Claimed By a Scottish Lord

by Melody Thomas

  ―What is so amusing?‖ she asked, obviously watching him from the corner of her eye.

  ―I was trying to decide how long ‘twould take you to acquit me of my sins and decide you will ride the horse.‖ He grinned down at her. ―Boots are tortuous when walking, leannanan.‖

  She was unmoved. ―Have you been to see your brother, yet?‖

  Looking across the pasture, his eyes squinted in the dazzling sunlight. The only sound was the soft thud of the horse‘s steps beside him. ―As you say, I have been occupied. I plan to spend time with him upon my return. I need to ask you not to see him, either, until I return.‖

  She stopped and faced him. The breeze stirred her hair and she tucked a red-gold strand behind her ear. ―I see. Julia spoke to you.‖

  He saw the hurt in her green eyes. His voice gentled. ―She is feeling protective, as any mother would. There are some who do not know you as I do.‖

  ―They are suspicious of me? Do they think I would murder the boy? Why in heaven would anyone think me capable of—?‖

  He stopped her with a finger that went to her lips. ―No one thinks you capable of murder.‖

  ―Not even you?‖

  He chuckled. ―Aye, admittedly you have attempted to bash my head in.‖ He placed his fingers under her chin and tilted her face. She was putting on a good show of indifference. ―But not even I think you capable of harming a child. Swear to me, Rose. Do not go near that boy for now.‖

  ―I will stay away then, if that is what you want, Ruark.‖

  ―Only until my return.‖

  They walked in silence until they reached the cart path. The left branched into the fruit orchard, the right back to the main house.

  ―What business do you have to attend to in Hawick?‖ she asked when they reached the top.

  ―My solicitor is there.‖ He slanted her a glance. ―Now that I am a married man there are certain legal matters which I must settle.‖

  The surgery was not far now and she stopped. ―You mean you have business to finish with my father. Swear to me you will not provoke him.‖

  He laughed, unsettled by the ease in which she could read him. ―I live life just to provoke the bastard.‖

  But his mood was a nebulous thing and he looked away from her to the grove unable to reconcile the need to gather her into his arms and protect her and his want to kill her father. His gaze found hers. ―I have business with Hereford‘s solicitor and with Roxburghe Shipping in Carlisle. I will be gone a few weeks.‖

  ―You will stay safe?‖

  Just looking at her, he experienced a fleeting sense of vertigo he got whenever he was taking her—possessing her. ―Always, love.‖

  She reached for the basket only to see the ring and pause. Her expression changed. ―You have got what you want. Your brother is home. Have you attempted to remove it yet?‖

  Apparently, she, too, had assumed that his brother‘s return was what he most wanted. As had he. ―Many times,‖ he said.

  ― ‘Tis a shame,‖ she said sadly. ―I had so believed it to be authentic.‖

  ―Why do you think it is not?‖

  She looked around her, then toward the house spread across the horizon like a huge stone labyrinth amid the jeweled landscape. A number of chimney pots smoked over the gray roof tiles and mingled with the morning mist.

  ―You have everything. What else could you possibly want?‖

  He had always been a man possessed of a sense of his own purpose and the wisdom it took to achieve a goal. He had returned to Scotland to save his brother, a noble-enough task, and now he didn‘t know quite what to do.

  Yet while he had never believed in the ring‘s magical properties, he had found himself of late pondering the elusive questions of what he truly wanted most in this life. A question he had never contemplated and one he could not answer. He only knew that until recently, he had never cared about his future.

  Indeed, if he believed in such whimsy as magic and wishing rings, he might put such power to his use and figure out a way, how not to want her.

  Ruark left Rose standing on the narrow path that would take her up the hill and through the fruit orchard to the back of the surgery. Holding her basket filled with the wonderful offerings she had gathered from the woods and fields, she watched him mount Loki and ride away.

  With the presence of two groundskeepers and a few others who had looked up from their tasks at Ruark‘s approach, his farewell to her had been brief and fraught with formality. He hadn‘t kissed her. After the sight of him had grown small and faint in the distance, Rose stared around her at a world that was as unfamiliar to her as the part of her trying to escape the walls of her heart. She found she wanted very badly to be accepted at Stonehaven. Whether she resented that desire or nay, she had become Stonehaven‘s mistress.

  Despite herself, she felt relieved that her husband would be gone for the next few weeks.

  Once inside the surgery, she set the basket on the counter at the back of the room, unpinned the apron from her skirt and raised it to cover her bodice. She wrapped a red headscarf around her hair and went to work preparing and drying what she had found near the falls.

  That a boy would suffer because of people‘s dislike of her did not seem fair. She would honor her promise to Ruark to stay away from Jamie, but that didn‘t mean someone else couldn‘t help him.

  She worked the rest of the afternoon shaving bark onto a drying shelf, then mixed it with licorice to mask the bitter taste. The mallow root balls she tied with a string and hung in a special area in the orangery McBain used for such things. This was not an overnight process and could take days. She checked the progress of some of the leaves and roots McBain had already gathered before he‘d left for Jedburgh. Some looked ready for preparation and she removed them from the drying line. When she finished, she slapped the dirt off her hands and returned to the surgery without realizing how long she had been working. She had a dreaded appointment at three o‘clock with the dressmaker.

