Highland Crown

by May McGoldrick

  “I never knew there were any either,” he managed to say before bending over the bucket and vomiting again.

  In this remote and godforsaken Highland shore, where people shot at the survivors of a sinking ship, he’d been saved by a doctor.

  “After digging that ball out of him, did ye sew him up wrong?” Jean asked. “Is that why his guts are spilling out into my bucket?”

  “He’s throwing up because you hit him with a rock.”

  “What choice did I have? Yer a stranger here, but the dog was throttling ye. Had murder in his eyes, he did.”

  Cinaed did vaguely recall fighting. He was on a beach. The pain in his chest was intense. He thought someone was cutting out his heart. He felt a twinge of guilt.

  “I didn’t. I wasn’t. No mur…” he managed to rasp out, trying to keep down the next gallon of boiling seawater rising into his gorge.

  “I was trying to save your life, but you decided to choke the life out of me,” the doctor said calmly. “You deserved the knock on the head.”

  Yet she’d still extracted that ball from his chest and put him back together. Steps shuffled off across the floor. Old Cerberus was returning to her lair. At least the woman doctor didn’t belong to this tribe of brutes who tried to kill him. He should apologize—thank her, at any rate—but he couldn’t. The bile was in his throat again. Every limb felt dead to him. His body ached, and his face was suddenly burning with fever. He only wanted to close his eyes and shut everything out.

  She gently rolled him onto his back and lowered his head onto a soft mound.

  The hellish upheaval in his stomach was easing now that it was empty. The doctor stood and crossed to the fire, and Cinaed studied the inside of the cottage for the first time. The smell of fish and a wood fire permeated the air. One door, two windows, a thin beam of daylight cutting across the smoky interior. The old woman sat at a wooden table, mumbling what sounded like complaints at no one in particular. The storm seemed to be lessening outside. His clothes were wet, so he couldn’t have been unconscious for too long.

  Carrying strips of cloth, the doctor came back and crouched beside him. Her hands were cool, and he welcomed them on his fevered skin. Her touch moved with competent assurance as she cleaned and covered the wound on his chest.

  In his entire life, no woman had ever treated him so tenderly. Certainly, he’d known the soft touches of plenty of harbor lasses, but their interest in him was more closely connected to the coins in his pocket. He’d been at sea for most of his days and never had a real home to call his own. He’d never had a woman who cared for his needs without wanting something in return.

  He studied her face again.

  Her nose was straight. She had a wide, lush mouth. The hollow curve beneath her high cheekbones fascinated him. He didn’t know why, but he found himself fighting the impulse to reach up and erase the furrowed crease in the middle of her brow.

  Cinaed’s eyes drifted shut. It was too painful to move, to think, to decide how he could repay his debt to her. To this doctor.

  Then suddenly, he was back on board the Highland Crown. The storm was again raging, and huge waves were battering his brig. Men were trapped in the stern, and he had to save them before the ship was driven down into the bottomless abyss.

  * * *

  Isabella laid a blanket over the man, leaving the dressed wound exposed. She wanted to know if it began to bleed again.

  She hadn’t removed his boots from the long legs that hung over the end of the cot. His size alone made him quite imposing. And his reflexes were quick, despite his injuries. She touched the tender skin of her throat and rubbed her wrist where his grip had bruised her. He was a rough man, but considering all he’d gone through and the strangeness of waking up in this cottage, she understood his reaction.

  He was extremely lucky to be alive. The ball had missed his heart and lodged itself in the flesh close to the collarbone. Half an inch in any direction and he would have been killed, to be sure. Isabella was glad he’d been unconscious while she’d operated. She didn’t want to think how he would have responded if he’d woken up while she was digging about in his chest.

  “Well, is yer sea dog going to live?” Jean called from the table.

  “He’s young and strong. So long as he doesn’t come down with a fever, he should recover.”

  “How soon can we turn him out?”

  “If you think he’ll wake up and walk out of here in the next hour, I’d say you’re expecting too much.”

