“I’m doing what I always do, lad. Repairing the damage ye’ve done to yersel’.”
“Then you’ll need to cut the sleeve away,” Gregor said practically, his voice growing fainter.
Malcolm fingered the once-fine stuff of the former laird’s jacket and grunted his regret. Reluctantly, with the air of a man going against his deepest-held beliefs, he slipped out his dirk. The sharp blade caught on a seam and ripped through, slicing away the sleeve, while Gregor held himself rigid. It fell away at last, leaving only the white shirt now, the cloth so worn and so thin, Meg could see the warm glow of his flesh beneath it. Her throat felt a little dry, and she swallowed as Malcolm tried to unlace the ties at his master’s throat, struggled for a moment, and then gave up and once again used his dirk. The shirt fell open and was quickly stripped away.
Meg held her breath.
There was something pagan about that broad sweep of naked muscle and golden flesh, furred with dark hair. A thin line of that same dark hair grew down the hard plane of his belly to vanish like an arrow beneath the folds of his kilt. Slowly Meg drew in her breath. Her eyes slid to a makeshift bandage that was fastened about his upper arm, now much bloodsoaked, with rivulets of blood dried upon his flesh.
“Good heavens, what happened?” Meg demanded of Malcolm Bain, unable to disguise her horror. “Was he in a battle?”
At the sound of her voice, Gregor stirred again. Beneath the dark veil of his lashes, his eyes were bright and restless, searching. They passed over Malcolm Bain and Duncan, and fixed upon Meg. She did not look away, although there was something in that golden gaze that made her very uneasy, just as everything about Gregor Grant seemed to make her uncomfortable.
His handsome mouth had curved up at the corners in a smile that was at once rueful and very attractive. “I fought a duel.”
“A duel?” Meg repeated sharply. She had never heard of anything so ridiculous. “A duel over what?”
The smile faded, his lashes lifted on hard amber. “A woman.”
Meg rolled her own eyes in disgust. Just as she had feared, he was a womanizing drunkard! So much for the boy hero. She had come all this way for nothing. Frustration and disappointment overcame caution. “Oh, a woman! And did she go off with the victor and leave you to your drink? Is that why you were lolling about in the tavern just now, Captain Grant?”
Malcolm Bain was busy unwrapping the bandage, tugging it away from the wound on Gregor’s upper arm.
Gregor winced. “I am the victor,” he said, rather breathlessly. “Sh’ wen’ off with the loser.”
“Even I know that isn’t supposed to happen,” Meg answered him in her acerbic way. “What did you say to her to make her do that?”
Gregor laughed, grimaced again, and closed his eyes. He looked even paler. “You dinna know the half of it, lass,” he said, his voice gone bitter.
“No, and I do not think I want to.”
Those dark lashes lifted again, and now he seemed wary, confused. But before he could open his mouth, Malcolm tugged the last stretch of bandage free. The wound was revealed, a sword slash that looked deep and painful, a brutal incision into the hard, muscular swell of his upper arm, with the edges gaping.
They all grimaced.
Sweat trickled down Gregor’s brow. Confronted with the damage to his arm, he took a deep uneven breath. Meg took a breath of her own, stilling her squeamishness.
Malcolm Bain probed at the wound with one blunt finger.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Meg demanded sharply when Gregor gasped a word in Gaelic that sounded profane.
Malcolm Bain cast her the briefest of glances. “My grandsire was a surgeon in Dundee’s army in 1689,” he told her matter-of-factly, as if that were an answer. “We will have to sew it up,” he added. “Won’t heal otherwise. The bleeding’s stopped, so we dinna need to cauterize the wound. I’ll clean it and then we can sew it.” He looked up at her, his blue eyes intent. “Are ye a competent needlewoman
, my lady?”
Meg blinked, failing to follow the change in subject. “I can sew a seam, if that’s what you mean. Why?” And then, realizing exactly why, her face drained of all color. She had always had a weak stomach when it came to such things. It was an embarrassment to her, because she well knew that the lady of an estate such as Glen Dhui was looked upon as someone who would treat the illnesses and the hurts of her people. Meg did her duty, but she had never found the role easy.
“You are the surgeon’s grandson,” she said in a husky whisper.
“Aye, I am, only I’m no’ so good at the sewing part, my lady. It would be better if ye did that. Now dinna fash yersel’! It’s as easy as mending a rip in a petticoat.”