  Rose shivered at the mere thought of sitting down to select her wardrobe. She knew nothing of fashion.

  The thought of having to choose between a silk, linen, muslin, velvet, floral or striped morning or walking dress paralyzed her, almost as much as sitting down with someone at a formal dinner, where all silverware and glassware looked the same to her.

  Mary found her an hour later, near the hearth in the back of the surgery as she finished drying the last of the willow bark. ―Have ye no ken the time?‖ the woman demanded, her round face flushed from the heat in the room.

  Rose scraped the bark into a tin. ―I know. But this is important. You should not have come all this way. I am almost finished.‖

  ―Should no‘ have come? Are ye daft girl? The dressmaker will be here shortly. Ye cannae‘ be seen lookin‘ like a sheep herder‘s wife.‖

  Aye, I can, Rose thought stubbornly, perfectly comfortable in her present attire. Jamie‘s health was far more important in her mind than her wardrobe.

  She presented Mary with the tin. ― ‘Tis willow bark and licorice. You make it as a tea. This will help with Jamie‘s fever. If I must drink a cup to prove I hold no ill will toward that boy—‖

  ―You‘ve no need to prove yerself to me.‖

  Rose was astonished. Never had she thought to find an ally in this woman. ―His lordship forbade me to see him, Mary.‖

  ―I know, lass. ‘Tis for the best.‖

  ―Why?‖

  ―Have you considered what might come to pass should something happen to the lad under yer care? Nay, I will care for Jamie until McBain‘s return.‖ Mary squeezed her hands.

  ―Now, I have my cart outside . ‖

  Rose withdrew her hands, picked up a rag and returned to clean the countertop. ―I will come as soon as I am finished cleaning in here.‖

  Mary didn‘t argue, but sniffed. ―Verra well, lass.‖

  ―Remember, a decoction, not an infusion,‖ she said as Mary reached the door. ―Boil the ingredients in a pan,
then strain. Not simmer in a cup.‖

  The woman crinkled her face and placed one plump hand on her hip. ―I‘d no‘ be worth my weight as a housekeeper if I did no‘ know the difference between a decoction and an infusion. Now hie yerself off to the house as soon as ye can and clean up for the dressmaker, lass.‖

  A half hour later by Rose‘s estimate, she had finished cleaning McBain‘s surgery. She removed her apron and dropped it in a basket, snuffed the candle and had just put away the flint box when the door banged open. Duncan seemed to blow in on a sudden gust of wind. The narrow doorway made his large size more formidable. His long hair fell uncombed below his shoulders.

  He stopped short when he saw her. ―McBain is no‘ here?‖

  Alarmed by his tone, she peered past him, expecting to see men carrying in a mortally wounded patient. ―He is in Hawick. Ruark left today to see that he gets safely back. Are you injured?‖

  He looked at the cupboard behind her filled with all manner of insidious surgical instruments. ―Nay, lass.‖ He shut the door behind him, and she thought he was walking toward her until she realized his destination was the cupboard. ―I‘ve been with Rufus these past days. The wounds on his foot are festering.‖

  ―Did I not warn the lot of you at the inn? This is what comes from foolishness. He should have been tended to at once.‖

  Duncan turned to look down at her, his shoulder nearly brushing hers with the movement. But rather than note his proximity and move away, she stood her ground. He smelled surprisingly like soap for looking as if he had not bathed in a week.

  ―Aye, ye did, lass,‖ he said, his teeth white against his beard. ―Now, I have want of a blistering iron, saw, and McBain‘s scalpels.‖

  Her eyes widened. ―You cannot mean to remove his leg?‖

  ―Not the whole of it. I came for McBain, him being a ship‘s surgeon.‖ His eyes narrowed speculatively on the shelves stacked with jars and tins, then on her. ―But you‘ll do well enough, lass.‖

  Chapter 19

  After barely giving her enough time to gather her supplies, Duncan forced her to accompany him outside and strapped her bag to the cantle. She rode on the back of his horse clinging to him for at least an hour by the sun‘s placement in the sky before he finally reined in his horse in front of a large stone cottage at the foot of a picturesque hill.

  She glimpsed a barn and a shed for silage. Summer roses grew in abundance in a walled garden. Beyond the barn was a small stone doocot fluttering with cooing pigeons. Even with the stench coming from the hog pen, this was a well-kept farm.

  She shoved against Duncan as he lifted her off the horse onto legs stiff and chafed from the mad ride. ―Let go of me! Oaf! I am not baggage.‖

  He opened the cottage‘s front door and politely held it for her. ―He is upstairs, lass.‖

  Rose remained annoyed with Duncan‘s highhanded treatment of her, and told him so, even as he waited for her to follow him into the house.

  She stepped past him.

