The Highlander's Brave Baroness (Blood 0f Duncliffe Series Book 10)

by Emilia Ferguson

  “Brogan?” she called, leaning down to call through the hand hold in the gate, where somebody could reach through with the key. “Brogan?”

  Alexander was close behind her, leading both their horses, and, this close, he could smell the scent of her skin. She smelled of spices, and her hair had the wild, damp smell of woodlands and excitement. He breathed it, feeling his body respond.

  I want her more than I have ever imagined.

  He felt his complete body ache, and knew that it was a kind of torture, standing this close to her, yet unable to reach out and touch her. He was nobody, to her. She couldn’t risk her reputation.

  “Brogan?” she called through the gate. “Where is the fellow?”

  “Milady?” Alex frowned. “Should we…?”

  “Milady!” he heard a joyful cry, and then an abrupt whisper. “Och, milady! I heard from the monks that you were…come in, quickly! Come inside…”

  A man with a broad face and squinting eyes, hidden by a thatch of brown hair, had appeared. He looked up at Adeline with a rapturous grin, then saw Alexander and tensed.

  “It’s alright, Brogan,” Adeline said quickly “He helped me.”

  “Well, milady,” Brogan said, voice still heavy with suspicion. “You cannae be too careful…”

  “Oh, Brogan,” she said gently, and patted his upper arm. “Thank you. But I’m really safe.”

  Well, Alexander thought crossly. It was far too shocking for her to kiss me, but she’s happy to go patting this fellow on the arm! That’s a bit of alright.

  He bit his lip and tried not to feel jealous as the fellow smiled at Adeline fondly.

  “Milady, the abbot is in his office. He’ll want to know you’re alright.”

  “I don’t want to disturb the abbot,” Adeline said decisively. “I have already placed him in a bad position. I would rather go straight to the stables. If you could find water, and cloths? I need to heal this man’s wounds.”

  “Milady, you should really let Brother Stannard…”

  “I’ve done plenty of bandaging and cleaning before,” Adeline said with a touch of reprimand, gently done. “I am the mother of a grown son, Brogan.”

  “I know, milady,” he remonstrated, “But…”

  He seemed to run out of words.

  Adeline smiled. “I know it’s wrong for a woman to do such things, Brogan,” she said slowly. “But I am a mother, and a healer. It’s quite alright.”

  “If you say so, milady.”

  Adeline stopped outside a low stone-walled building across the garden. She gestured to Alexander.

  “You, come with me. We’ll have to clean you up in the guest quarters. Brogan, if you could fetch the water, and the cloths?” she added gently.

  As the fellow hurried away, Alex smiled, grimly aware that she was being far nicer to the monastery servant then to him.

  Serves me right. I kissed her. It isn’t seemly.

  Biting his lip, he followed her into the dark, warm building.

  Inside, she opened the door to a stone cell. He followed her in, heart thumping. She closed the door behind him.

  They were in a small room that contained a bed and a washstand. It was her room, clearly, for he saw and recognized her riding cloak, thrown over a chair. He realized with shock that he was alone with her, in her bedchamber.

  “Milady…” he forced the words out through a tight throat.

  “Sit down, Alexander,” she said. “And lean back against the wall. I’m going to have to bandage your side – it’s bleeding again, badly.”

  Alex did as he was told, heart thumping. He had never imagined being this intimate with her before. It felt strange – at once impossibly wrong, at once entirely right.

  “Yes, milady.”

  He felt something akin to terror as she stood in front of him and started to unbutton his shirt. It was so intimate, the touch, and yet he knew he couldn’t risk a response.

  As she reached the buttons at his navel, he drew in a shaky breath. It was more than he could bear.

  “What?” she frowned, looking up at him. “Is it sore? I can…”

  “No!” he almost yelled. “I mean, it isn’t sore. I just…had to take a breath,” he finished hollowly.

  “Oh.”

