Highlander in Love

by Julia London

  How could such a strong and virile man be struck down by a mere fever? What if he died?

  “Miss Lockhart!”

  Rodina’s urgent whisper startled Mared, and she jerked her gaze up. “Beckwith says ye are to come at once!”

  It was, unfortunately, as bad as she feared. Dr. Thomson wasn’t entirely certain, but he believed it was possible, given Payton’s sampling of newly made barley-bree, that he had contracted the sort of wasting fever that had obliterated Killiebattan.

  The news sent a shiver through them all. Dr. Thomson was quite clear—none of them were to leave the premises until he’d given his approval, and none of them, save Beckwith and Mared, were to see to the laird. The illness was highly contagious, he warned them, and the more they isolated themselves from it, the better their chances of avoiding contagion.

  Beckwith took it all in, standing by the hearth, his arms folded, looking very pale and drawn.

  “But…but what about the laird?” Mared asked, her heart pounding with fear.

  “Ye’ll tend him,” Beckwith snapped. “I’ve the house and everyone else to think of.”

  He had his own skin to think of, but Mared could certainly understand his fear. She felt it rather keenly herself. “That’s quite all right, Mr. Beckwith. I’ll tend him.”

  “I’ll return on the morrow,” Dr. Thomson said. “If he’s no’ improved, we’ll leach him.” He picked up his bag and walked to the door. “He’s no’ to have any food or liquid. It will feed the fever. Let his body expel it naturally.”

  He walked out of the room, Beckwith on his heels. Mared bowed her head, tried to get her thoughts together, and finally turned around, to face the others.

  They were all standing near the window, as far away from her as they could possibly be in the confines of the room. Only Alan was standing a little apart from them. “Maybe Jamie was right,” he said low. “Maybe this is the work of yer curse.”

  “W-what?”

  “Maybe this is yer curse, Miss Lockhart.”

  “Alan!” she said sternly. “That is nothing more than an old wives’ tale!”

  “’Tis true,” Alan said. “I’ve had it from MacFarland in Aberfoyle.”

  Rodina and Una exchanged a wide-eyed look at that. Iain MacFarland was an old and revered man, widely regarded as the historian of the lochs.

  “Then surely he told ye the curse threatens whomever I am betrothed to, and by any account, I am most certainly no’ betrothed to any of ye.”

  “Aye, but ’tis commonly known the laird thought to marry ye, he did.”

  Mrs. Mackerell sucked in a sharp breath.

  Mared sighed wearily and pinched the bridge of her nose to stave off a headache that was suddenly upon her. “Such fear and superstition is too ridiculous to even warrant a response,” she said quietly. “I am no’ betrothed to the laird. He doesna have any particular esteem for me. And any talk of a blasted curse is fantasy,” she said and dropped her hand, giving Alan a heated look. “Fantasy!” she exclaimed loudly. “And now is no’ the time to engage in bloody fantasy!”

  She quit the room and hurried to Payton’s chamber, and carefully opened the door. He was lying on his side, his back to her. She started to back out, to let him rest, but he suddenly moaned, and Mared forgot Alan and the others.

  She went to his bedside and sat gingerly on the edge.

  He rolled over onto his back and his eyes fluttered open for a moment. “What’s that smell?” he asked hoarsely. “A sweet smell, it is.”

  “The lilac of my soap,” she said and thought to bring some oils to his room to mask the smell of his illness.

  “Ah,” he muttered, his eyes sliding shut again. “I thought it was flowers for my grave.”

  “No. Of course no’,” she murmured, alarmed he’d say such a thing, and laid her palm to his forehead, wincing at the heat in him.

  “If it comes to that, Mared, I should like lilacs on my grave, aye? They will remind me of ye.”

  She caught her breath in her throat; Payton opened his eyes again and squinted painfully at her. “Ye should go from here,” he said. “Save yerself.”

  “Go? No. It would take more than the likes of ye to harm me, Douglas.”

  He managed a weak smile, and his eyes fluttered shut again. “Ach, I could never harm ye, Mared—I could never harm the one I love,” he murmured, and his head drifted to the right, away from her.