  The room was filled with large men who looked as if they had spent the day cattle lifting. It smelled of wood smoke and beeswax and looked much bigger on the outside than on the inside. Three oak beams stretched across the ceiling. Most of the men were tall enough to touch the beams. A lone woman in long skirts and a dirty bloodstained apron paced in front of the hearth. She looked up as Duncan entered, her anxious expression falling as she glimpsed Rose.

  ―Where is McBain?‖ the woman demanded, giving Duncan a look that would turn a smaller man to stone. ―Ye said ye would bring back a doctor.‖

  Duncan wrapped his beefy hand around Rose‘s upper arm and drew her deeper into the room. ―He is no‘ at Stonehaven, Kathleen. This is our own Ruark‘s new bride. Her ladyship‘s come to offer us her aide should we have to remove Rufus‘s leg.‖

  Rose had never pretended to be a surgeon. She was an herbalist if she was anything at all. Aye, she knew something of medicines and she had assisted Friar Tucker when he visited the unfortunates who had been injured in farming accidents. However, looking into the suspicious, hostile faces of those standing around her, Rose elected to reveal none of this.

  ―Have ye lost yer brain?‖ the red-haired woman said sharply to Duncan, her color high.

  ―And where is our laird that he would allow ye to steal his bonny Sassenach bride from beneath his nose to come out here and nurse the likes of us? Will he be bangin‘ down this door?‖

  ―Now, Kathy . ‖

  ―Och! Do no‘ Kathy me, Duncan Kerr. Is there no‘ enough bad blood between ye already . ‖

  ―He‘s no‘ at Stonehaven . ‖

  The rest of the argument was lost on Rose. Content to remain out of the family dispute, she shifted the bag in her hand, looking around her. Behind her, the stairs led upward to the room where Rufus lay.

  A tug on her skirts drew her gaze downward. A small towheaded girl stood next to her, her eyes wide and serious as she stared up at Rose. ―Are ye here to save me bruther?‖ she asked.

  The arguing stopped as Kathleen stepped around Duncan to scoop up her daughter, sizing Rose up with one frank glance. ―We‘ve no cause to trust ye, any more than you‘ve cause to trust us,‖ Kathleen said. ―But if Duncan says ye can help my son, then we‘ll trust ye will and let it be at that.‖

  Indeed, Rufus Kerr, a distant cousin to Ruark, and one of Lord Hereford‘s former hostages, was not doing well. Rose made that diagnosis the instant she entered the sickroom and smelled the putrification in the air. He lay on a narrow bed in a closed-in room that sweltered from the heat of a fire blazing in the hearth. At least he had been washed and bathed and much of his tangled hair shorn from the last time she had seen him at the inn. She had thought him to be in his twenties. Now she could see he could be no older than seventeen.

  Shabby brown curtains were shut tight over what Rose presumed was a window. Many who fancied themselves experts on the human condition and the humoral balance in the body believed keeping cool air away from ailing patients to be essential. By the look of the lancet and bowl on the nightstand beside the patient‘s bed, he had been bled.

  The first thing Rose did was throw open the curtains and the window, if only so she could see. The sun, though low in the sky, still provided substantially more light than the single candle on the nightstand. Then she turned to Duncan and told him to get everyone out of the room. She might not like Duncan, but she trusted him to be capable of removing everyone, including the reluctant Kathleen.

  ―And bring me a bottle of red wine,‖ Rose said.

  Friar Tucker had oft touted the healthful benefits of red wine when taken internally as libation and when used as part of a dressing. She had never put either remedy to a test, but she would now.

  Outside in the corridor, the arguing started again, low voices that faded down the hallway. Rufus‘s eyes were open and he was watching her. ―You‘ll have to forgive me, mum,‖ he said in apology. ―We‘ve enough troubles without bringing our laird down on us.‖ A grin cracked his chapped lips. ―He‘ll kill Duncan if something happens to ye, to be sure. Then my kin will probably kill him.‖

  ―Humph. Are you not all kin?‖ Rose tilted his face into the candlelight. His pupils were dilated. He‘d been given laudanum. ―All this talk of everyone killing everyone else. I thought families were supposed to love one another.‖

  ―Aye, we do, most of the time. But some are thinking Duncan should be chieftain. There is grumbling and some do no‘ like that a Kerr has taken hisself a Sassenach bride.‖

  She focused on the lad‘s face. ―I see.‖

  She wondered why, if so much was at stake for Ruark, he had ensured that their vows could not be easily annulled. ―Then let us make sure nothing happens to me.‖

  Rose walked to the end of the bed and removed the blanket covering her patient‘s lower legs.

  Her breath caught like a hot iron in her throat, and, looking away, she knew it was all she could do not to betray her expression to the lad.

  He had
been wearing shoes at the inn when she had examined the wounds left by the ankle chains. Now as she pulled a stool to the end of the bed and sat, she wondered how the boy could ever have stood or walked at all. Three of the toes had been broken within the last week of his incarceration and had attempted to heal. The irons that had bound his ankle had left raw wounds that had healed over open sores. The newly healed-over scabs would have to be cut away and the wounds beneath lanced and drained to rid the body of the oozing infection.

  Nausea clenched her stomach. Closing her eyes, she breathed in slowly, drawing from the fresh air coming through the window.