Chapter 10 #2
Maddie, a serving girl Aftyn had heard unkind tales about, brought their ales and set them down with a frown for Aftyn and a raised eyebrow at Jamie, who requested food, then looked away. Maddie canted out one hip, then turned and walked away.
Aftyn frowned at her back as she moved toward the kitchen. “What was that all about?”
“Nothing to do with ye, or I miss my guess,” Jamie said, and told her about the lass’s offer before his bath the first time he met her.
“Ah, the tales about her must be true. So she’s crabbit because ye are with the likes of me after ye turned her down.”
“Probably.”
She eyed her tankard. “I’m not sure I should drink this. No telling what she might have put in it.”
Jamie shook his head and tipped his tankard toward her. “I watched her pour both from a pitcher on the table over there. She served others from it, too, just before she poured ours, so I’d wager ’tis safe.”
Aftyn sniffed, then raised her tankard. “Here’s to ye being right, or we’ll both be down.”
Jamie laughed and touched the rim of his drink to hers, then took a sip. “Tastes the same as I’ve had before.”
Aftyn nodded and sipped. “We’re still breathing.” She took a larger swallow, suddenly needing fortification. She’d nearly succumbed to Jamie—to her own desires—only a short time ago. She’d wanted him since before she’d seen him in his bath. Kissing him only made the wanting more acute.
“Still,” Aftyn said, trying to lighten her own mood as well as his by teasing him about finding him in his bath, “she’d really be put out if she kenned what I saw only a wee while later.”
Jamie threw his head back and laughed.
It was the first full-throated, uninhibited amusement she’d seen him express. It thrilled her, and made her embarrassment over what she’d done today—and what she’d seen that day—worthwhile.
“Ach, lass,” Jamie finally said when he could catch his breath. He wiped his eyes, still chuckling. “I love when ye surprise me.”
But did he love her?
She forced herself to raise her glass in a silent toast while she overcame the shock sending tingles down her arms and legs.
Where had that thought come from? Unless he kept his promise to guard her from Agatha, he would leave in a few days.
She mustn’t let herself imagine he had any motive other than guilt over what he’d said to Agatha.
Yet he gave his smile only to her, and the twinkle in his gaze sent lightning flashing from her lips to her toes, melting everything in between.
They drank in silence for a few minutes, then Jamie asked, “What did ye say to Mhairi to put a new backbone into her? She seemed not at all like a lass Rory had been beating.”
So, he also needed to take down the temperature between them.
Aftyn shrugged one shoulder. She understood he wasn’t ready to talk about what happened on the way back from Robena’s.
“We discussed her future should something happen to Rory. She’s already lost one husband, ye ken.
It was hard on her and she couldn’t see past losing another.
I reminded her that she’d stood on her own two feet after her husband died and she could do it again if she left Rory, or…
” She paused and raised an eyebrow at Jamie, her scrutiny direct and full of implications.
“If something happened to him. I saw the blood. How bad did ye hurt him?” She let her gaze roam over the breadth of his shoulders and the bulge of muscle in his sleeves in purely feminine appreciation.
“No’ as badly as I wouldha liked. Taught him a lesson he didna wish to learn, so he came at me with a blade, the fool, and wound up stabbing himself. I settled him down.”
She lifted her tankard in salute. “Aye, ye did.” Though he hadn’t killed the man, likely he deserved it.
“And ye gave Mhairi the strength to stand up to him.” Jamie lifted his tankard in response.
Aftyn felt the heat of a blush rising from her chest to her throat at his praise. “She had her own strength. Likely ’tis one reason she has so many bruises. I hope we have no’ made things worse for her,” she added to distract herself—and him.
“We’ll hear of it. The next time, if there is a next time, will be worse for him. He kens that.”
Aftyn shook her head and pushed her tankard away, suddenly despairing.
“And when he hears ye have left the village, what do ye think he’ll do?
” Jamie’s assurance irritated her. He didn’t live here.
He didn’t know these people. She would be the one left behind to deal with the results of his actions. Couldn’t he see that?
She pressed her lips together, biting down on what she was tempted to say, and after today, what it hurt to think. That he had no business here, and should not feel obligated to stay.
Their food arrived just as Aftyn’s half-brother, Braden limped into the great hall, cradling his arm.
“What happened to ye?” She stood and helped him to a seat.
“Damn Archie hit me in the elbow with a practice sword.”
“Well, thank the saints it was made of wood and no’ a real one. Ye’d be minus half yer arm, would ye no’?” She carefully pulled up Braden’s sleeve and bent to study the offended joint, taking note of the bruised-looking swelling forming above and below it.
“Dinna remind me.”
“Can ye move it?” Jamie’s concerned expression reminded her they hadn’t met.
“Ach, Braden, this is Jamie Lathan, the visiting healer. Jamie, this is the Keith heir, Braden.”
Braden nodded to Jamie and demonstrated, shifting his lower arm a fraction of an inch and stifling a yelp as he paled. “The bastard broke it.”
“Aye, I fear so,” Aftyn told him, sympathy filling her.
“Can ye fix it, Aftyn? Ye must.”
“Let me see,” Jamie said, stepping close.
“I can wrap it,” she said as Jamie, eyes closed and a frown drawing down his brow, touched Braden’s arm just above the elbow, then below it. “But first, ye would feel better if ye soaked in the loch. The cold would bring down the swelling.”
“And freeze the rest of me, too. Nay, it already feels better.”
“Cold water would help,” Jamie said, stepping back with a grimace.
