The Highlander’s Healer (Blood of Duncliffe Series)

by Emilia Ferguson

  “He'll sleep there,” she said, jerking her head at her own bed. “I'll sleep there,” she added, indicating the seat in her small parlor-space. Her face flushed.

  “I can't let you do that,” he said.

  Prudence stared. This was the first time he'd challenged her.

  “I sleep where I want in my own cottage,” she mumbled, furious, “and don't think anyone'll tell me anything different.”

  She looked up at him, leveling a firm gaze. Was it her imagination, or was there that smile again, quickly vanished? “If you want to stay,” she continued, looking away. “There's space in my loft.”

  This time, he really did laugh. A mirthless chuckle, it nevertheless brightened her evening, though she didn't know why.

  “I will remember that,” he said. “Now, since we've waited a good three minutes, I suggest we look at the patient again.”

  “Fine,” she said slowly. He spoke Lowland Scots with the unaccented flow of a nobleman – Prudence recognized it because her ex-employer's cousins, the Earl and Countess of Duncliffe – spoke the same style of the speech.

  “I suggest you unwind the bandage?” he continued reasonably. “You are, after all, more practiced than I.”

  Prudence let out a sigh, which she quickly concealed, lest it upset her patient. She wished she was more practiced, or at least that she felt that way! As it was, she barely knew the first element of what she was doing.

  She had seen her grandmother stitch up a wound, once – a farm-worker who had injured himself with a reaping-blade – but she'd never actually done it.

  “Fine,” she said, feeling a tremor in her hands, which she tried to conceal, as she unwound the bandage from around the fellow's shoulder.

  It came away cleanly. As she had hoped, it had not adhered overly much to the flesh below it, so that it came away cleanly and did not re-start the blood-flow. She breathed in the scents of blood, boiling water and the sage she had gathered to bind into the wound – it helped to keep away ill-humors, she remembered – and bent to the task.

  “I'll hold him down,” the man said firmly. “I reckon this will hurt worse than the bullet-removing?”

  “You might not mention that in front of the patient,” she said icily.

  He sighed. “He doesn't understand.”

  “Good,” Prudence said tersely, then bent toward her work. Squinting at the needle, she pushed it into the edge of the wound. The fellow grunted. She pushed harder. It was, she realized with some surprise, decidedly difficult to pierce live flesh with a needle. It was much thicker than she had expected it to be, and the knowledge that she was doing harm – even with the best intention – didn't make it any better.

  Now the other side.

  She held her breath and gave the needle a firm push and it slid cleanly through. That was the first stitch.

  Tying it off neatly, the way she had seen her grandmother do – or trying to – she made the next. Five stitches later, the wound was closed.

  “Now let's bandage this.”

  Beside her, wordlessly, the soldier bent to his work. It was, she reflected with a glimmer of warmth, not wholly bad to have an assistant who was so silently competent. It didn't hurt, either, she realized, her belly tingling with surprise, that he was so handsome.

  Prudence! How can you think such a thing?

  With his hair falling over his brow, glowing as it dried in the light of her cottage lamps, the firelight softening the chiseled plane of his jaw and cheek and nose, he was undeniably attractive.

  Prudence swallowed and focused on her work. Packing the wound with herbs, thyme for purification, yarrow to stop the bleeding, sage to drive off ill-humors, she bandaged it again. “There, now,” she said, turning to the man with a big smile. “You can rest. You're all mended.”

  Pretending a confidence she didn't feel, she patted his head, reassuring. She repeated the words and her assistant flawlessly translated them. The man nodded and his head fell back, a smile of bliss on his face. He murmured something and then seemed to fall into a half-sleep.

  Prudence turned to the man, whose lips had quirked. “What did he say?” she asked.

  “He thanked me,” he said dryly. “And said you must surely be an angel, to help him.”

  Prudence blushed brightly, and looked at the floor. “I only did what anyone would do who could,” she said firmly. “Now. Let's get him onto the bed.”

