Chapter 14
Iain woke. His head ached as if someone had hit him with an axe head. His blurry sight had him wondering if he’d had sand thrown into his eyes. He blinked, but his eyelids ached with the movement. That small movement sent a quaking throughout his body, every nerve screaming at the intrusion.
He stilled and concentrated his focus.
Reward.
Through his hazy vision, he could see his angel dozing in an old chair.
Her long hair fell loose about her as she lay with her hands under the side of her head resting on the arm of the chair.
He smiled at her pink kissable mouth. She was a bonny lass.
She had taken off her cloak and used it to cover her body.
The memory of his arms around those curves sent tingles down his spine.
He dragged his gaze from her and looked about.
They were in an old farmhouse, and he was in a bed.
The smell of peat fire filled the room, but he heard no other sounds.
They were alone. Any other time, he would be thankful, but with the English army and their Scottish allies scouring the Highlands for Jacobites, they were in danger.
Even if he was well and healthy, they would be at a disadvantage, but with his body aching and his fevered mind still swirling in confusion, he couldn’t even lift a sword.
He couldn’t protect her. Whether asleep or awake, protecting her was all he’d thought about since the attack on the MacDonalds’ group.
If any of their enemies found them, Abigail would be at their mercy. Knowing how they would treat her, his heart lurched. He shouldn’t have let the MacDonalds leave them there. He should have fought for the lass’s safety.
But no, he wasn’t thinking clearly. They couldn’t go to Inverell.
They would have put the entire family in danger for being associated with a Jacobite fighter.
He frowned. He should have insisted Abigail stay with the MacDonalds.
He’d had fevers before. He could have slept through the worst of the heat, and once it had broken, if it broke and he lived, he could have been on his way to Dorpol.
Alone, he would have covered more ground faster.
One of Abigail’s feet fell out from under her cloak. The material slipped, exposing a long, naked leg. And a more perfect leg he had never seen. He knew he should, but he couldn’t drag his eyes off her. His mouth went dry and heat rose through his body. He choked back a gasp
Iain peered closer. She wasn’t wearing her skirt. Mayhap she thought he was still too feverish to notice.
A heaviness set in his aching eyelids, but he forced them to stay open.
He didn’t want to stop looking at her, for she still looked like an angel to his eyes.
He was also scared she might turn out to be a fever vision after all and disappear.
Had they even traveled with the MacDonalds?
Was it all a dream and he was still on the battlefield, slowly dying?
Iain fisted his hand and dug his fingernails into his palm. Nay. He was in a deserted house with the most beautiful lass he had ever set his eyes on.
Her eyes blinked open and caught his. She gasped and sat up, wiping her mouth. “You’re awake.”
“Aye.” His voice was gritty. The corners of his mouth twitched.
Abigail threw her cloak off, jumped up, and bent forward to feel his forehead. “You’re still hot.”
His eyes widened at the open top of her shirt.
She stood up and scrunched the material closed.
Raking his gaze over her near-naked body, he cleared his throat and winced. “That isn’t going to make much difference.”
Her eyes widened, and she looked down. She gasped in surprise. Had she forgotten her state of undress?
She had dispensed with the skirt and vest and only wore a shirt.
Iain couldn’t remember seeing anything like her shirt’s style before.
It was long enough to cover her body but not much else.
He couldn’t place the cloth, but it was as shiny as silk.
Mayhap it was silk. He frowned at the buttons.
They were small and white but not covered in cloth, and they were placed from neck to hem.
It wasn’t like any sark or shift he had ever seen.
She glared at him. “Stop looking at me like that.”
He raised his eyebrows, his eyes roaming down her length once more.
“Blast it. Turn away so I can get dressed.”
“I like it.” He grinned, knowing hunger eclipsed the pain in his eyes. By the boar’s blood, his whole body hungered for her.
She snatched up her skirt and, turning her back to him as if she thought that would give her privacy, she bent forward to step into the skirt.
His breath hitched in his throat as the bottom of her shirt rose.
Something pink and shiny that again looked like silk covered her skin but was so tight, he had nothing to compare it to.
Who, what was she? If he was going to die in the rundown farmhouse, he wanted to know more about her first.
She wrenched the skirt up over her long legs and tied it at her waist.
