Highland Ruse: Mercenary Maidens - Book Two

by Martin, Madeline

  Donnan set Leasa on the grass by the water’s edge, far enough away to ensure she would not get wet, and then plopped down beside her. “See? The finest seat in the land.” He winked. “By me.”

  Kaid appeared at Delilah’s side and held out the crook of his arm to her like a courtier. “My lady,” he offered with a formal bow.

  “How could a lady refuse?” Delilah asked and slipped her hand to his arm. His sleeves were pulled up, and her fingertips brushed his naked forearm. The sprinkling of dark hair was far less coarse than it appeared, and it was all she could do to keep from giving into the temptation to stroke his skin.

  Kaid formally showed her to her place on the ground then sank down beside her. They supped on their midday meal in a bubble of light and happiness, the morning a shoved-aside memory for the moment.

  It was as perfect a day as Delilah had ever had.

  All until she rose from where she sat and someone gripped her hard around the wrist.

  “My lady,” Leasa hissed, her eyes wide with horror.

  Delilah’s heart skipped a beat. She scanned the area and found nothing amiss. Kaid had gone to the coach to tuck away the rest of the food, and Donnan had disappeared for a moment into the forest.

  “What is it?” Delilah asked.

  Leasa’s face crumpled. “I don’t remember which flask I put the drops in.”

  Delilah’s blood went cold. “The drops?”

  “The poison you told me to use.” Leasa looked genuinely confused and held up the blue bottle.

  It was empty.

  Delilah shook her head. “No, I told you in the coach not to use it.”

  Leasa’s mouth fell open. “I thought…” The color bled from her face. “I thought you’d wanted me to stay in the coach.”

  Suddenly it made sense, the reason why Leasa had not been as eager to leave the enclosed compartment. Frustration clambered through Delilah, but she quickly held it back.

  It had been an honest mistake.

  “Think on which flask you used,” Delilah said.

  Tears shone bright in Leasa’s eyes. “They both look the same. I don’t know, and we all shared them.”

  “What are you saying?” Delilah asked, knowing full well what was being said.

  Leasa’s head dropped forward. “I think we’ve all been poisoned.”

  • • •

  The day had been better than any Kaid had experienced since the massacre.

  He’d even laughed.

  It was hard not to when Donnan flirted with Leasa like a consummate courtier and Elizabeth kept staring at him with that quiet smile on her face.

  He felt a grin touch his lips at the very thought. Happiness made a light come to life in her expression, and her laugh had been throaty and genuine.

  Today, she was not a spoiled nobleman’s daughter—she was a woman like any other, sitting on the ground and sharing food and drink with friends.

  Kaid settled the bag of food against the packs of clothing and other goods Elizabeth had brought with her for her new life with MacKenzie.

  His good humor wilted away.

  Much as he did not want to think on it at the moment, she was an English nobleman’s daughter. She was to marry MacKenzie, and she was the only leverage Kaid had against him.

  Kaid would do well to keep such thoughts forefront in his mind.

  Agony knifed through his gut. Kaid leaned into the sudden ache with a stifled grunt.

  He waited for a moment until it passed before straightening, only to have it happen again. This cramp was far more vicious and made his mouth water with the need to be sick.

  A cry came from where he’d left the women. He shoved himself upright and ran toward the shoreline. Both women were doubled over with their arms folded against their stomachs.

  Donnan staggered out of the trees with one hand pressed to his stomach, the other holding his blade. His eyes lit on Kaid, and he let his sword dip to the ground where the tip dragged as he continued to march forward.

  “All of us?” Donnan asked in a ragged voice. His face was pale and sweat gleamed on his brow.

  Kaid nodded.

  Leasa gave a squeal of discomfort and toppled to the ground. Elizabeth stepped toward her, but it was Donnan who straightened and lifted her into his arms. “I knew I shouldna have trusted that venison merchant.” He carried Leasa toward the carriage with a limping gait.

  Elizabeth looked just as wan as her maid. Still, she remained upright, though the waves around her face were now plastered against her brow and cheeks.

