But she was the sun, warming him to his core, easing the aching fists of pain gripping his chest. The heavenly scent of her filled his head—soft and bright with the scent of flower and citrus. Soft. Soft in eye and tongue and manner.
So he took the hand she offered. “Thank you.” His bony arse hit the stone with a jolt, and he leaned his head back against the wall to make the damned inconvenient whirling sensation stop. When it finally did, he opened his eyes to find her still there, not staring at him, but looking around him with her hands on her hips, as if she were taking some sort of stock—her bright, intelligent eyes were narrowed at the corners.
“Well. Clearly you oughtn’t be left alone—I can’t imagine why Dewar did so.” She frowned as she smiled—her soft lips widened over her warm smile. “But now we’re here to help. Gent seems quite taken with you.”
She was looking at the wee dog, who still pressed his furry muzzle into his palm. “I think he likes you very much. He’s lost his master, you see, and he’s been feeling a bit lost.” Her smile was bittersweet. “Like you.”
Lost. Aye, he was lost inside his own mind—mad as a March hare in a hedgerow.
“Have you been seen by a doctor?” She was frowning in that concerned way. “Has anyone been up here to see you?”
“Aye, before, but not—” He shook his head in answer but the action created against another wave of threatening blackness that hovered at the edge of his vision. “I’m fine.”
“Yes, I can see that,” she disagreed with a wry sort of kindness. “Do you mind? If I took at your injury to your head? I’ve some experience with medicine.” She pointed toward the back of his head, which stung and itched off and on. But as the stinging and itching was a hundred times better than the incessant ache which had accompanied him upon the moor, he would not complain.
He bowed his head—frankly it was easiest to hold his temples in his hands—while she came to stand with one knee upon the bench, close by his shoulder. Close enough so he could smell the bright scent that wafted off her—summer sunshine and something as sweet and simple as new mown hay. So close that he felt the soft breeze of her breathing on the skin of his neck.
It was heaven, even if he was in this forgetful hell.
“Do you mind if I take off the binding to have a look? The Swiss and French advise leaving a healing wound open to the air.” She unwound the bandage without waiting for his answer. “The flesh looks healthy, though I should think you’ll have a magnificent scar.”
“Aye.” A scar was a small price to pay for being alive and with her.
She stepped away, and it was as if the fire in the fireplace had gone out, so complete was the loss of warmth.
“Not much in the way of creature comforts, is it?” She was poking her head through the open door to inspect his mode of dwelling. “But it looks well-built and in good tick—snug enough to keep a lashing wind and rain out. And you’ve several good thick wool plaids.”
His face grew strangely hot at the thought of her looking at his narrow cot.
If she noticed, she made no mention. “What have you for food?”
“Dewar,” was all he managed.
“He’s the one who left you that pot?” She stepped into the bothy and came immediately back, holding the hot handle of the blackened pot with his only other shirt. “Why, it’s almost empty. No wonder you’re in such a state. Why on earth he left you up here, when the keeper’s cottage is far better suited to the purpose of nursing a gravely injured man back to health than a remote, drafty bothy, I’ll never understand.” She disappeared back into the interior, and he could hear her straightening up things as she tsked. “And how is a man to recover from such an injury without the proper nourishment? I’ll have Mrs. Malloch make up a hamper full of fruits and cheese and bread to have on hand. Wee nourishing bits to eat besides a stew cooked to treacle for days.”
“But—” She poked her head around the door jamb to frown at him. “I’m sorry, but can you eat such things? I’m sorry to pry, but your teeth?” She gestured to her own, and then to his mouth, as if she spoke some foreign language, when he only had the difficulty in speaking, not hearing. She really must think him mad. “Were any of your teeth loosened in the…accident?”
“No accident.” This he knew. He had not been unseated from his horse, tipped off the road and fallen down the gorse-ridden braeside into the burn—he had been beaten to within a hair’s breadth of his life.
“Do you mean—” She laid her hand against his arm. “What happened?”