  “What anyone would do who could,” he repeated wryly. “I cannot. I think there are few who can.” He turned away and, bending over, lifted her patient as easily as if he was a sack of wheat. He laid him on the bed.

  “I am allowed to sleep where I wish, then?” she said, unable to stop herself.

  The man shrugged. The grin was back, and this time he let himself give it before it slipped away. It transformed his face, making him much younger, and boyish, and more stunning. “It's your cottage,” he murmured.

  Then he turned away.

  “Where are you going?” Prudence asked, as he headed back from the front room – where her bed was set back in an alcove, near a wood-stove for warmth – and into the kitchen.

  “I'm going to the loft,” he said. “I have my orders.”

  Prudence bit back a grin and watched him go. She could hear the smile in his voice.

  Shaking her head, she turned her attentions to her patient. Then she stoked the fire to provide him warmth.

  Then, finally, exhausted and unable to think of anything more, she slept.

  AN UNPLANNED ESCAPE

  Alexander rolled over in bed, hearing words in a language he didn't immediately recognize.

  The words were sung, a lilting tune that wove into Alexander's sleep-focused mind and made him smile. It was a woman's voice, high and lilting. He hadn't heard such good singing in years. As he lay there, an awful thought occurred to him.

  She had spoken Lowland Scots, for most of that night at least. However, that was not her native language – it was not, for example, what she sung in: that was English.

  All I need, he thought wryly, is a Hanoverian sympathizer seeing our position.

  Shrugging himself awake, sitting sharply upright, he walked to the window. Hitting his head on the low rafters almost at once, he grunted and bent down.

  Around him, the loft was lit with pale sunlight flowing in through the one tiny window, which was, thankfully, filled with a piece of bottle-thick glass. He let the sunshine soak into his skin, holding his hands to it and letting it warm him. Even with the fires lit below, with his cloak around him, it was cold here.

  “Let's go down,” he murmured to himself.

  The less time he spent here, and the sooner he was gone, the better.

  He went to the ladder that led down through a trapdoor into the kitchen. At the bottom of the ladder, he stopped.

  Breakfast.

  Breathing in a delicious mix of fresh bread, herbs and something frying, his mouth watered and his stomach ached. He hadn't eaten, he recalled, since just after midday yesterday. And that, he reflected hungrily, was quite sparse enough.

  Looking around the cottage, he swiftly made an assessment. The place was small, but well-furnished. The wooden furniture was well-made and the walls wind-tight and rain-proof. The place was not the shabby homestead of a laborer and his family, but something slightly better. A proper cottage. He looked around, wondering about this woman's history.

  She must have been wed to the cottage's owner. She owns the place, not rents it. Her husband was probably killed during the conflicts.

  That seemed unlikely, since she did not wear mourning black and would likely have continued to do so for at least a year after his death. She also wore no married-woman's cap over her pale locks, but left them free and loosely-knotted at the nape of her neck, like a girl.

  She is stunning.

  Feeling his loins tug treacherously, he looked away. Her body, firm and shapely, was a sight to make him stare. The white gown she wore was made of linen and it fit a little tigh
tly over her bust and hips, showing the curves of her tall, striking body.

  “You're awake now,” she murmured, back still to him. She hadn't turned around, and he'd been very quiet.

  “You have good hearing,” he admired, albeit grudgingly.

  “I saw your shadow,” she said, turning around. “You stepped between me and the fireplace,” she added. “There's eggs on the table, and tea, if you want it.”

  “Thanks,” he said, raising a brow. Tea, too! That cost its weight in silver up here in the north. Whoever she was, she was clearly a woman of reasonable means.

  He sat down at the small table. While she worked, he watched her from behind, trying to fathom what exactly went on here.

  “You can butter a slice of the bread, if you've a mind,” she continued, back still to him. “It just came out. I'm finishing the eggs here, and frying leftover potatoes.”