  Kaid moved to her side and took her arm. She faltered. “I can…” Breath wheezed from her. “I’m fine.” She shook her head.

  She looked anything but fine.

  A fresh blade of anguish lanced through Kaid, but he was able to resist giving in to it this time. Elizabeth might be playing at being strong, but she seemed about to collapse.

  She gave a choked gasp and tugged at the front of her bodice. “So tight.”

  She took another step, stumbled, and started to tilt.

  Kaid caught her before any part of her had a chance to touch the grassy bank of the loch. His body clenched around another cramp, but he did not let his grip on her loosen. “I’ve got ye, lass.”

  She pursed her lips, and she turned her face into his chest. She was suffering from another attack as well, and took it better than he had assumed any noblewoman ever could.

  “Not the coach.” Her breath came fast and short between her words. “Please.”

  Truth be told, he didn’t know if he could have lifted her into the coach even if she wanted to be there. He set her as gently as he could in the shade of the coach. Leasa and Donnan were already there, both still, both unnervingly pale.

  Kaid knew he should stay awake, perhaps go get a healer, make his way to the village for help.

  Everything screamed in agony. His guts, his bones, his head, even his flesh.

  He lay on his stomach, where the pressure of the ground against his body eased the cramping and the moist, cool earth pressed to his hot skin.

  His eyes closed, though he willed them not to. Awake was pain, but it was necessary. Sleep was comfortable, a reprieve.

  He lifted his brows in an effort to also drag his eyelids upward. The world blurred against his squinted vision, greens and golds and blues, all shooting into his brain like splinters of cathedral glass, and he clamped his eyes shut against it.

  He should stay awake.

  It was his last thought before the bliss of sleep slipped him away from his discomfort.

  He did not stay asleep though, and woke in snatches of time.

  The groan of someone nearby.

  Then sleep.

  The fading of the warm sun against his face.

  Darkness.

  Then sleep.

  A rasping voice calling for water.

  Water.

  He swallowed at the thought and found his mouth so dry, his throat near stuck against itself. His tongue was thick, and the burn of thirst was almost as great as the spasms left behind by the bad venison.

  The voice called for water again and again until finally he dragged himself from the welcoming clutches of slumber.

  The sky was lit with the glow of a thousand stars. He crawled toward the flask. He wasn’t aware he was doing it until he noticed the rocks scraping and rolling beneath his abdomen.

  Elizabeth pushed a clumsy hand toward him and knocked the flask from his grasp. It tumbled from his loose hold and landed with a splat. The ale glugged out from it in great, jerking gushes.

  Elizabeth stammered out an apology, then licked her lips.

  Though she didn’t say it, she was thirsty. They all were.

  Kaid staggered to his feet and stumbled over slanted earth to where the loch licked the shore. He all but fell into it in his clumsy attempt to fill the flask. The water undulated like a pool of ink with bits of moonlight shattered over its surface.

  He let it wash over his lips, bathing them i
n the cool wetness, and then he drank. Gulp after greedy gulp of icy water slaked the thirst burning in his throat.

  His eyes closed a moment.

  Just a moment.

  Comfortable darkness beckoned him and then a severe jag of hurt sliced through him, pulling him from the threat of sleep and launching him toward his goal. He shuffled those several feet back to camp with his back hunched and the flask of water cradled to his clenching stomach as if it were treasure.

  For surely it was.

  Elizabeth’s face was relaxed in her slumber. She looked so peaceful, angelic almost. He didn’t want to wake her.

  Droplets of water dribbled from the top of the flask and fell toward her like loosed diamonds.

  She blinked. “Water.” Her voice cracked in a dry whisper.

  He passed her the flask, and she drank with a savage thirst like a warrior just off the battlefield.

  Were he not so damn sick, he might crack a smile at it.

  But it was not only Elizabeth who needed water. Leasa and Donnan echoed her pleas. As soon as Elizabeth had drunk her fill, he brought the flask to Leasa and then to Donnan, knowing he would want the lass to drink before him.