Aftyn narrowed her gaze. Had he done something? He seemed uncomfortable, but he had before Braden arrived, too. She dismissed her observation as pure fancy. “I’ll have some of the lads bring up buckets of cold water. That might serve. Go up to the herbal with Jamie.”
Braden nodded and headed for the upper stairs with Jamie a step ahead, making sure no one jostled his arm.
She ran down the stairs and out into the bailey, hailed several lads still on the practice ground and told them what she needed.
They hurried off to do her bidding and she went back inside, stopping first by the kitchen to beg a flask of whisky from Cook, who kept several on hand.
Braden would need strong drink to dull the pain as she wrapped his elbow.
In the herbal, she poured a cup nearly full and handed it to Braden. “Ye need to drink as much of this as ye can stomach,” she told him.
“Ye ken I dinna like…”
“I do ken it, but the whisky will help with the pain,” she insisted. And if he passed out, that would be a blessing.
The lads arrived with the cold water she’d requested.
She spent the next few minutes directing them where to put the buckets, so she didn’t see what Jamie did, but she heard them speaking in low tones.
Aftyn turned around in time to see Braden flex his arm, slowly.
Jamie did the same with his. Showing Braden how much to safely move it?
When Braden cradled his arm, Jamie did, too.
“Good,” Jamie told him. “Now do as the healer tells ye, and dunk that elbow.” He glanced at the row of buckets on the table top and told Braden, “As the water warms, go to the next, and so on down the line she arranged for ye. By the time ye reach the end, the swelling will be much reduced.”
Warmed inside by Jamie acknowledging her to the laird’s heir as the healer, Aftyn placed a stool by the first bucket.
He didn’t know Braden was her half-brother, and she had no intention of telling him.
Because of the way the laird treated her, and the fact that she’d kept their relationship secret, Jamie might guess what she was, and that would be the end of any regard he held for her.
Braden did as Jamie instructed, ignoring the cup Aftyn placed in reach of his free hand.
“When ye have done them all,” Aftyn said, “I’ll wrap the elbow.”
“That will help,” Jamie agreed. “Ye ken to do it firmly but no’ tight, then fashion a sling. And ye, lad, will use that sling for the next three days any time ye are no’ abed. No exceptions.”
“Will I be able to use my arm after that?”
“Aye, but ye must let it rest for now, or it can swell again, and that will hurt,” Aftyn directed.
“Thank ye.” He turned to Jamie. “I am grateful ye are here to help my…”
“That’s right,” Aftyn broke in. “Ye are fortunate to have an experienced healer nearby when ye need one.” Jealousy flared at the adoration in her brother’s gaze now directed at Jamie, making her belly clench.
Had he forgotten she’d once saved his life?
“Thank ye, Jamie,” she added, determined not to let Braden say any more about who they were to each other.
“I can finish caring for him. I’m sure ye have much else to do with Niall. ”
“I was going to see him when Braden arrived, aye.” Jamie nodded. “I’ll take my leave, then.”
Did Jamie look pale and tired again?
She watched him walk away until he closed the door behind him, then breathed a sigh of relief.
She didn’t want Jamie to think less of her.
She’d already felt his contempt. She would be shamed, and could not stand the thought of enduring that again.
Perhaps that was why Braden’s adoration of Jamie rankled.
As Braden moved from the first bucket to the next, she shifted the stool for him and asked, “What did he do to yer arm?”
“I dinna ken,” Braden said, “and I dinna care. It didna hurt, and afterward, my arm felt better.”
“Why do ye spar with Archie? Every time ye do, ye wind up injured.”
“All the others avoid him. He’s got the coordination of an arrow-shot duck on his best day. And today wasna one of his best.”
“Yet ye partner with him.”
“’Tis my responsibility as heir.”
“To let yerself be battered and bruised and,” she said then paused, gesturing at the bucket currently occupied by his elbow, “possibly suffer broken bones, too? I should have a word with the arms master.”
Braden sprang to his feet, water dripping from the bunched sleeve above his elbow onto the tabletop and floor.
“Nay, ye mustna. How am I, one day, to lead these lads, if my sister complains I’m no’ able?
They’ll be my men, and they must respect me and ken I’ll do what I can for them, even if it means taking a few blows now. ”
“But does it always have to be ye, Braden? Taking all the errant blows Archie can deliver?” She gestured for him to move to the next bucket and pulled the stool along behind him.
“No’ for the next three days, nay,” he told her and grinned. “Dinna fash, Sister. I’ll be more careful.”
“See that ye do.”
“And I noticed ye cut me off just before I called ye ‘sister.’ Our guest doesna ken who ye are?”
“The laird’s bastard? Nay.” And after today, it would be even harder to tell a man who kissed her the way Jamie did exactly who—and what—she was.
“Ye are more than that,” Braden insisted, as she indicated for him to dunk his elbow. “When I am laird, ye will be respected and honored. I ken how hard ye work for the clan. How little yer mother left ye to work with.”
“Jamie is helping with that, actually.” She brought over the journal and a page of Jamie’s notes. “He understands at least some of what she wrote, and he’s making it plain for Neve and me so we can use her knowledge in the future.”
“Good.”
“I wish ye had a better idea what he did to yer arm. Did ye notice how he stood when he turned away from ye?”
“Nay. What do ye mean?”
“He cradled his arm, just as ye did, but only for a moment.”
“In sympathy for my pain?”
“Perhaps.” Aftyn frowned, then nodded. “Aye, perhaps exactly that.”