He did not know, so he could not say. But how could he admit such a deficit to this lass? Mad and injured he might be, but he was still enough of a man to bridle at admitting his diminishment.
Instead, though he was as sore as a bear, he smiled to show her what Dewar had claimed—that he still had his teeth.
“Oh, gracious.” Her checks pinked as she mirrored his smile. “Yes, I see. You look quite fierce. The bruises are rather splendid. But nothing broken, I hope?”
“Nose. And ribs.”
“Oh, gracious. You poor thing.” She raised her hand to his face slowly, as if she still thought him a dumb animal and wanted to show him she intended no harm, and slid her hand along the rough, bristly contour of his jaw. She went gently, as the left side of his face and jawbone were indeed still sore with bruises he could not see but felt acutely.
But when she turned her hand to carefully trace the knot on the crest of his nose with her slender index finger, the pad of her thumb inadvertently rested against his lower lip.
For a moment he felt like a dumb, brute animal, to have her look at him with the same curious detachment she might have displayed checking a horse’s teeth at a fair. But he was no dumb animal. He was as cock-brained as they came, but some part of his mad mind still prompted him to open his lips just wide enough to rasp his teeth along the flesh of her thumb.
She drew back her hand as if stung—her face flushed a bright becoming shade of pink the hot color of the sunset over the hill.
His own body roared to unruly, if vigorous life—the feeling was damn near electrifying.
She turned away, busying herself with the making of plans, while he shifted himself and his too-small breeches on the bench. “I’ll get a salve and some foods to help you heal,” she said. “To make you stronger and better. Oh—here!” She pulled something from the satchel strung across her shoulder. “A good Perthshire Drummond pear, ripe and soft. Let me cut it for you.”
She took a wee dirk out of her other pocket, and came closer, hunching down upon her heels next to the bench to pare off a thick slice to hand to him.
It slid into his mind’s eye so clearly—that image of the dirk in the boot coming toward his head—and so vividly, he could almost feel the sick impact of the hard kick against the base of his skull. But then it was gone.
He took the piece she held out. The flavor of the fruit exploded in his mouth, racing up his jaw. Almost painfully good. He made a sound that was half groan, half slavering.
She would think him more than merely mad—she would think him an animal.
It was almost more than he could bear.
“Please.” He heaved the word out of his mouth like a heavy boulder rolled in front of a cave. “Stay.” He didn’t want her to leave. He wanted her to stay and feed him sweet ripe fruit always.
She drew back a bit, even as she smiled kindly. “I wish I could. Though I think the dog will stay.” She bit her lip between her teeth, trying to decide, before she asked him. “Would you like that?”
“Aye.” The wee dog would be more than welcome, though a poor substitute for her companionship. “You’ll come back?”
“Aye.” She patted his knee in gentle consolation. “I must unfortunately go, but I will come back, as soon as I may, to check on you and Gent, both.”
“Thank you,” he managed. “You are”—he worked to enunciate the word carefully— “kind.” His brain kindly found him another. “Sweet.”
&n
bsp; Another flush painted her face, lighting her like the rarest jewel. “My gracious. How sweet yourself.”
“Thou bonnie gem.” The words found the way out of his mouth, though he did not really know what he meant.
Her lovely mouth dropped open in surprise. “Burns—my favorite.” A long moment hung between them while she decided what else to say. “I had a…a friend who liked Burns especially. I sent him the poems when he was away and homesick.” She tipped her head to one side to carefully consider him. “I’m sorry, perhaps I missed it, but what is your name?”
All the pleasure that he had felt was swallowed whole by his shame. By the mortification of being so mad—so diminished—that he could not say his own name.
But he could not tell her that. And so he reached out and touched her hand. To tell her with his body what his lost and twisted words could not—that he needed her.
She answered with a small sunrise of a smile, so pink and kind and bittersweet it made her something more than bonnie—it made her beautiful. “It doesn’t matter.”
It did. Nothing in the short, painful extent of his memory would ever be as bitter sweet, or ever matter more.