  The horses whinnied in the distance, but Kaid took comfort in knowing they’d been tethered with stays long enough to reach both loch and grass.

  At long last, with a body cowed beneath the knifing agony, Kaid settled on the ground near Elizabeth so he could be near enough to protect her.

  He pulled the vial from the pouch at his waist. How it had not become lost in the laborious task of procuring water, he did not know, but was grateful.

  His fingers shook.

  This would be the last dose until they could return to Ardvreck Castle.

  The last.

  The words echoed ominously in his mind, reminding him again and again of the horror he would soon face without its aid.

  He unstoppered the bottle and tossed the remaining contents into his mouth.

  It was bitter and beautiful at all once.

  His eyes fluttered closed and he waited for relief.

  And it came, for a while, before he woke with such illness as he had never experienced. Agony knifed through his insides and everything whirled around him, too fast and too chaotic for him to hold on. His body shivered and clenched. Sweat blanketed his skin and did nothing but set the chill even deeper into his aching bones.

  He shut out everything and kept his face pressed into the cold, wet ground, waiting for the pain to stop.

  Chapter Eight

  The sun was high overhead when Delilah finally woke, but she immediately clamped her eyes shut against the offending brilliance.

  Her head felt as though it’d been stuffed with wads of wet wool. She swallowed and found her mouth felt much the same.

  She tried to speak, but her tongue was uncooperative. An unintelligible garble rasped from her mouth.

  Water.

  She wanted water.

  Fresh and crisp, cold and refreshingly wet.

  Her saliva thickened in her mouth at the very thought.

  Something pressed to her lips.

  “Drink, my lady.” Leasa’s voice.

  Delilah squinted to see Leasa’s head blocking out the sun, her face shadowed by the glow surrounding her.

  The muscles of Delilah’s throat relaxed, and she drew in the water with large, eager gulps.

  She didn’t stop until her stomach sloshed with her fill, or at least as much as the corset would allow her to consume. How she longed for the more forgiving leather garments she wore under a leine while practicing with Sylvi and the other women.

  A breeze brushed her face, and her loosed hair tickled her skin. Delilah swallowed once more before trusting herself to speak. “Were you not ill as well?”

  “I was, my lady, and am feeling much better now.” Leasa assisted Delilah into a sitting position. Though they moved slowly, lightheadedness threatened to pull her to the ground once more.

  Sunlight slashed over the pathetic remnants of their camp. A bit of scorched earth and ash stood where a fire had once been, and the grass lay flattened nearby, no doubt where Leasa and Donnan had lain, but that was not what made her cry out.

  Kaid lay beside her, as pale and unmoving as death.

  “Donnan says he’s alive,” Leasa said. There were smudges under her eyes, so deep in color, the skin looked bruised. Her lips were puckered with dryness, and she’d lost the high color in her cheeks. “Donnan’s gathering wood for the fire now. I guess they trust us finally.” She gave a weak smile.

  Kaid’s head rolled to the side and he groaned. The sound, no matter how tortured, eased the clench of Delilah’s heart.

  He was alive.

  And she cared of his survival for all the wrong reasons.

  She should be glad to see him living so that she might bring him to justice, not because he’d earned her admiration or because she thought of his well-being more than she ought to.

  “We should care for him,” Leasa said in a quiet tone. “He’s helped us, even when he was sick.”

  Memories floated back to Delilah—the ravenous, overwhelming thirst, crying out with need for water. And Kaid being there with soothing words and much-needed relief.

  “You should try to eat, my lady.” Leasa pushed a chunk of bread into Delilah’s hands. “It will make you feel better.”

  Delilah’s stomach wrenched at the very thought of food, but she knew what Leasa said was true.

  An hour later, Delilah was glad she’d listened. The swirling of her stomach had finally settled and the floating feel in her head had dissipated. She and Leasa had even bathed in the loch. The icy water had been a special kind of sweet heaven as it threaded through her hair and swept away the sweat and grit of illness.