“I doubt that,” Meg retorted. “Why are you asking me? Surely there are others in Clashennic who can sew better than I.”
Gregor had fixed her with mocking eyes. “Are you refusing to help a wounded man? ’Tis clear you have not been sliced by a sword.”
“Nor would I be so foolish as to get in the way of one, Captain.”
“I dinna do it on purpose,” he said, a little sulkily.
Morag was sent for water and clean bandages, and a needle and thread. Malcolm Bain uncorked a bottle of whiskey and poured Gregor a large dram.
“For the pain,” he said, when Meg’s lips tightened.
“Surely he’s had enough to numb his whole body?”
“Dinna be harsh, lass,” Gregor murmured, savoring the brew. “’Tis not you who has to suffer Malcolm’s tender ministrations. Last time he sewed me up it came out all crooked.” He turned his uninjured arm to show her, and she gazed in dismay at a small but very puckered scar near the bend of his elbow.
Morag had returned, and Malcolm Bain set to washing the wound, trickling cold water into the gash again and again until it came out clean. When that was done, he lifted the bottle of whiskey and poured it straight onto the raw flesh. Gregor’s breath hissed and he went as white as a ghostie.
Meg groaned in sympathy.
But Malcolm Bain was already taking up the needle, holding it poised in his big, blunt fingers. “Are ye ready then, lad?”
Gregor choked. His eyes lifted to Meg’s. There was emotion in them, not so much a plea, but rather a request. She wanted to refuse, to turn and walk away; she wanted to pretend she didn’t understand. But she had come all this way to see this man, to ask of him a favor of her own, so how could she refuse him now? And yet…there was more to it than that—she didn’t want his smooth, hard arm to bear a scar as puckered as Malcolm Bain’s last effort. And she could sew a seam—she had told him so.
She closed her eyes, took a breath, opened them, and gave a decisive nod. Hopefully she could do this without fainting. Without showing all these Highland men what a frail and fragile woman she really was beneath her outward show of toughness.
“I am grateful,” Gregor said softly.
Malcolm Bain cleared his throat, and held out the needle. She took it with fingers that shook a little. Duncan brought a stool and placed it beside the chair, so that Meg would be sitting higher than her patient, with a better view of his arm. Malcolm Bain stood close behind Gregor, and carefully pinched the edges of the wound together, holding it firm for her. She watched Gregor’s chest rise and fall, a little quicker now, and the tightening of his mouth.
There was an expectant hush about her.
I can do this, Meg thought. I can do this, just as I have done everything else that has been asked of me so far….
Slowly, pretending she was somewhere else, Meg pressed the point of the needle against the flesh of Gregor’s arm, and pushed it through.
It wasn’t as difficult as she had thought.
She took another stitch, setting them neatly, not too tight, side by side. There would still be a scar, but it should be nice and straight and narrow. She took another stitch, hardly noticing the movements of those around her: Malcolm Bain holding the wound, Gregor stiff and white beneath her hands, Duncan murmuring in sympathy, and Morag at the edge of her vision, holding the bowl of water.
Each stitch careful and precise, one by one, until there was one more stitch needed.
Meg made it, and watched Malcolm snip the thread. He took the needle from her hand. “Ye’ve done a bonny job, my lady. When the lad can talk again I’m sure he’ll agree.”
It was only then that the room began to spin slowly around Meg, turning like a top. She swayed, reaching out for purchase, and something hard and very strong gripped her hand, holding her up. She looked down and saw that Gregor had closed his large hand upon hers, fingers intertwining. She blinked and her head cleared a little, although her legs were still shaky. His amber eyes were fastened upon hers as tenaciously as his hand on her hand.
“I’m not going to swoon,” she assured him, a little breathlessly.
“Neither am I,” he replied.
“I’ve never been much good with men,” she went on, and then flushed, mortified to have said such a thing. Where had that come from? Were her wits quite addled?
His mouth lifted into a smile that made her head spin all over again. “Mabbe you just have not met the right one.”
“Done,” Malcolm Bain announced. He had rebandaged the arm with deft twists in the clean strips of cloth supplied by the innkeeper’s daughter. “There, lad, ye’ll feel more comfortable now,” he said with a confident air.
The ‘lad’ looked as if he, despite his assertion to the contrary and his charming smile, was about to pass out.