  She was looking at him oddly and he closed his eyes, feeling an utter fool. She was clearly totally unaffected. The last thing she was thinking of was the kind of thing that was going through his head. All that he could think of – all that possessed him, entirely and overwhelmingly – was the need to throw her to the bed and lie down beside her.

  “Brogan? You can come in,” she called as somebody knocked on the door. Alexander felt almost weak with relief as she walked away, heading to the half open door. She took a bowl of water from the fellow and came back to the bed, holding it.

  “Put the linen cloths over there, please? Thank you, Brogan,” she said warmly. “And if you could, please don’t tell the abbot? Yet?”

  “Of course, milady.”

  He left, shutting the door quietly behind himself. Brogan looked up at Adeline, feeling his breath stop again. She had opened the shirt down to his belly, and he could feel the cold air, like a touch, on his skin. She was looking at him, an arm’s length away. Her hair was loose, her lips red and her skin pale in the darkness of the room. She was the most beautiful thing he could imagine.

  “Adeline,” he groaned.

  “You can lean back against the wall,” she said, turning briskly away. He heard her washing her hands in the basin of clean water, then reaching for something that lay beside it. When she turned around, she had a damp piece of linen bandaging in her hand. It steamed gently.

  “I’m going to have to soak the shirt off the wound site,” she said, kneeling in front of him. “It’s stuck to the blood, and it’s holding it in place.”

  Alexander groaned as she started to gently bathe his side. Every touch was torture. He had long since ceased to notice the pain of his side, utterly lost below the exquisite agony that was his longing for her. She was kneeling before him and he could see the slow rise and fall of her chest, bringing her breasts a little closer to the low-cut neck of her riding gown. He wanted with a longing that was beyond control to touch that soft skin he saw there.

  “Now, lean back. I need to finish this part.”

  Obediently, aware of a rise in his groin and knowing a woman of her experience would notice it immediately, he did as he was told.

  “Ah, there we are,” she said, deftly swabbing the last of the blood away. She started peeling the shirt away, then, and he really did feel agony, the sudden sting of pain outweighing the agony of his longing by a long way.

  “Oh…” he gasped, gritting his teeth and fighting with himself, to hold back the sound.

  “It’s quite bad,” she agreed, as she ran the cloth over the wound. “That brute has stretched the stitches. I think it could do with another one, but I don’t have anything to do it with…” she frowned.

  “It’s alright, milady,” he grunted, immediately. “It’ll hold.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Adeline said with gentle amusement. “And I don’t know when we suddenly became an expert on bandaging and healing, but, as you mention it, I think you happen to be right. It will hold.”

  “Thanks, milady,” he replied.

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Silence followed, as she swabbed the wound and he closed his eyes and tried his hardest not to focus on her gentle, tapering fingers, cleaning him. He tried to fill in the ugliest, most brutish camp surgeon he could recall, imagining the fellow was tending him, not Adeline. He could smell the scent of her hair, though, and she was so gentle, that it made any deception of his senses impossible.

  “Are you finished?” he asked.

  “Impatient, eh?” she chuckled. She stood, and went to the table. “Not quite. I have to bandage you. Since you won’t let me stitch it, the least I can do is try and make sure you won’t bleed to death during the night
.”

  “Och, milady. I don’t think I will.”

  “If you speak like that to me, so condescending, I might make sure you do.” She countered hotly.

  “Sorry, milady.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  They worked together, stonily silent.

  He held the bandage in place; she wound it around his back. She pressed against him, and there was a moment when her arms were round him, reaching for each end of the linen strip. He sat stonily silent, trying to be impassive.

  She’s so close I can smell her skin.

  He bit the inside of his cheeks, trying to fight the urge to kiss her. She smelled spicy and wonderful and he couldn’t help the massive draw he felt towards her, like the way a lodestone always sought the North.

  “Well, then,” Adeline said, straightening up. Her cheeks were red, he noticed, and her face was strangely still, almost as if she, too, fought some deep emotion. “You can lie back now. I think you’re finished.”