  She’d even ensured Leasa left her corset slightly less tight in the dress she changed into, the simplest of all the gowns she’d been given. Tiny pink flowers were embroidered at the sleeves and hem, but those were the only adornments on the russet-colored linen.

  Although she had rejoined the world of the living, Kaid had still not improved. If anything, he seemed to worsen. He’d been sick several times and had grown paler.

  “Ye dinna have to care for him, Lady Elizabeth,” Donnan said. “Ye’ll ruin yer fine gown.”

  Delilah shook her head. “He aided us when we were all unwell. I won’t leave him now.”

  Donnan shook his head with a smirk. “We took ye to hold for ransom.”

  The admission lanced through her, but she kept her face impassive. “I would like to believe you have good reason for what you’re doing.”

  He opened his mouth, and she thought for a brief moment he would offer her the explanation she so desperately sought. But he gave her a smile instead. “Ye’re a kind lass.”

  Heat crept into Delilah’s cheeks. She was not kind.

  It was her fault Kaid was so ill. It was her fault they’d all been ill.

  He lay beside her, his face slick with sweat. Why had he had such a violent reaction to the poison? If he’d been well enough to care for them all in the beginning, what had caused it to worsen?

  It was then she noticed one of his hands was fisted and realized it had remained thus since she’d been at his side.

  With great care, she unfurled his clenched fingers, noticing again that his thumb and forefinger were both smudged with black. Once she straightened his fingers, a small vial rolled free.

  She lifted it from where it fell to the ground and pulled the stopper free. Kaid murmured something unintelligible.

  Delilah lifted the empty vial to her nose and sniffed. The pungent odor assaulted her nostrils and she jerked her head back.

  Valerian root.

  She knew the scent well enough from Percy’s workshop. Though she’d smelled it only once, it was awful enough to have seared into her memory. She wished Percy were here now, with her knowledge of herbs and tinctures.

  Kaid mumbled once more.

  Delilah lifted
the wineskin to his lips. “Do you need water?”

  He turned his head away from it and said something she couldn’t understand. His lips moved again, and she leaned closer to hear.

  “They’re all dead.” Kaid’s voice was thick and rasping in his throat, but the words were unmistakable. “They’re all dead.”

  The phrase chilled through her. It was the same one he’d said when he had the nightmare.

  Perhaps this might be part of why he had abducted them. He had refused to give her a sufficient answer, and his rage at Donnan’s tale of the deaths, all of it seemed too coincidental. Regardless of the awfulness of the crime Kaid had committed, she refused to believe in her heart that he’d done it purely for selfish reasons.

  This might not be about coin at all, or anything so tangible. It had to be about something bigger than her, bigger than him, bigger even than the risk of getting caught.

  This was the reason they’d been abducted. She didn’t know why specifically, but she knew with great certainty it was.

  She did know something in the valerian root was causing him to give into the torture of his own mind. While she didn’t have the same knowledge of herbs and healing as Percy, she knew well the best way to be free of something was to purge it from your system.

  Delilah held the flask to Kaid’s lips and tipped water into his mouth until he swallowed. The more he drank, the more he would need to purge.

  Sure enough, within a few minutes, the water came back up, and she repeated the process.

  She would ensure he came out of this, and she would not leave his side until he was recovered.

  • • •

  Kaid woke to darkness.

  No, not darkness. Stars winked overhead, countless dots of white against the velvet of a midnight sky. The gentle lapping of water broke into his awareness, as did the awareness of someone lying close to him and the subtle weight of a hand on his chest.

  He lowered his gaze and found Elizabeth curled against him, her arm slung over him with the easy comfort of a lover.

  The warmth of her body seemed to burn against him, and the delicate scent of her floral perfume held him like an embrace.

  He didn’t know how she’d come to lie so intimately against him, but he was grateful. Part of him wanted to touch her, to stroke her hair, to brush his fingers over her cheek which he knew to be impossibly soft, to pull her against him and revel in her closeness.