  He had slipped into unconsciousness.

  Seventeen

  P ayton did not know that they leached him—the illness ravaging his body kept him in a dreamlike state, alternating between moments of lucidity and delusion.

  After the physician had gone, Mared brought some fragrant oils to Payton’s room and burned them, hoping they would mask the smell. She also brought the soap she and Natalie had made at Talla Dileas. They had used lilac to cover the smell of ashes and lye. He apparently found the scent soothing, so she washed her hands in it before she mopped his brow. She opened the windows to bring fresh air into the room. When he shivered with fever, she laid blankets atop him. When the fever would break, as it did from time to time, she would wash his face with a cloth soaked in the ice cold water of the loch she had lugged to his room.

  When the hearth went cold, Mared discovered most of the servants had left, save Moreen the scullery maid, who had no place to go. And Beckwith, who was fiercely loyal, but terrified of entering Payton’s room. Mared convinced him to at least bring wood or peat—whatever she might burn—and lay it outside Payton’s door so that she might build a fire.

  And she gave Moreen two pence to go and fetch Donalda, whose healing powers were rumored to be superior to that of modern medicine.

  When Payton’s nightshirt clung to him with the grit and stench of his illness, she knew she had to bathe him. She struggled to remove the garment from him, for he slipped in and out of consciousness, but at last she managed to do so.

  He lay before her bare as the day he was born, an imposing and resplendent figure of a man, long and lean and hard, even in the grip of death.

  As she bathed his body in lilac water, she could not help but look at him. His body conjured up a number of lurid images that had Mared blushing—even on what she feared was his deathbed, he had the power to stoke the flames inside her.

  She tended him around the clock and prayed fervently she’d not fall ill, that she’d see him through. But the rain was relentless, soaking the world around them, dragging her hopes to the depths of despair.

  She was heartened when Donalda came at her request on the third morning of Payton’s illness, smelling a bit like a wet dog. The old woman did not bother with pleasantries, but walked straight to Payton’s bedside and stared down at him. She put her gnarled hand to his brow, then to his throat.

  “Putrid air, it is,” she said. “I’ll build a smoke to clear it.” She took something from the pocket of her old gown, went to the fire, and squatted down. Whatever she held, she tossed into the fire. It flared and hissed, and a rather pungent smoke filled the room.

  Mared coughed, waved her hand before her face to dissipate the thick smoke. “What is it?” she asked, her eyes watering.

  “Open the windows. The smoke will take away the putrid air,” Donalda said. Mared was more than happy to oblige. When they had opened all the windows, they stood together, Mared shivering, watching Payton as the smoke cleared the room.

  After several moments passed, Mared said softly, “The potion didna work, Donalda.”

  “Aye, what?” the woman asked, peering up at Mared.

  “The potion ye gave me to keep me from him,” Mared said, nodding at Payton.

  Donalda gave her a grin lacking several teeth. “Did it no’?”

  Mared shook her head. “I’m here, am I no’?”

  The old woman cackled and hit her hand on her thigh. “Of course it didna work, silly lass! Do ye believe ye need a potion to see what is truly in yer heart?” She laughed harshly again.

  “I beg yer pa
rdon?” Mared asked, feeling suddenly a bit miffed. “I came to ye in an hour of need, Donalda!”

  “And I gave ye a bit of sweet wine!”

  Mared blinked at the hag. “No’ a potion to make him see the truth in my heart?” she demanded, incensed.

  Donalda laughed until she was overcome with a fit of coughing. “No, lass,” she wheezed. “I’m no’ a witch!”

  That was debatable, but nevertheless, Mared asked “Then why—”

  “Ach,” she said, flicking her wrist, interrupting Mared’s question. “I only told ye what ye wanted to hear. I’m an old woman. I know things,” she said, tapping her skull. “I see things,” she added, pointing to her eye. “And I know that ye will eventually set free the truth in yer heart, ye will.”

  Now she was speaking nonsense. Mared frowned down at her. “I donna understand.”

  “Aye,” Donalda sighed, nodding. “They never do. All right, then, the smoke has cleared. Give him water,” she said, nodding at Payton.