  Jean shoved a bowl to the side and grumbled under her breath. The fire hissed back at her. Having two outsiders here clearly wasn’t what the old woman had bargained for when she’d agreed to help her nephew.

  If the man were found under her roof, Jean would be facing a great deal of trouble with her people. Helping Isabella hide in the cottage paled in comparison with concealing and nursing someone from the wreck.

  Whatever John gave his aunt from Sir Walter, she thought, it wouldnt be enough.

  Isabella picked up her instruments and dropped them into a pot of water boiling over the fire. Her attention stayed on the old woman’s hands. The excitement of last night and this morning had made the shaking worse. She wracked her brain for something she could do to help Jean. Somehow, she’d have to repay her for the risks she was taking.

  She started to clean her equipment. For a moment, her thoughts turned to her father, a student of ancient Roman medicine. In his teaching, he’d always been a strong though lone advocate of cleanliness. But what mattered most to him would not have been the conditions under which she’d operated. She’d saved a man that many others would have allowed to die. Isabella had no doubt what she did last night and today would have made Thomas Murray proud.

  “I don’t understand ye.” Jean’s hand was shaking hard enough to cause a soft, steady drumming on the table.

  Isabella left her medical instruments in the pot and dried her hands on her skirt.

  “I don’t understand going through all this trouble,” Jean complained. “To be sure, he’ll kill us both when he’s strong enough.”

  Isabella hadn’t had enough time to think everything through. Last night, she’d run up to the cottage and fetched a blanket. Rolling the man onto it, the two women struggled but somehow managed to drag him inside where she’d immediately operated.

  He was wounded, and she needed to help him. It had been the same in Edinburgh. Sick and injured men and women had arrived at their door, and she’d reacted. She had very little interest in whether they could compensate her and her husband for their care. And what was to become of her patients in the future was the worry for another day.

  Jean’s short temper boiled over. “I can’t have it. Ye, I might be able to explain. But him?” She snorted.

  “Perhaps he’ll want to go when he wakes up,” Isabella suggested. Of course, it was impossible. She’d seen enough gun wounds to know her patient was in no condition to walk out of this place alone.

  “What if he doesn’t?”

  She didn’t have all the answers. And right now, the thought of making a decision for someone else was overwhelming.

  The trials of these past weeks never left her. She’d lost Archibald. Maisie and Morrigan’s future depended on her making good, clear choices. She had little faith that all would turn out well for any of them. But one thing Isabella was certain of was that she’d done right. And saving this man had restored a vestige of the confidence she had in herself and her abilities. She still had a purpose to serve. As powerless as she’d been feeling while her life collapsed around her, she still had something valuable to offer.

  “I can’t handle him when he wakes up,” Jean kept on doggedly. “And neither can ye. I say we drag him back to the beach now and let—”

  “Take this,” Isabella cut in, slipping the gold ring from her finger. Archibald had given it to her on their wedding day. A token she was ready to part with.

  She’d spent her youth studying and working beside her f
ather while many other young women dreamt of love and courtship. She’d had no interest in such things in married life. And as for Archibald, his true love had been Morrigan’s mother, the woman he’d lost a year before he offered marriage to Isabella.

  None of the past mattered anymore. He was gone, and a different life lay ahead of her. She laid the ring on the table in front of Jean. “It’s yours.”

  “Why give me this?”

  “To pay for his keep,” Isabella said, motioning toward the sleeping patient. “He’s lost a great deal of blood. To let him stay and mend.”

  Jean picked up the gold ring and turned it over, staring at the engravings.

  “Let him stay until your nephew comes back. John will know what to do with him.”

  Her hostess had confirmed this morning that, because of the fiery explosion, not much of value had washed ashore with the wreckage from the ship, and the villagers would certainly be blaming the crew.

  Isabella had witnessed how ruthless they could be. She had no doubt this man’s fate would be sealed the moment they put him back on the beach. They’d kill him if for no other reason than to satisfy their anger over what had been destroyed.