As she turned back to him, she held out her arms and sang, “Ta da.”
Taken aback, Iain stared at her.
She let out a small laugh. “Don’t worry about it. It’s just an expression from where I’m from.”
Although he was sorry to see her so covered, he decided it was for the best.
He patted the bed. “Tell me aboot ye, yer family, yer country.”
He gritted his teeth and made room for her but couldn’t stop a groan from escaping his throat from the movement.
“Keep still.” Abigail filled a mug with water and set it down on the small round table beside the bed.
She leaned so close, he could smell the faintest glow of herbs and breathed in her sweetness as she propped up the folded blanket, she had placed behind him.
He helped as much as his weakened body allowed, which wasn’t much at all.
Abigail grunted with the effort, and by the time she had him in a semi-upright position, she was panting.
His voice rasped, “Thank ye.”
“Thank me by drinking this.”
He glowered at the mug. He didn’t want to drink. The last time she made him take some water, his stomach had twisted in excruciating pain. He glanced up at her hopeful face. If he wanted to have strength to do all the things his fevered mind imagined, he needed to drink.
Placing the mug against his cracked lips, she waited for him to bend his head to it before tipping it up. He drank a mouthful and then pulled away. A rope pulled the water down into his gut and thrashed about for painful moment.
When it passed, he said, “I am much indebted to ye, angel.”
“I’m not an angel, and don’t think twice about it.”
He tilted his head. He hadn’t thought twice, and he only spoke once.
She picked at a loose thread in her skirt. “I can’t go anywhere at the moment, anyway. Actually, I’m glad to have your company. I don’t know what I’d do here all by myself.”
“Ye should have stayed with the MacDonalds.”
She rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “And have Tavis continually trying to help me and hanging off my every word?”
His newly bearded jawline twitched in anger. Had Tavis been so forthright to a married woman? “Did he—”
Abigail’s eyes widened. “What? No. He’s just a kid . . . a lad.”
“He’s old enough to marry.”
“He’s not old enough to marry me, and anyway, he and his whole family thought”—she pointed to Iain and then to herself—“we were already married.”
“Ye should have told me.”
She ducked her head and her hands shook as she straightened the blanket over him. She smiled. “I’ve read about you Highland types.”
“Aye? What have you read?”
“You are all womanizers. What do you call it? Wenching, that’s it. You all go around wenching.”
He laughed, but a cough quickly followed. He held up a hand. “Don’t be jesting. It hurts me to laugh.” He gave her his best smoldering smile. “Women do have a penchant for a handsome Highlander.”
“Like you?”
“Do you think I’m handsome then?”
She scoffed and shook her head, turning her gaze away as if seeing something other than a stone wall. “It doesn’t matter what I think.”
“Aye. It matters.”
Had he seen a spark in her eyes before she averted her gaze? Aye. He had. She was having sinful thoughts as much as he was. That kiss the last night with the MacDonalds had sent his body into a whir, and he was sure she felt the same.
He drew his brows together. But that was after he had saved her. She could have merely been thankful. It might have been her appreciation that she had showed him.
She went over to the pot over the fire. “I’ve made a broth with the oats and meat Mary gave us.”
Iain thought perhaps he could beat this fever. He smashed his lips together. Unlikely. He had seen fever take many. The heat spared no one—warriors, men, women, or bairns.
Why the hell did he have to meet her when he was near death?
Why couldn’t he have met her when he was a brawny, healthy man, a man, lasses admired?
All he wanted was to kiss her. He hardened his jaw. If he wanted the chance to have Abigail in his arms, he needed his strength.
Iain tried to eat as much of the broth as he could, but the act of swallowing made him gag. The effort weakened his already feeble body. He groaned a small, frail noise no man would want to have the bonniest lass in the world hear.
Abigail ignored his distress and continued to pour the brew down his throat. As if her speaking would take Iain’s mind off his discomforts, she spoke of her family. Names Iain found as strange as she was. Max, Garrett, and Izzy.
“Max tried to teach me and Izzy to fight, but we’d all end up laughing because we couldn’t do what she said.”
Iain spluttered and fell back, the broth spilling over the rim onto his chest. Max was a she? What sort of name was that for a lass?
“Max is your sister?”
