Chapter 20
There were no stops at inns on the journey to Dunfermline Palace, especially with the cart traveling at a slower pace than being on horseback.
Though Drake wished nothing more than to provide comfortable beds and hot food for Greer and wee Mac, he knew anywhere they went would expose them.
They needed to reach Dunfermline with haste, preferably before Lord Calver’s men could, and secure the king's ear first.
Lord Calver still had men who were loyal to him—even in death.
The guards had proved that the night Drake fled Lochmaben.
Especially with Lady Calver in charge of the men until the earl’s heir took his place.
No doubt she would seek to protect her financial independence for as long as possible after losing her husband. Further scandal would jeopardize that.
Drake did not want to see Greer, Mac or Bean lose their freedom over this. And so it was that they rested where they could on the trail, in a cave one night, at the edge of a clearing another night. Through it all, Greer remained at Mac’s side, vigilant to the point of not caring for herself.
“Dinna forget to eat,” Drake cautioned, nudging a bit of cheese and bread her way.
“In a moment,” she distractedly replied as she wiped at Mac’s face with a damp bit of linen.
“Greer, I’m fine.” Mac turned his face to get away from her ministrations. “Ye need to eat. As Drake says.”
She paused and lowered her hand. Flecks of sunlight filtered down from the canopy of leaves overhead and shone on her, highlighting how pale her skin had become. Shadows showed under her eyes, and a fine sheen of sweat glistened on her brow.
The day was cool, one that shouldn’t warrant any sweat at all. Drake frowned. “Greer—”
“I’m no’ hungry.” She stepped down from the cart with the linen towel still in her hands. Upon landing, she staggered. While she managed to catch herself, it was enough to worry Drake.
He followed her to the small stream where she sank to her knees and settled on her heels to wash the cloth in the quick flowing stream.
They hadn’t been alone together since they left Lochmaben.
She had put her entire focus on Mac. While Drake understood her reasoning, he could not stifle his alarm over her wellbeing.
“Greer,” he said her name gently.
She looked up at him. She appeared so small where she sat, so exhausted that it pulled at him.
“Are ye well?” he knelt in the soft, damp grass and swept a lock of auburn hair from her brow. Her skin was flushed and hot with fever.
He drew his hand back in surprise.
“I just need rest.” Greer squeezed the water from the linen and pushed up to her feet.
As she did so, Drake couldn’t help but notice she favored her right side. “Are ye hurt?” he demanded.
“I’m no’ the one who needs to be helped.” She gazed at him with glassy eyes, her cheeks flushed.
How had he not noticed it until now?
“I need to help Mac, and I need to help…” Her voice caught. “I need to help ye, Drake, so ye’ll be free from any punishment.” She wavered. “I need…”
He reached for her and enfolded her burning body against him, supporting her. “Ye need help, lass.”
She shook her head, but even as she did so, her lashes dipped over her cheeks. He lifted her into his arms.
“Nay,” she whispered. But her protest was feebly given, and by the time they returned to the cart, her head slumped against his chest.
“Greer.” Mac straightened as they approached. “What’s happened?”
“She requires a healer,” Drake said. “Ye both do. Beathan, stay here, aye? I’ll be back.”
The nearby village had a healer, a middle-aged woman with a hut on the outskirts nestled into the woods as if she were used to attending people who did not wish to be found. She did not ask questions and took the pouch of coins he offered with quiet gratitude.
The woman needed only a bit of time with Greer before coming out to speak to Drake and handing him a pouch.
“If ye keep the wound clean with garlic and honey, the poison will leech from it. The willow bark tea will help bring her fever down. The lad’s too.
” She nodded to where Mac stood anxiously by the door to the cottage.
“Her wound?” Drake asked.
“Aye.” The woman traced a line on her side. “Here. A slice from something. Mayhap a dagger.”
The dagger Lord Calver had thrown. It had hit Greer, and she had never told him, focusing instead on her brother even as her wound began to fester. Something ice-cold spread over Drake. Fear.
He had seen men who died from insignificant injuries that swiftly reddened with contagion.
“Will she recover?” Drake asked, a tight band squeezing at him.
The healer hesitated. “Just as ye canna guarantee a soldier will survive a battle, I canna guarantee her fever will break. God willing, she will, but I dinna have His divine gift. Only some herbs and the sense to put them to proper use.”
Drake nodded in understanding. It was as good an answer as he’d get.
Greer was lying on the table when he entered the one-room cottage. A fire crackled in the middle of the clean space with a pot hung over its center, releasing the damp, earthy scent of herbs into the air. The healer nodded, indicating he was fine to take Greer.
Still, he hesitated. Greer was so still where she lay, her face pale. When he’d fought Lord Calver at Lochmaben, he had presumed she had left and was on her way to safety with Mac; that he would undoubtedly never see her again.
But now that he had her back with him, he was in danger of losing her once more. Forever.
An ache split in his chest. He picked her up as gently as possible and carried her the entire way back to the cart, with Mac anxiously fluttering about by his side.
They didn’t have the time to spare for her to get the rest she needed, it was true, but he managed to find a cave set deep in the woods. They would have to give her time to heal, at least until her fever broke. Mayhap a day. Possibly two.
He only hoped it would be enough. While he would have preferred an inn with a warm, comfortable bed, he knew she would not want to risk Mac being caught.
Nor him.
Drake stayed up through the night, watching over her the way she had watched over Mac and prayed that her skin would cool, that he would not lose her.
The snapping pops of a fire roused Greer from her sleep. Sweat poured from her body, leaving her kirtle clinging to her legs. She shoved at the heavy blanket covering her, writhing to escape the overwhelming heat.