Lord Ewan Cameron
7 Rue Malebranche
Faubourg St. Michel
Paris. France
8 October, 1786
Dear Ewan,
My apologies for the lapse in writing ~ I have been kept busy as a bee in a summer hedgerow by my new governess. Her name is Miss Fiona Hally and she is the most frighteningly intellectual woman I have ever met. Naturally I adore her because with her help I feel like I might almost catch up to you and your continental education. Of course, I shall never be as worldly, for I cannot travel as you have. Still, Dear Hally is not one for simply sitting in the school room ~ our discourses on natural philosophy take place on horseback as easily in a library. Our lessons on the new systems of agriculture are accompanied by careful observation of the fields and flocks of Dalshee.
And to that end, I have a new horse, as I have sadly outgrown my poor sweet pony, Dunnie. Dunnie will still pull the governess cart, but Papa has gifted me with a startling bonnie white mare, come all the way from Leith ~ where I am sure you know there are horse races. I kept your Cat Sìth in mind while naming her ~ what do you think of Nicnevin, the Queen of the Fairies? I must admit I am quite in love with her. She has the roundest, most beautiful eyes, and is quite the pluckiest mare that ever lived, taking me up and down the brae with nary a nicker.
I hope your travels out in the wide world ~ Ah, Paris! ~ fare as well as ours. But as you have asked me for more of home, I enclose a gift ~ which I am happy to say necessitated a trip to Edinburgh with Dear Hally. I hope you enjoy the book of Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect by Mr. Robert Burns, a poet of Kilmarnock. I hope they give you as many hours of pleasure in Paris, thinking of your homeland, as they do me, still situated in the midst of Perthshire. And I hope it will also give you pleasure to imagine me reciting said poems at the top of my lungs to the wind atop Glas Maol. I fancy if you listen hard enough, the north wind will blow them your way, with a kiss from me. I remain,
Your poetry-reciting friend, Greer
Chapter 10
What had she been thinking to touch him so?
She was thinking he was gentle and lost, though his mind was clearly not entirely right. But whether this was all from his injury she could not tell, as she had not known him before. Still, he was a man of some learning—that telling snippet of poetry could not otherwise have found its way out of a mind so disordered.
What she thought, was that he was special—like Lazarus, risen from the dead.
And if he could do it…
She knew it was wishful thinking, and maybe dangerous to even entertain the notion that Ewan might not be dead. She knew she was making something extraordinary out of an ordinary man to fill the well of loneliness that Ewan’s death had opened within her.
Yet the moment she felt his hand upon hers—felt the roughened texture of his skin that told her he had quite literally clung to life with his fingertips—she had felt that even if he were nobody, he was good. Because even if he could not seem to speak or think perfectly, that simple touch told her more about him in that one moment than another man might have elucidated in five minutes of conversation—that he was kind. And grateful for the contact. That he was perhaps even starved for affection and company, along with being fairly starved for food—his clothes, such as they were, hung from his lanky frame like drapery from the rod of his bony shoulders.
Though it was an emotional wrench to leave sweet Gent, she doubted the wee dog would come with her. The animal was clearly smitten, clinging to the fellow’s side as if…
Greer stopped herself from continuing along that particularly dangerous path of thought. She would find out more before she leapt to any untenable conclusions. She would concentrate on what she already knew, and that was that her new friend’s need for simple companionship was, at present, clearly greater than hers—she had her own dogs, Milk and Honey, as well as Mama and Papa to turn to always, while her new friend had no one.
Nay. He had her now—she would be his advocate and his friend.
Indeed, if the dogs trusted him—and dogs were notoriously reliable judges of character—so would she. And here was a purpose that would push her up and out of her grief—here was a chance to do all the good she could, by all the means she had at her disposal, to this person she had found in need.
If there were another reason, a secret wish of her foolish, unyielding heart, she would keep that to herself—a talisman to ward off the ache of acceptance.
