by Allie Mackay
“Oh, no,” she gasped.
“Och, aye, lass.” His sexy Scottish voice was deep, husky with passion. “This is the sweetness I crave. You, all hot, wet, and slippery.”
He glanced up, the heat in his gaze sizzling her as he jerked her skirts up even higher, then leaned close, nipping and kissing his way up the inside of her thighs before he buried his face between her legs and licked her.
Crying out, she fisted her hands and threw back her head, arching into him and almost climaxing the first time he flicked his tongue over her clit.
“Don’t stop,” she breathed, her knees nearly giving out on her when he replaced his tongue with a circling finger and then licked along the center of her, plunging his tongue right into her. Deep, deep inside her. “O-o-oh, my God! Aidan….”
Aidan!
The rough and urgent voice again, not hers at all, and this time followed by a loud pounding on the door.
They both froze, passion doused.
Tavish shouted, “Come, man! Open the door!”
Aidan shot to his feet, his face a mask of fury. “I’ll kill the bastard,” he snarled, storming across the room and yanking open the door. “Did I no’ tell you-”
“It’s the lad, Kendrew,” Tavish panted, bursting into the room. “He’s been hurt, out by the gatehouse. Men just carried him in the hall.”
Aidan swore. “The gatehouse? What happened? Was there trouble with the other squires?”
“He had a skirmish, aye. But no’ with any boy.”
“Then who?”
Tavish looked uncomfortable. “If he’s to be believed,” he said, slanting a look at Kira, “it was your cousin.”
“Conan Dearg?” Aidan stared at him. “That’s no’ possible.”
Tavish shrugged. “Aye, it cannae be. Conan Dearg is still in the dungeon. I checked myself.”
“What happened?” Kira joined them. A bad feeling deep in her bones made her chest go tight. “Kendrew was in a scuffle at the gatehouse? Could he have mistaken one of the guards for Aidan’s cousin?”
“My guards wouldn’t fall upon the lad.” Aidan shot her a frown.
Tavish snorted. “That, my friend, is what Kendrew claims happened.
Aidan’s eyes widened. “What? That Conan Dearg fell on him?”
“Nae.” Tavish shook his head. “He said the blackguard leapt onto him. From the top of the gatehouse arch. Kendrew babbled that he saw Conan Dearg up there, creeping about on his hands and knees. When he called to him, he says the craven jumped down on top of him, knocking him into the mounting block before running away across the bailey.”
Aidan rubbed his jaw. “That doesn’t make sense.”
Kira looked at him, Kendrew’s tale making perfect sense to her.
Aidan’s cousin had an accomplice at Wrath. Someone willing to let him in and out of the dungeon. Even scarier, he’d learned about the gatehouse arch.
And he was trying to find out how to use it.
Chapter Eleven
Kira noticed two things the moment she followed Aidan and Tavish into the smoke-hazed, torchlit great hall. How quickly two plaid-wrapped, sword-toting Highlanders could plow their way through a teeming, jam-packed crowd of men, and the sharp, metallic smell of blood.
Trying to close her nose against the latter, she hurried after them. She couldn’t help noting the way half the men present glanced aside as she dashed past them. Not surprisingly, the other half gaped at her, their bearded faces filled with suspicion.
Or hostility.
Only one soul ignored her.
A portly, ruddy-faced giant of a man who needed only a furred, sleeveless jerkin and a silvered helmet to look like one of the Vikings who’d once ruled Wrath. Tall, broad-shouldered, and with a wild mane of reddish blond hair, he would’ve looked genial dressed in anything but his somber, dark robes. Maybe even like a merry, red-cheeked Norse Santa, were he not so focused on the strapping youth sprawled on his back across the rough planks of a trestle table pushed close to the hearth fire.
Obviously a healer, the man stood at the head of the table, gently probing an egg-sized lump on Kendrew’s forehead. He glanced up at Aidan’s approach. “He’s no’ by his wits,” he said, the words loud in the quiet of the hall. “The blow to his head is making him spout foolery. He’ll fare better once he’s rested.”