  Mared looked at his sallow face. “The physician said I must no’. He said it might kill him.”

  “Rubbish!” Donalda croaked. “Man canna live without water. He must have it to replace the body’s water he’s lost. Give him water when he asks.” She tightened her threadbare arisaidh around her bony shoulders and turned toward the door.

  “Wait!” Mared cried.

  “I’m done here. There’s naught more I can do for him.”

  Mared fished two crowns from her pocket and hurried to give them to Donalda. The old woman took the money, then smiled up at Mared, her old eyes glittering. “Set it free, lass,” she said, and with a loud bark of laughter, she hobbled out of the room.

  “Bloody old bat,” Mared muttered and shut the door behind her.

  Payton did not improve with Donalda’s smoke, and his moaning frightened Mared; she was afraid to leave him, afraid he would perish in the night, so she slept on the small settee in his room, curled into a ball, her neck and back aching from it.

  During the night, after his body had nothing left to expel, he began to ask for water. “I canna give it to ye, Payton,” she said soothingly. “It will kill ye.”

  “Water,” he said again, grasping her arm and holding it with amazing strength for one so weak. “Water.”

  “No,” she said firmly. “It will kill ye, do ye understand me? Ye canna have it!”

  But he continued to beg for it, and on the fourth morning, when the day dawned a steel gray with cold rain, he begged her for water like a madman, his eyes glazed over, his hands wringing her gown, her arm. She noticed that his hands and feet had turned blue, and when she at last freed herself from his maniacal struggle, she found Beckwith and begged him to send for Dr. Thomson.

  “The end is near,” Beckwith said ominously.

  Mared glared at him. “His hands and feet have turned blue and he begs for water as if he were thirsting in the desert, and I donna know what to do! Ye must send for Thomson!”

  “I’ll send for him,” Beckwith said, and in an uncharacteristic act of gentleness, he put a hand on Mared’s shoulder. “But the end is near, lass.”

  She angrily shrugged his hand off and stepped back. “He willna die,” she said sharply and turned away, unable to look at Beckwith and his certainty. Exhausted and afraid, she returned to Payton’s room and found him hanging halfway off his bed.

  “Payton!” she cried, running to him, and tried to help him up.

  “Give me water,” he said thickly and looked at her with red-rimmed eyes. The skin beneath his eyes looked bruised, his lips were cracked, and his cheeks sunken. He was, she realized, truly nearing his end. Tears filled her eyes, and somehow, she managed to help him up to his bed.

  The man was dying and his dying wish was to drink water. He grabbed her skirt with surprising strength and beseeched her. “Give me water!”

  She prayed Donalda was right, for this was more than she could endure. She went to the basin, poured a glass of water from the ewer, and brought it to Payton. He grabbed for it, spilling some of it in his haste, and drank it like a dog. “More,” he said, handing the empty glass to her.

  She gave him more. And when he finally had his fill, he fell against the pillows, his eyes closed, exhausted. But the wild look had left him.

  Exhausted, Mared went to the kitchen and ate some bread, then returned with more water and wood, and built the fire up in his room. It seemed as if days had passed since she’d last slept. She eyed the settee…then his bed. It was huge. Too tired to care what she did, Mared crawled in beside him, fully clothed, and drifted into a deep sleep.

  Sometime during the night, she was awakened by a hand on her shoulder. When she opened her eyes, Payton was looming over her, his hair wildly mussed, his dark eyes squinting. With a bit of a squeal, she came up.

  His hand fell away and he blinked. “Did…did we marry, then?” he asked.

  Mared bit her lip, quickly weighed her answer. “Aye,” she whispered, wincing inwardly at her lie.

  “Ah,” he said and lay down. Mared stared down at him. Was it possible that he’d turned a corner? Was he mending? After a moment, she lay down, too, on her side, her back to him. But Payton moved until he was at her back, his breath on her neck and his arm securely around her waist, holding her to him.

  She held her breath, did not move…and when she heard his shallow breathing, she sighed and closed her eyes. She was hopeful that he was improving and hopeful that if he did, he’d never remember her in his bed.

  Aye, but she rather liked it. She felt safe. And warm.