  “Thanks,” he said, stomach squeezing painfully with hunger.

  He looked around, then met her eye as she came to the table, some fried potatoes – golden and steaming – on a dish held out.

  “You assessed our wounded?” He jerked his head in the direction of the parlor, where, he assumed, the man still lay.

  “He's resting, but well,” she said slowly. “I fed him milk. And gruel.”

  “Good,” he said, raising a brow, impressed.

  She looked away, busying herself with something on the sideboard. “He is a strong man. I think he will recover from this, if given time to rest.

  “Miss, time is something I do not have.”

  She whipped around, surprised. Alexander, too, was surprised at his deferential turn of phrase. It was completely unlike him to address her so graciously – last night he had been curt to the point of rudeness.

  “Sir, I don't know who you are or where you're going,” she said, gracing him with a title too. “But I know there's nothing more urgent than saving a life.”

  “Maybe,” he mumbled. He looked down at the plate.

  What would she know? The Cause is everything! His father – his grandfather, even – would have died a thousand deaths to be where he was now, making the dreamed-of rebellion reality. Only with the might of France allied with them could it finally happen. He was on the eve of a battle that would decide everything.

  He lifted a fork – surprised, again, that it was a good-quality metal one, not the hand-carved wooden implements that most cottagers used – and spooned up some of the delicious fried potatoes.

  “The weather is good for riding today,” he demurred, looking at the window, where wan sunlight soaked through onto the flagstones.

  “It will turn bad this evening,” the woman replied.

  “Oh?” he paused, fork settled by his plate. She pulled out the seat opposite and joined him, laying a napkin on her knee – another gesture that surprised him. “You know this? How?”

  “The robins took shelter in the barn,” she said, jerking her head toward the lean-to in the garden. “They only do that if there's to be rain later.”

  “Oh,” he said, frowning. Another mystery. Whoever she was, she had grown up in the countryside somewhere – she knew the lore and folk-methods of predicting weather changes.

  “I'll refill the teapot,” she said into the awkward silence. As she pushed back her chair, he became aware of the strangeness of the situation he was in currently. The woman was a stranger – a mysterious stranger – and someone whose name he didn't even know. On the other hand, he was having a conversation with her, and sharing breakfast, as if she was a family friend.

  Another thing became apparent, as the wounded man in the parlor groaned piteously. He wasn't going to move him.

  “Oh! He's awake again,” the woman said, and ran through into the parlor. Alexander, resigned, followed her.

  Maybe I can leave Randell here. Come back for him tomorrow. That way, I'll be serving my men's interest and my own.

  And, a small, treacherous part of his mind added, he would be able to ask some questions. Find out more about her.

  “What happened?” the woman asked her patient, in Lowland Scots. “Are you paining? Oh! I wish I could talk to him properly,” she muttered to herself as Randell looked at her with an expression of blank incomprehension.

  “The lass wants to know, are you in pain?” Alexander said to Randell, who turned to him and grinned, clearly relieved.

  “Och, captain! There ye are. Bless your heart, sir! You found me a right good place. I never had such a fine sleep in my life.”

  Alexander shut his eyes for a moment, quelling impatience. “That's fine, Randell,” he said. “Now, how's your injury today? I will leave you here and come back tomorrow.”

  “Och, fine, sir!” he said, grinning. “My injury…? It's no' too bad. Paining a little, like.”

  “He says his shoulder's sore, but mending,” he translated roughly for the woman.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I'll have to change the dressing. Can you tell him it might hurt?”

  “I'm sure he'll guess,” Alexander murmured, but did as he was bid. “She's going to change the bandage. It's going to hurt.”

  “Right it will, sir!” Randell said, apparently unworried. “And it be a right blessing to have such a grand nurse. And right bonny, too. I never thought I'd bless the day I got shot, eh?”

  “Don't get too excited about blessing it now,” Alexander murmured. To his surprise, he felt a sting of anger at the fellow's casual words. How dare he think he had a chance in getting the interest of...of...of whatever her name was?