  Jean pushed the ring back toward Isabella. “I’ve seen wedding rings afore, and I’ll not take yers. But while we’re at it, where is yer husband?”

  Isabella shook her head, too tired to explain. It was safer this way. “Can he stay or not?”

  The old woman started to say something, but then she stopped short. Her head cocked toward the door. Immediately, she was up and moving. Pushing open a shutter a crack, she peered through and motioned to Isabella to stay quiet.

  “Habbie the Ranter’s got his cart down on the strand,” she hissed.

  Isabella took an involuntary step back. The fire in the hearth blocked her retreat. “Who is this Habbie?”

  “A low, troublemaking cur. The same one that came looking for salvage afore.”

  “Will he come this way?”

  “He might.”

  Anger unexpectedly sparked up within Isabella. She’d been through this before. Trapped in their house. Soldiers breaking in at every door. Archibald had died in her arms. And while they were in hiding, word had come that the protesters they’d been ministering to had either died or been dragged off to the horrors of Bridewell Prison. She couldn’t save them, and she couldn’t protect them. Isabella had never seen herself as a fighter—in the physical sense—but right now, she was ready to pick up Jean’s cudgel and swing it at the head of the first person who tried to force his way into this cottage.

  “He’s coming. Hide.”

  “Where?” Isabella asked as the woman started to unlatch the door.

  “Through there,” she said, pointing to the leather hide hanging low on the wall. “It’s just a wee space for keeping my wood dry. Take him with ye. I’ll try to keep this one outside, but I might not have a say in the matter.”

  Jean went out and pulled the door closed behind her.

  Isabella’s hands shook as she darted toward the wall. Pulling the stiff skin aside, she stuck her head into a dark space that she’d barely be able to stand in. She quickly shoved driftwood aside to make room, but in the end, the space was barely large enough for one person to hide. It would have to do. She hurried back to the wounded man’s side.

  “Help me,” she whispered, prodding him. “I need you to wake up.”

  She received only a low moan in response. She had no time. Casting aside the blanket, she lifted one booted leg off the cot and then the other. Going behind him, she raised his head and slipped her arms around his chest. He was too heavy.

  “I’m sorry.” She gathered her strength. “This won’t do your injuries much good, I’m afraid.”

  Pulling with all her might, she managed to tip him off the cot.

  Isabella froze at the sound of a gruff voice.

  “Oy, Auld Jean. Fine day after such a wild blow, wouldn’t ye say?”

  “So yer out for a stroll in the weather, Habbie?” Jean replied in a scoffing tone. “Are we going to make these daily visits, then?”

  They had to be standing right outside the door. Taking hold of her patient’s boots, Isabella dragged him toward the hiding place.

  “Don’t care for my company, auld woman?”

  “When did I ever?”

  Isabella paused to catch her breath. Jean asked about the events of the night, and Habbie told her that none of the longboats landed nearby. He was out looking for anything else that might have washed in with the tide.

  She pulled the wounded man again, and he groaned softly as his head bumped along the stone floor. As she backed through the low opening, she banged her own head hard on the lintel.

  Crawling through, she managed to haul most of his body into the space. Why did he have to be so tall and broad? When she had no more room to pull, she climbed back over him, heaved his shoulders up, and forced him through the opening. He was moaning low, and Isabella held him in a sitting position, breathing hard. She hoped she hadn’t torn his stitches loose in moving him.

  “All right, Habbie. Out with it,” Jean said to her visitor in a scolding tone. “What’re ye doing down here?”

  “I told ye, I’m out looking for anything from the wreck. What little there is, the lads are sorting it up at the kirk.”

  Isabella’s patient wouldn’t stay upright. There was nothing she could prop his back against. Bracing herself, she shoved him in another inch or two. If anyone stepped inside the cottage now, she’d be in plain view.

  “Nothing washed ashore on the beach here, as ye can see. So ye can just be on yer way.”