Abigail nodded and laughed. “Maxine. Only my sister could get away with some of the things she’s done to me.”
She wiped Iain’s wet chest with a cloth and sighed as she returned the bowl to a spot near the fire.
He frowned. She didn’t appear to be in any hurry to return to him.
He already missed the sound of her voice. If he was to die that night, he wanted to hear her voice as he left the mortal world. With what little strength he had, he asked softly, “What else did your sister do to you?”
She turned fearful eyes on him but nodded and sat down.
He knew then she was afraid of him dying and leaving her to fend for herself in what must be a strange and frightening land. “Tell me more about Max,” he said.
She shrugged and said, “One time, she built a trap in the backyard for us. It was a big cage. Where she got it from, she still won’t tell me, but anyway, she rigged up the cage so the open end was up off the ground, and she covered the top with leaves and the sides with branches so we couldn’t see it for what it was.
Plates of candies . . . ah, sweets and cakes were on a small table under the cage. Izzy and I were on them in a second, but no sooner had we popped the sweets into our mouths, then the cage crashed down around us.”
Abigail giggled and shook her head. “Izzy screamed so loud, Garrett came running, but when he saw our predicament, he fell to the ground, laughing so hard he couldn’t talk.
At least that stopped Izzy from screaming.
I knew Max was the culprit. I called for her, and she said from the top of the cage, ‘You should be more aware of your surroundings.’ She jumped down, and once Garrett pulled himself together, they lifted the cage off us.
“Max continued to lecture us on how we should notice when things changed in our surroundings while we ate all the sweets and cakes.”
Iain couldn’t imagine how Garrett came to be in pieces and how he had to pull himself together, but he didn’t question her strange words. He wanted to keep her talking. He licked his lips and moved his tongue around in his mouth for lubrication. “Was there a reason for her worrying about ye?”
“I suppose. Our parents were rich and had a lot of priceless stuff in the house. She was always reading stories about rich kids getting kidnapped and held for ransom, or how thieves broke into houses and threatened families.” She smiled wistfully.
“Max was always wanting to fight the bad guys, but I wish she didn’t have to use us as practice so much. ”
“Aye, sisters can be menaces.”
“What sort of things has your sister done to you?”
“When she heard I was going to join Bonnie Prince Charlie's army, she had me locked in the dungeon.”
“What? Really? How did you get out?”
“I threatened to announce her marriage to Murry.”
“Murry?”
He let out a weak laugh. “Murry is an old hermit who lives in solitude in a cave on the beach.”
“And could you have made her marry him?”
“Aye, all I had to do was announce the betrothal and it would be done.”
Her tinkling laughter had Iain smiling. “That was really mean, but I can understand why you did it. Sisters can be the worst sometimes.”
“Aye.”
Iain wanted to hear more about her family, but her visage blurred as blackness seeped into his brain. He fought it, ignoring his aching body’s plea to sleep. He didn’t want to leave her. He blinked and refocused.
He felt they had forged a connection with their stories. He wished he could concentrate, ask more questions. His entire body ached, and the blackness was encroaching from the edges of his mind. He threw his head from side to side, trying to rid his mind of the sinister stuff.
She dipped the cloth into water and placed it on his forehead, putting a hand on his chest to still him. “For Pete’s sake, will you stay still?”
Iain relaxed. His angel’s hand felt like ice on his burning skin as she ran her palm across his brow. He shut his eyes at the momentary relief.
“Please,” Abigail said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Sleep.”
She shivered and glanced at the sputtering fire. “I’ll put some more peat on the fire.”
He forced his aching lids open and was rewarded with the view of her hips swaying as she walked to the wall, collected the blocks, and bent to feed the fire. She stood up, rubbing her arms.
Iain couldn’t feel the cold, but he knew the night would be freezing.
Returning to the pallet, she drew up his kilt and tucked it in around him.
“You’re cold. You take it.”
“I have blankets.”
Picking up the side of the covers, Iain grinned. “Perhaps we can both be warm this night.”
A pink flush grew in her cheeks as she seemed to be weighing his suggestion.
She offered him a shy smile but shook her head. “No, it’ll only make you hotter, and we have to bring the fever down, not make it worse.”
He sighed, knowing she was right. Closing his eyes, he hoped she would keep him company in his dreams.