Aidan humphed. “I’d hear what happened. From the lad, or whoe’er. And someone – anyone – take men to comb the castle and grounds.” Stepping up to the table, he frowned when Kendrew moaned. “The lad didn’t end up like this from tangling with a mist wraith.”
The healer shrugged. “The sharp edge of the mounting block could’ve cut his shoulder. The knot on his head might be from the block’s stone as well,” he suggested, pulling on his beard. “Depends on how hard he fell.”
“Pah!” quipped an older woman hovering close. “He didn’t fall. Conan Dearg attacked him. The lad swore it.”
A second, equally grizzled woman, clucked in agreement.
She held a laver while the other dipped a rag into the bloodied water, then swabbed at the gash in Kendrew’s shoulder. “Aye,” she gabbled, turning bright eyes on Aidan, “the laddie said your cousin waved something strange at him, laughing that he’d now ‘best every foe, because he’d see them coming before the battle began.’” Straightening thin shoulders, the crone flashed a gap-toothed smile and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Conan Dearg then leapt down from the arch, knocking the poor laddie into the mounting block and dashing him on the head with the object.”
“The object?” Aidan folded his arms.
“The thing he claimed would let him see any foe’s approach,” the other old woman chirped, once more dipping her rag into the laver.
Kira stared at the two ancients in horror, scarce hearing their babbling. She saw only the youth’s shoulder gash and the filthy rag clutched in the woman’s gnarled and age-spotted hand.
Medieval healing at its finest.
Hygiene at its worst.
Shuddering, she clutched Aidan’s arm, pulling him back from the table.
“Make them stop,” she urged him, her voice rising when the rag-dipping old woman tossed the dripping cloth onto the floor rushes, then produced another, promptly blowing her nose into its ratty-looking folds before plunging the thing deep into Kendrew’s wound. “He’ll get an infection! Maybe even die. Those filthy rags are full of germs.”
“Hush, Kee-rah.” Aidan patted her hand. “Nils and the birthing sisters know what they’re about.”
“Oh, no, they don’t.” She glanced at them, her whole body trembling. “They’ll only make it worse.”
“Leave be, lass,” Aidan warned again, but three startled faces were already looking her way.
The tiniest, most wizened woman peered sharply at her, her lips tightening to a thin, disapproving line. The rag-dipper appeared confused, her knotty hand still pressing the offending cloth against Kendrew’s shoulder until Nils swelled his broad chest and plucked the cloth from her hand. Instead of tossing it onto the rushes, he dropped it into a pail at his feet.
“Lass!” he boomed, fixing Kira with a twinkling blue-eyed stare, “I dinnae understand half of what you said, but what I did grasp, is just what I’ve been trying to get through the thick heads of certain she-biddies for years!”
Planting beefy hands on his hips, he cast a frown on the two old women. “To think they call themselves midwives,” he scolded, his tone good-natured all the same. “Me, having seen the work of the great healers of the East, and some here still choose not to heed me when I tell them to use clean lengths of linen and fresh water on wounds.”
“Fresh, boiled water,” Kira allowed, sensing an ally in Nils the healer.
Even if the so-called clean bits of linen he was now pulling from some hidden cache in his robes, looked anything but snowy white.
They’d surely never been bleached or disinfected.
But they were a vast improvement over the
ghastly rags the birthing sisters seemed so fond of.
A chill running through her, she opened her mouth to say more, but glanced at Aidan first. Relief swept her when he jerked a quick nod, giving her his approval.
At his elbow, Tavish grinned. “Nils learned the healing arts in Jaffa.” He edged close so only she could hear him. “He went there as a lad, tagging along on an uncle’s pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre, but the poor man succumbed to the journey. Nils was stranded there for years, learning much before he could return. Naught you might say will shock him.”
No’ even talk of flying machines and tour buses filled with Ameri-cains? Kira was sure she heard Aidan mutter beneath his breath.
She wasn’t about to comment, not here in his hall.
She did hesitate, her gaze flicking between the healer, Tavish, and Aidan.
Then she glanced at Kendrew, his pale face and glittering eyes, deciding her.