  “Finished? That sounds a bit final.”

  She shot him a look. “You know what I mean. Now, I am going to go and find some dinner. If you know what’s good for you, I’d suggest you stay here – the less the monks know about your presence here, the better.”

  “Yes, milady,” he nodded. His stomach rumbled and he fought the urge to ask her what he was supposed to eat, and where he was going to spend the rest of the time.

  “I’ll bring you something from the kitchens,” Adeline promised. “And you can stay here. I’ll sleep next door.”

  “Milady? I can sleep…”

  “You’re injured. You need a bed.” She cut across him. Her eyes really were green, he noticed, and they held his with an intensity that made his skin prickle.

  “Yes, milady.”

  She shot him an ironic smile. “You know how to be polite, then. That’s nice.”

  Alexander grinned. “And you know how to be commanding.”

  He noticed a strange expression cross her face. “I had some practice; these last few years – having to take charge of the manor required it.”

  “It could nae have been easy, having to give orders and organize everything.”

  “No.” She leaned back against the wall. “Though it was easier than having Camden do it.” Her voice was tight.

  “Oh,” he said. This was dangerous territory. They had never discussed the late baron before. He sensed that she had some misgivings about him, and that there was some sorrow in her past.

  “Camden did love giving orders,” she said. “I think it was the only reason he bothered waking up, some days.”

  “Difficult bastard, aye?”

  The instant the words were out of him, Alexander regretted them. Oddly, though, she started to laugh.

  “Oh, Alexander. I couldn’t have found better words.”

  He blushed. “I’m sorry – I just could nae help it.”

  They both looked at each other. She was still laughing, her shoulders shaking, and her eyes less tense and harrowed than he had seen them in a long time.

  “I’m glad you couldn’t help it,” she said after she slowly stopped laughing. “I needed somebody to say that. I needed to hear that years ago, I reckon.”

  He grinned. “Well, I’m glad you did.”

  She smiled. “So am I. Now,” she added, walking toward the door. “I’m going to the kitchens to see what I can find for dinner. It’s almost vespers and the monks will be heading into the refectory. I’m sure I can get something for us now.”

  “Thanks, milady,” he called, but she slipped away before she could hear him. The door shut with a click.

  He heard the sound of footsteps, echoing in the colonnade outside. Alone in Adeline’s room, he looked around. Her mantle was thrown over the back of the chair. Her shoes lay by the door. It was deeply personal, oddly intimate. He touched the garment, feeling soft silk under his fingers. It was red brocade, and he noticed a loose thread in brown. Somebody had patched the corner recently, where it had torn.

  He could smell her scent, spice and wildness. He wanted to lift the mantle and bury his nose in it.

  “Och, milady,” he whispered. “If only I could tell ye how I feel about ye.”

  He shook his head. It was all wishful thinking. He was a nobody, she a baroness. He had no right to say anything to her.

  “Last feller was a baron. He didnae make her happy, though.”

  He shook his head. He would have loved to give that fellow a talking to! He must have mistreated her sorely. He hated how sad she’d looked, the wistful expression in her eyes.

  “Whist,” he said to himself, hearing the sound of footsteps. He shot back to the bed and sat down. He was just in time. The door slid open and Adeline walked in.

  “I found us a loaf,” she said, producing a wrapped bundle. “And some turnips.”

  “Och, milady,” he said, breathing in the scent of stewed turnips from the pot she carried. He could smell the baked bread as well, the scent wafting from the cloth-wrapped bundle as she set it down.

  “Well, then,” she said. “Not much of a meal, but something. You can sit here,” she added, gesturing to a low stool. She took the chair, and they sat close to each other. The room was tiny, and he felt his knee bump hers.

  “Oops,” he said.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  They looked at each other, both blushing.

  Adeline turned away first, fussing with the loaf. “I haven’t a knife to cut it,” she said, tearing at the rounded end.

  “I have this,” he said, producing the small knife he always carried.