  “Now that ye mention it, there’s marks in the sand leading right to yer door. Something was dragged up here since the storm.”

  Isabella broke out into a cold sweat. How careless of her not to go back and sweep away the track. The thought had never entered her mind. But it wouldn’t have mattered. She’d had no time to do it. Her patient had needed immediate care.

  Jean’s voice was rising in pitch. “Yer a bold piece of work. Out with it. Ye think I come on some treasure and decided not to share it with the folks in the village.”

  Isabella recalled what Jean said before about being able to explain her presence, but that didn’t seem like a good way to go now. She pushed at the pieces of wood on either side of the opening, desperately trying to make room for herself to crawl in behind the man. Driftwood shifted, clattering in the darkness of the storage space. She’d gained very little.

  “I made no such accusation. But since ye got nothing to hide, ye won’t mind me taking a look.”

  Panic washed through her. Half of her body was still protruding into the cottage.

  “Come in and see for yerself, if ye must, ye nosy cur.”

  Giving the man one more shove, she crowded in after him.

  The door of the cottage opened at the same moment Isabella dropped the leather hide in place. She was on her knees behind the wounded man, using her body to hold him in a sitting position.

  Her patient murmured something, and she quickly covered his mouth with a hand.

  “Please, for the love of God,” she whispered softly in his ear. He smelled of sea and night. “If you make a noise, neither of us gets out of here alive.”

  Isabella felt the man’s back and shoulders grow tense, taking some of his weight off her. His head rolled slightly but remained drooped forward, and she prayed he was awake enough to understand what she’d just told him.

  She heard their voices inside the cottage.

  “Do ye see? Nothing. No treasure. Only blood I been cleaning off my floor from the fish that went into my stew last night.”

  Blood on the floor. Her bag lay open by the cot. A few of her medical instruments still sat in the pot by the fire. Her travel cloak hung from a peg on the wall. Isabella felt her stomach tighten and grow queasy. She wondered how observant this Habbie was. Indications of her presence lay in the open all over the cottage.

 
Footsteps came close. Isabella pressed her face against the wounded man’s back as she started to shiver. Fear washed through her, paralyzing her. If he pulled back the leather covering, there would be no escape.

  She was like a trapped animal watching a hunter approach.

  “Satisfied?” Jean barked. “I told ye I’ve nothing here.”

  Habbie gave no reply, and Isabella tried to imagine what the villager was staring at now. The silence was the most chilling. She had no idea if the man had ever been inside Jean’s cottage before. She didn’t know if he could identify those things that did not belong. He had to be armed. Her back was to the makeshift door, and prickles of fear ran down her spine. If he lifted the hide, he’d see her. And how was she going to defend herself?

  Cold sweat covered her brow. She worried that the drumming of her heart was loud enough to be heard outside. A large hand slipped around hers in the darkness, and she was relieved to know she was not alone. Her fingers entwined with his. She welcomed their strength. Her body molded to him. His wide shoulders were a wall, offering shelter. Her cheek brushed against his coat, and she breathed in the warm scent of the man and tried to calm the fears.

  “That’ll do, Habbie,” Jean snapped. “If yer planning on staying around here any longer, ye can just get down on yer knees and clean that floor for me.”

  “If ye think I’ll be doing yer chores, ye really are a daft auld cow,” the villager answered with a scoffing snort. A chair scraped on the stone floor. “What’s that?”

  “What?”

  All of Isabella’s fears surged through her again.

  “This ring. Where did ye find it?”

  Her wedding ring. On the table. Isabella bumped her forehead again and again on her patient’s back. Of course, Archibald could not give her a plain ring. She’d told him she needed no ring at all. Not to be put off, he’d bought her an ornate gold band of obvious value.

  “Found it. On the beach a fortnight ago. It’s mine.”

  “Don’t look like it sat in the sand even a minute. Looks brand-new. I’m thinking it came from that wreck.”