She had to help him.
“These, too, should be boiled.” She indicated two impossibly large bone needles lying on a nearby stool, a suspicious coil of horse-tail thread revealing their purpose. “Kendrew could catch an infec- … I mean, it could go bad for him if these things aren’t properly cleaned before they’re put to use.”
The two old women sniffed in unison.
The men who’d narrowed eyes at her upon entering the hall crowded round, looking on expectantly. Those who’d averted their gazes, shook their heads and grumbled. They all pressed forward, curiosity winning out over stubbornness.
Nils the Viking hooted and grabbed her arm, pulling her closer to the table. Grinning, he thrust one of his almost-clean cloths into her hands.
“She’ll bespell him!” someone objected from the throng.
“Be wary, Nils!” another agreed. “You might find those healing cloths turned into snakes next time you reach for one!”
Ignoring them, Nils handed her a bowl of unsavory-looking paste. “This is woundwort,” he told her. “My own special betony healing salve. If you aren’t faint of heart, you can apply it to Kendrew’s shoulder. It’ll help draw out the evil.”
“Of course.” Kira took the bowl, steeling herself. “I should wash my hands first.” She forced a smile, not wanting to offend. “You should, too. Anyone who touches-”
“Ho, Nils! You speak of evil. I say she be wicked.” A female voice cut her off, rising clear and angry from somewhere near. “Telling a healer and his helpers how to care for the lad!”
Spinning about, Kira almost collided with the speaker, a beautiful woman with the creamiest skin and brightest hair she’d ever seen. Flame-bright hair that glistened in the torchlight, her braid swinging as she plunked down a basket of fresh linens at Nil’s feet, then whipped around to disappear into the crowd without a further word.
Kira opened her mouth to protest, but the rag-dipper scuttled forward then, snatching the cloth and bowl. “Sinead and the others speak true.” She shunted Kira aside with a bony elbow. “With so many strange goings-on these days, it willnae do to have you poking and prodding at the laddie.”
Bristling, Kira rubbed her ribs. “I only wanted to help.” She tried to ignore the sharp pain, amazed the tiny old woman could pack such an elbow jab. “I know you mean well, but-”
“What do you know?” A big, great-bearded clansman stepped up to them, eyeing her critically. “You dinnae look like any healer I’ve e’er seen.”
“My father was a healer.” Kira lifted her chin, hoping the lie wasn’t flashing on her forehead. But better a fib than tell them she knew what she did from life in a future century. “He worked for a king,” she added, borrowing the name of her dad’s boss, Elliot King, at the Tile Bonanza.
An uproar rose from the hall. Men pushed closer, scores of bushy brows snapping together as they glared at her, skepticism in every eye.
Aidan was also frowning. He stood watching her, his arms still folded and his dark expression saying exactly what his tightly clamped lips didn’t.
He’d warned her to keep out of it and she hadn’t.
“My father did work for a king.” She put her hands on her hips and glanced round, letting her own dark look dare any of them to challenge her. “I helped him sometimes.”
She left off that her helping consisted of long-ago summer jobs at the tile shop’s check out.
“Then prove it.” One of the men edged closer, clearly unimpressed. He pointed at Kendrew, sleeping soundly now. “Do something for the lad.”
Kira swallowed.
Heat was beginning to bloom inside her. Any minute now it would sweep up her throat and burst onto her cheeks, revealing her for the impostor she was.
“It isn’t that easy.” She straightened her back, aware of every stare. “My knowledge isn’t very fresh. It’s been years since I assisted my father,” she added, almost choking on the words.
It was more than years.
Considering where she was, her father hadn’t even yet been born.
Even if he were here, he was a ceramic tile salesman, not a healer of kings.
She bit back a groan. She’d really flubbed it this time. Aidan had every right to be scowling at her.
“Good lass.” He came over to her then, slinging an arm around her shoulders. “I will have water boiled for the cloths and stitching needles,” he said, nodding to Nils and the two birthing sisters. “Now tell us what else you know. Perhaps something that will ease young Kendrew’s pain?”
Kira sighed and shoved a hand through her hair.