  He reached for the loaf. His fingers touched hers.

  “Um…”

  She was about to say something, but she seemed in no more hurry than he to move her hand. She left her fingers where they were.

  He caressed them gently, stroking the tips. Adeline gasped.

  “Sorry,” he said, reddening with shame.

  She didn’t say anything, only reached for a ladle and a plate she’d brought.

  “Milady?” he queried, as the silence stretched. What had he done? He should never have taken such liberties with her! It was shameful.

  “Have some turnips,” she said quietly. “They’re good.”

  He nodded. “They smell good.”

  She ladled some onto the plate, and then passed him the spoon. They sat and ate in comfortable silence.

  “You know,” he said, as he finished another slice of bread, pausing to break off another piece for her, “I haven’t enjoyed sharing a meal with someone like this in a long time.”

  “Oh?” she raised a brow.

  “No,” he said, carefully testing the waters. “Not for a long time. Five years.”

  “I see,” Adeline said. She didn’t say anything for a long while. He thought she’d forgotten.

  “What happened?” she asked, suddenly.

  “She died.” Even saying it was hard.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” he said, trying to sound casual. “It was just something that happened.”

  “I understand.”

  They continued the meal in silence.

  It felt strange, having mentioned Brenna. Alexander realized that he had never actually talked about how he felt, about the pain of losing her, about his love. He had kept it all inside him, or forced it down deep within by drinking and trying to pretend it was all alright. It wasn’t.

  “You loved her, then?” Adeline asked.

  He shifted in the chair. “I loved her,” he agreed. His voice cracked as he spoke. “It’s stupid, but I still talk to her. Often. I haven’t seen her – not even in visions. Not for a while.”

  “I see,” Adeline said softly. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” he said again.

  He watched her as she shifted in her seat, looking out of the window. The evening light painted a gold streak down her face, outlining her fine profile. He could see a small curl of hair resting on her neck,
and he had to fight the urge to reach out and stroke it away. It would be heavenly to touch her skin, to feel that softness under her fingertips, warm and exciting.

  “You must be…”

  “I was thinking…”

  They both spoke together. He smiled.

  “You go first.”

  She sighed. “I was going to mention that you must be thinking about her.” She looked sorrowful.

  “I do think about her,” he said slowly. “But I wasn’t thinking about her. I was thinking about you.”

  Adeline looked at him. Her eyes held his, and he felt as if he was drawn into them, drowning helplessly. He wanted her so much! It was a real effort to sit in the chair and not stand and kiss those soft lips and run his fingers through her fine hair.

  “You need to rest,” she said.

  He nodded. He felt a strange mix of excitement and confusion. Was she angry? Offended? He couldn’t tell.

  “Aye,” was all he said. “Reckon so.”

  She stood, the seat scraping back on the hard floor. “I’ll go and find other accommodation,” she said.

  “Milady…” he protested, half standing. The wound in his side pulled and he sank back down to the bed, feeling stupid.

  “See?” she said. She grinned at him, amused. “I’ll be next door, if you wake up in pain. Goodnight?”

  He nodded. “Goodnight.”

  He heard the door close.

  When she had gone, he closed his eyes and called himself every name he could think of. He was an idiot, a fool, a dolt, a…

  “Och, lad. It’s not going tae help. You did something stupid. Not much you can do to undo it.”

  He sighed. This was the only time, probably, that he would have time to talk alone with Lady Adeline, now or ever. He should have put more thought into it. He had made her angry with him. He should have been more careful!

  Or less careful, lad.

  He should have told her what was in his heart, let it all out. He would never have another chance.

  She’s not going back to the manor, one way or another.

  Alexander went to the window, feeling restless. He could just see out, if he stood on tiptoe. The sky was green and yellow, the evening sunlight like fire on the hill.

  He knew he would only cause more trouble if he let his presence at the abbey be known. Yet he also knew he’d like as not go mad, stuck in here all night.