  “What did he say?”

  “He said he knows it'll hurt,” he said, leaving out the comment about the nurse. He saw her brow rise and guessed that she didn't believe it was all he'd said. She did him the courtesy of not asking anything further.

  “Will you get me the water from the table in the kitchen?” she murmured to Alexander as she began unwinding the bandage. “I may have to soak it awhile.”

  He shrugged and did as he was bid. While she worked, he stayed where he was in the kitchen doorway, and gave himself the rare pleasure of watching her.

  The creaminess of her gown shone a little more dully than the radiant fire of her hair, which hung in a tousled mass around her face. She had scraped it back, but a few curls still hung down onto her brow. The dress fit tightly across her breasts, and he had to wince to avert the throbbing reaction of his groin. He looked down at the long linen skirts that hung to the floor, the toes of good serviceable boots just apparent below them.

  “Do you need the water?”

  She looked up and blinked, slowly, as if she didn't know who he was. “Oh. Put it over there, please?” she asked, and then turned back to the man. “Would you like water?”

  Put it over there, please. Alexander grimaced. He wasn't accustomed to being ignored. Nor was he accustomed to the very same people who ignored him casting solicitous attention on his junior ranks.

  “There now,” she murmured, carefully sponging Randell's brow. “You're doing well, aren't you? I wish I could talk to you.”

  Alexander took one look at Randell's big grin. He felt his stomach sour inside. How dare the fellow grin at her like that?

  “Watch yourself, Randell,” he murmured. “And don't get too comfortable.”

  “What's that, sir?”

  “I said, don't get too comfortable,” he said, fixing him with a hard glare. Randell, oblivious, grinned more.

  “Wish I knew what she was saying, sir,” he said. “She be a right ministering angel.”

  “Quite probably,” Alexander said dryly.

  “What's that, sir?”

  Alexander ignored him and went over to the window, ostentatiously turning his back on both of them. He knew he was being silly, but he couldn't dull the irritation he felt at Randell's soppy smile and the woman's tender care.

  “Looks like bad weather,” she murmured, and he wasn't sure if she talked to Randell or to him, but he stepped away from the window, looking toward the firepl
ace.

  All I could do to help is stoke the fire. Looks like it needs more wood.

  He shrugged and headed to the kitchen and then out through the back door, to see if he could find more wood. He shivered and wished he'd brought his cloak with him – it was cold out, the wind coming straight down from the mountainside.

  In the garden, the beds were overgrown. In the front part, he had noticed, new ones had been dug and planted, but round the back, they were neglected still – choked with weeds. He headed to the lean-to he had noticed earlier and ducked inside. There was some wood there, but not nearly enough for the winter.

  “She needs a better stock than this.”

  The murmured-aloud thought surprised him.

  Why should I care? It's not like I am going to be staying here. I'm leaving today and the last time I'll see her is to fetch Randell and get well away from this place, surrounded by enemies.

  He shrugged irritably and headed toward the house, arms full of logs. He dumped them into the fireplace, stoked it and then headed out to fetch one more – the wood she had there was damp and all small stuff. He needed to pile it on properly if it was to burn all day.

  “What do I think I'm doing?”

  He sighed, shaking his head, and bent down to pick up another piece of the damp, splintery wood. Best not to think about it. The whole situation was so bizarre anyway. He might as well ride away from here and do his best to forget about it.

  As he was walking back to the house for the second time, he caught sight of movement. He paused and walked back, one brow raised. What was that?

  The last eight years in active service had built his peripheral vision so that he noticed things such as rustles in the woods. Someone was in the thicket by the fence.

  He tensed and moved carefully toward the side wall of the house. There! A movement again. Someone rustling in the trees. He strained his eyes, looking closer between the mix of oak and beech and tall fir.

  This time, he made out the horseman.

  Who would be riding around here? His hair stood on end as he contemplated that thought.