What Kendrew needed was morphine and penicillin. He should have a clean, freshly laundered bed in a sterile-smelling hospital, with cute and smiling nurses cooing over him. Instead, he was cared for by a dark-robed giant who looked like a Viking and two tiny, birdlike women who smelled like they hadn’t bathed in a hundred years.
If ever.
She slid a glance at them, hoping Aidan’s threat to make his men bathe applied to them as well. Not that their stares would be any less hostile if their bodies were sweet-smelling.
“See?” The rag-dipper pointed at her. “She cannae answer you, my lord,” she gloated, beaming at Aidan.
“Well, lass?” He squeezed her shoulders, the gesture giving her courage. “Prove to Ella and Etta that you know what you’re about.”
Kira took a deep breath and closed her eyes, concentrating.
Silence filled the hall as everyone waited. A great, ominous silence, unbroken until a long ago memory flashed across her mind, filling her ears with her dad’s grumbles and groans. His endless fussing the day he’d been brought home from work with a huge lump on his head after a heavy box of tile had tumbled off a shelf, striking him.
Kira almost smiled, remembering, too, how her mother had immediately slapped a cloth-wrapped bag of frozen peas onto his head and given him two aspirins.
Her eyes snapped open and she did smile, certain she had the answer.
“I know how to care for that lump on Kendrew’s forehead,” she announced, pitching her voice to sound like a healer’s daughter. “I’ll need something cold. Really cold.” She slipped out from under Aidan’s arm and faced the crowd, hands on her hips. “What can you bring me that is cold as winter ice?”
A sea of blank faces stared back at her.
“The siege well in the kitchen has cold water,” Tavish spoke up. “Would that do?”
Before she could answer, Mundy the Irishman pushed forward. “There’s a wee spring out near the byres with water much colder than the kitchen well. One sip is enough to make a man think his teeth will crack.”
“That’s it!” Kira clapped her hands. “Go, and bring me buckets of it. And” – she glanced at Aidan – “send someone to the kitchens for several small sacks of dried peas.”
He looked at her, his brows starting to pull together again. “Dried peas?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Just make sure the sacks are as clean as possible,” she added, hoping ice packs made of dried medieval peas soaked in spring water would decreas
e the swelling as quickly as her mother’s bags of frozen veggies.
A muscle jerked in Aidan’s jaw. “Right. Peas,” he said, not looking entirely convinced.
“Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.” Kira reached to touch his plaid, willing him to trust her. “We’ll soak the sacks of peas in the icy water,” she explained. “When they’re cold enough, we’ll place a cloth-wrapped sack on Kendrew’s forehead, leaving it there until the sack isn’t cold anymore. We’ll apply a new sack every two hours, so someone will have to keep bringing chilled water from the spring.”
“Tavish! Mundy!” Aidan swung around to the other men. “See that her orders are followed,” he said, nodding in satisfaction when they took off at a run.
He glanced back at her. “Aught else?”
“Only that we need to get the icy sacks onto Kendrew’s forehead as quickly as possible.”
“It will be done.” He looked at her and something flared in his eyes.
Something heated that went straight to her toes.
“Aye, it will be done,” he repeated. “Whate’er you want.”
She blinked, her heart pounding. What she wanted was to continue what they’d started in the solar.
But now was clearly not the time.
So she touched a grateful hand to Nils the Viking’s sleeve and gave Ella and Etta her best smile. She hoped they’d accept a truce if poor Kendrew’s goose egg went down as quickly as she hoped.
Aidan looked hopeful, too, and that pleased her more than she would have believed.
Folding his arms again, he raked his men with a triumphant gaze. “Soon, Kendrew will be well,” he announced, his voice ringing.
Almost as if he’d suggested the chilled pea sacks.
Not that she minded.
Indeed, she didn’t care at all. Not as long as he made it up to her the instant they were alone again. Then she’d tell him exactly what she wanted.
Judging by the way he’d just looked at her, he was more than ready to indulge her desire.
She smiled, already melting.
For a night that had soured so quickly, things were definitely looking up now.