She would return to the bothy with foodstuffs as soon as possible. A well-cured ham—something he would not need to cook, but only cut and feed himself for nourishment. Apples from the harvest, and other fruits from Dalshee’s well-maintained glasshouse, as well as a thick, hearty stew to stick to his ribs.
But how ought she to explain such a request to the kitchens, or Mama and Papa? There was something curious—almost disquieting—about the fact that Dewar had told her the lad had died, when the clear truth was that he was recovering.
Perhaps Dewar was simply one of those old-fashioned, pig-headed sorts of old men who disdained any help from a female? He wouldn’t be the first man in Scotland—or the last—to depreciate her ‘managing’ tendencies.
But she wouldn’t apologize for her character—Ewan had never seemed to mind her speaking either her heart or her mind to him in their letters. And she had been raised and trained as the heiress of Dalshee to make decisions—about staff and the estate alike—and to hone her experience into instinct that rarely let her down.
Her instinct was now to tread lightly until she could learn more.
“Oh, mileddy.” Dalshee’s housekeeper, Mrs. Malloch looked up from arranging a laden tea tray. “Yer lady mother bids you come tae the drawin’ room as soon as may be. Duke o’ Crieff’s come tae call.”
“Oh. Gracious.” Foiled—there was no time to change into more suitable drawing room attire if she were to make it back up to the bothy with the food. But she quickly decided the food was more important. “Thank you, Mrs. Malloch. I will go directly, but in the meantime, I should like a hamper packed for a very hearty picnic, if you please.”
“Enough fae two, mileddy?” Cook’s sharp eyes were bright with question.
“Aye, if you please,” Greer answered. “With a ham and good deal of fruit, if we can spare it, please.” That would do nicely to keep her friend in good kip for several days, she hoped.
“I’ll have it reddy fae ye and His Grace in no time, mileddy.”
“Oh, nay. I meant a charity basket not a picnic for—” Greer felt her cheeks flame with equal parts embarrassment and indignation—that they should think her already courting Malcolm Cameron less than a fortnight after Ewan had died, was mortifying.
And yet, she swallowed back the protest poised on the tip of her tongue. Let them think what they would—it we
re better to keep her friend in the bothy’s presence a secret until she could divine more about him. “Thank you,” she said instead, though she could do nothing about the riddy heat in her cheeks. “I’ll send for it presently.”
“Greer, my dear,” her mama called as soon as Greer joined the company in the afternoon drawing room. “Do come and take some refreshment with us. His Grace of Crieff has come to call.” Her voice was everything serene, but Greer could hear the subtle warning in her tone and see the line of concern etched between her brows at how long Greer had been gone.
“I hope I have not kept you waiting long,” Greer offered for politeness’s sake, but did not elaborate her reasons for having been much longer than planned.
Do good by stealth, she reasoned, was what the Bible and her parents had always taught. And although she had never been stealthy, or kept a secret from them before, she would now. For some reason she could not yet articulate, but understood to be true, her friend in the glen needed her protection.
From whom, she was not yet sure—possibly from Dewar, who had said the poor fellow was dead, and had all but abandoned him to his fate in the high moor. But until she knew for sure what and who had brought the gentle giant to such a pass, she would keep silent.
His Grace of Crieff could no longer do the same. “I brought you flowers.” Malcolm Cameron handed her a posy of hot-house tulips—out of season flowers presumably from Crieff’s glass house.
Her favorites. How had he known?
“Thank you, Your Grace.” It was a thoughtful gesture. But one that had hidden—or perhaps not so hidden—meaning. Perhaps the new Duke of Crieff had really meant what he said and had somehow learned what he needed to do to come calling. “How kind.”
“It is you who do me a kindness by receiving me.”
Greer was flattered and concerned enough to force her mind away from the weather and calculating the remaining hours of daylight in which to return to the bothy and pay stricter attention. “I hope I have not kept you waiting too long.”
MAD, BAD & DANGEROUS TO MARRY (The Highland Brides Book 4) Page 8