  Payton heard the physician talking above him, could feel him holding his hand. “I’ve read accounts from India in which the patient was given water and broth and brought round,” the doctor said and turned Payton’s hand over, traced a path down his palm with his finger. “’Tis no’ in keeping with what we know here in Scotland, but it doesna seem to have harmed him.”

  His hand was laid at his side.

  “Aye, it was the bloodletting that did it. The fever had left his body by the time ye gave him water, so it didna have an adverse effect.” Someone shook Payton; he opened his eyes. “Give him water when he asks.” The physician was peering down at him, holding a glass of water, which he helped Payton to drink. And then another. And then Payton closed his eyes, feeling incredibly weak.

  “Aye.”

  Mared. He knew her lilting voice, could detect the scent of lilac around him, the scent from his dreams. Or had he perhaps walked through a stand of lilacs? Everything in his mind was so faint and indistinct—he could only remember lilac.

  “And a bit of broth, I suppose. He’ll come round, I should think, but he’ll be quite weak. I’d advise him to stay abed the next three days. I’ll be round then to have a look.”

  That was followed by a clinking sound and a rustling of clothes or linens. Payton could feel them moving away from him, leaving a draft in their wake. He rolled over onto his side and slipped into a dream of lilac again.

  When he next awoke, the room was dark. There was a flicker of light from the hearth, and he slowly turned his head in that direction, blinking several times to clear his blurred vision; everything around him seemed to swim in soft waves of weak light. His head throbbed, his throat was dry, but he felt truly awake.

  As his eyes focused to the dimly lit surroundings, he saw her, seated in one of the winged-back chairs, her feet curled under her, her head bowed over a book. The thick braid of her hair lay over her left shoulder, and the sleeves of her housekeeper’s gown were rolled to her elbows.

  “Mared,” he croaked.

  The sound of his voice startled her; her head jerked up and the book went flying off her lap. “Payton!” she cried and clambered to her feet, rushed to his bedside, and knelt beside it, her hands clasped on the edge of the bed, her eyes nervously roaming his face. “Ye’re awake! Thank heavens, ye are awake!”

  “Aye,” he said, wincing a little as he pushed himself up. She quickly stood and reached for the
pillows behind him, propping them up so that he might lean back. It took every ounce of strength he had. “I’ve been quite ill, it would seem,” he said, uncertain as to what, exactly, had happened to him.

  “Aye, ye have.” She sat carefully on the edge of the bed. “A wasting fever…like the one in Killiebattan.”

  That startled him—he closed his eyes.

  “But ye have survived it,” she said and reassuringly touched his hand. “Ye’re out of danger, thank the Lord.”

  “Are there others?”

  She bit her lower lip and dropped her gaze. “The master brewer,” she all but whispered. “They found him dead. Dr. Thomson believes ye did indeed partake of a green batch of barley-bree. He believes the water was tainted with sheep dung.”

  “Mi Diah,” he whispered and thought of the brewer, an old man who had made whiskey his entire life. “There was a cask of it—”

  “Properly disposed of, I am given to understand,” she said.

  Payton forced his eyes open and looked at her. “I thought I was dying.”

  She nodded. “Ye…ye actually came quite close to doing just that.”

  “I remember that ye gave me water.”

  Mared smiled a little. “I did.” Her smile deepened into dimples. “Are ye surprised? Did ye think I’d deny yer last wish?”

  In spite of how awful he felt, Payton felt a hint of a smile on his lips. Mared rose from the bed. He heard her move to the bureau, heard her pour water into a glass. In a moment, she returned and handed him the glass, and he gratefully accepted it, drank it in one long swallow.

  She took the glass from his hand. “Ye should rest now, Payton,” she said and caressed his brow. “Ye must regain yer strength.”

  Payton did not argue. His lids were sliding shut and he felt as if he could not lift his limbs.

  When Payton awoke again, the sun was streaming in through the windows, and he was in desperate need of a privy. It took great effort for him to push the bedclothes off him, but he managed, and swung his legs over the side and tested his weight. He felt dizzy, and his legs felt as if they would collapse beneath him, so he grabbed the post of his bed and lurched forward.