“Let’s get ye to bed,” Malcolm went on. “I fear we’ll have to beg one here at the inn for tonight.”
“Can you arrange that?” Meg asked, looking to Morag.
“I’ll see to it, my lady,” the girl said. “Will ye eat now, my lady, or would ye prefer a tray to your room?”
“A tray,” Meg said, gratefully, and the girl hurried off to prepare a room and see to the food.
Meg looked down at the man before her, hesitant. He had said that he owed her a favor, and here was her chance to call that favor in.
“Captain Grant?”
Gregor grunted, unmoving. His fingers had begun to relax, and he had stretched his legs out toward the fire. He looked limp and helpless, not a man who had lived a brutal soldier’s life, who fought duels over women and drank himself senseless. Suddenly he was much more like the gentle boy Meg had imagined sketching those portraits of glen life. The boy she had admired so much, and thought she knew so well, only…bigger.
“Captain Grant,” she repeated, more loudly this time.
He opened one amber eye and glared at her indignantly. “Lass, lemme s-s-sleep now,” he slurred. “I promise I’ll be ready for ye again come the morning.”
Color heated her face, but she supposed it was her own fault for pestering a half-conscious man, especially a man as clearly lacking in morals as this one.
Malcolm Bain hid a smile. “Talk to him in the morning, my lady.”
“Aye,” Duncan added, uncomfortable in agreement.
Meg gave an impatient sigh. “Very well.”
“We’ll get him to his bed,” Duncan said, with a quick glance at Malcolm Bain, and a tightening of his lips. “Get some sleep, Lady Meg. I dinna think we’ll be riding home tomorrow, but who knows? I knew a man once had his foot taken off by a blow from a claymore, and he was in the saddle again the following day….”
Meg could see the sense in his advice. When Gregor woke tomorrow, sore-headed but sober, she needed to be ready. Would he do as she asked? She thought he would. Penniless and landless and lacking in morals he may be, but he was still a Highlander at heart, bound by his honor. And Meg thought that it was his honor that would bring him to heel.
And then I will have what I came for, she told herself. Gregor Grant will be mine.
The words echoed in her head as she made her way to her room. They gave her a warm tingle of pleasure that had nothing to do with the fire burning in her hearth. Foolishness, she thought impatiently. She would d
o well to remember that Gregor Grant was no woman’s man, and certainly not hers.
Suddenly she was very weary, and missing the services of her maid, Alison, at home in Glen Dhui. Alison had wanted to come, but she was no horsewoman, and Meg knew that, as much as she valued her maid’s company, Alison would only have slowed them down. So, once again tonight, Meg was her own lady’s maid.
The food arrived and was as good as had been promised, but Meg had lost her appetite. She quickly undressed, slipping on her nightshift and letting the white muslin settle about her before drawing a warm wrap about her shoulders. Halfheartedly she brushed out her wildly curling hair—no easy task, for it required concentration to free the flaming mass of tangles as she sat before the crackle of the small fire in the hearth.
As Meg drew the brush slowly through her hair, she allowed her mind to drift.
The general, her father, would be wondering how she was faring. She did not like the thought of leaving him for too long. While he had been in good health he had held firm the reins of Glen Dhui, and no one had dared to threaten them. Now that he was blind and fragile in body and mind, the wolves had begun to circle, and one Highland wolf in particular had been most insistent.
It was not wise to deny powerful men, and such a man was the Duke of Abercauldy. The Duke believed he would soon be adding Glen Dhui to his sizeable estate—he already owned much of the land to the south of Glen Dhui—[ ]and Meg to his household, as his wife.
But he had underestimated Meg. Lady Margaret Mackintosh was no ordinary woman. She had never been one to be tied down by the beliefs and strictures of the society in which she lived, or by what the men of her acquaintance told her she should or shouldn’t do.
Her father blamed himself for her stubbornness and her determination to do very much as she pleased. He had brought her up to value her own worth and follow her own inclinations, and often bewailed his ignorance of the consequences of doing so. No born and bred gentleman himself—[ ]coming as he did from a more humble background, he had made his money from the collieries in the north of England. That wealth had bought him power, and the rank of general in the Hanoverian forces in the late Rebellion. He had wanted but one more thing to make his rise complete, and that was for his only child, his beloved daughter, to marry a proper gentleman.