“Ye’re fever is breaking.” The voice was masculine and soothing.
A damp cloth pressed to Greer’s brow, and she immediately relaxed, relishing the coolness.
Something nagged at the back of her mind—anxiety, a fear of some kind.
Her eyes flew open. “Mac.”
Drake put a hand to her shoulder. “He’s here.” He nodded toward two bundles on the other side of the fire. “Sleeping next to Beathan,” he added quietly.
“Is he well?” Greer asked, her throat raspy with dryness.
“Verra well.” He chuckled.
“Mac is recovered?” Panic rose in her chest, and she recalled how ill he had still been when last she saw him.
“Aye. He and Beathan were playing so loudly earlier that I feared they might give away our location.”
Their location?
Only then did Greer pay attention to her surroundings. The stone walls, the dirt floor, the cart tucked in front of them like a barrier and Drake’s horse barely visible near the mouth of the cave just beyond.
She rose onto her elbows. “Where are we?”
“A cave somewhere in the woods on the outskirts of a village so small, I dinna think it has a name.” He ran the back of his fingers over her cheek.
She caught Drake’s hand and held it. “How long have we been here?”
“Two days. This is our third night. There was a point…” He paused and gazed at her with a pained expression. “I dinna think yer fever would ever break.”
“Three nights?” she gasped. “We canna afford three nights.”
Her illness had doubled the time of the journey. Lord Calver’s guards would arrive at Dunfermline Palace first. The king would hear a plea on behalf of Lord and Lady Calver before any other explanation could be given.
“Nor can we afford to lose ye,” Drake said gently.
She shook her head. “Nay. Saving Mac, keeping him safe, proving his innocence and yers. That is what matters.”
Drake lightly squeezed her hand. “Saving ye mattered to us all too.”
She continued to shake her head. She wasn’t important. There was nothing to her but the constant struggle to survive, one with endless days of wet laundry, where stealing sometimes was all that got them by. The time spent on her recovery was too precious and pointlessly wasted.
“We need to leave now.” She pulled her hand from his. “Tonight.”
A band around her ribs tightened as she flexed her abdomen to rise. It was then she realized she wore an overlarge tunic over her torso with the top of her kirtle pushed down around her waist. She glanced up at Drake.
He shrugged. “It was easier to change yer dressing, which we will need to do now anyway.” He hesitated. “If I may.”
“There’s no time,” she hissed.
“We’ll leave in the morning.” His tone brokered no room for argument.
But she was never one who abided being told what to do. “Now.”
Drake glanced over his shoulder to the sleeping boys. “They need rest. As do I. Another few hours will make a difference to all of us. But it willna make a difference…”
His words tapered off.
“To those who await us,” she finished for him.
Drake’s mouth thinned in response, and he guided a mug into her hands. “All will be well.”
Fear and doubt pressed in on her with certainty as she stared at the murky liquid within. “It willna be well. It never is for those who are no’ born into nobility.”
“It will.” A muscle worked in his jaw. “Let me change yer bandage, aye?” He motioned for her to drink.
She did, swallowing down the musty concoction before handing the mug back and lying down for him to see to her wound.
He turned his gaze away in apparent consideration of her modesty as she eased up the tunic.
She gave a little chuckle. “Ye’ve seen it all anyway.
” Even still, her cheeks went hot with a fierce blush.
Slowly, his stare returned to her, and he set to work. His large hands were tender as he worked, the same as they were when he loved her. And though his efforts were not sensual in nature, her body reacted as if they were.
His fingertips whispered over her skin and left a ripple of gooseflesh tingling over her body. Heat gathered between her thighs and made her nipples tighten into hard peaks beneath the thin tunic.
He felt it too. At one point, he glanced back at the sleeping lads with a hint of disappointment at their presence.
It was thrilling to be touched so. At least until he smeared an awful-smelling, sticky substance on the wound that made it sting.
“Garlic and honey to draw the poison of yer wound out.” He said it with the practiced air of a healer, no doubt repeating what he had been told.
His obvious attempt to reassure her brought an endearing smile to her lips for this man who had cared for her as no other had ever bothered to do. She sat up as he wound fresh linen about her ribs, and their eyes locked as he did so.
“I meant what I said to ye, back at Lochmaben.” He tucked the linen against itself, secured into place by the light tension.
His eyes were inky pools of darkness, and she drank them in, letting herself sink so deeply, she fancied she brushed his soul. “Ye said a lot of things at Lochmaben,” she murmured.
The corner of his lip lifted in a boyish grin that made her want to kiss him again and again until the need to cradle his body between her thighs overwhelmed her.
“I did.” He leaned over her, and her pulse ticked faster in anticipation.
But he didn’t kiss her. Instead, he swept her hair back and delicately cradled her jaw. The caress was so pleasant that she closed her eyes against it.
Weariness swept over her and made her not want to open her eyes again. Her body grew lax, and her lids were suddenly very heavy.
“I love ye.” His thumb brushed over her cheek. “Ye’ve made my heart whole again.”
Warm tears prickled in her eyes, for he made her heart whole too. And that was saying something when she had spent the better part of her life with it in tattered shreds.
She wanted to tell him what he meant to her as well, but her tongue felt thick in her mouth, and her eyelids seemed to weigh far too much to lift them. He drew her into the embrace of his arms.
“Sleep, my love.” His voice was like black velvet, gliding over her and pulling her into the quiet heat of slumber.
But before she finally succumbed, she could not help but wonder what the next day might bring. And what awaited them at Dunfermline Palace.