Chapter Twenty-Three
Invisible hands had been at work on Monteith’s chamber.
Lisle looked about and kept the intake of air to herself.
There was a larger tub than she’d ever seen beside his armoire, catching the afternoon light; there was a feast of so many various dishes her eyes couldn’t absorb them all, on three of his four tables; and there was a strange hip-high iron object between the chairs fronting his unlit fireplace.
Lisle focused on the iron thing. It had one thin, iron leg atop a footing of four decorated ones.
Toward the top was a sheltered area where she could see a small flame flickering through the amber-colored glass, and above that was a bowl shape, full of glowing coals.
“A brazier,” Langston said at her side before she had a chance to ask.
“What’s it for?”
“Cooking things.”
“You’ve a stone-weight of foods lying about, Monteith. There is nae need for cooking that I can tell.”
He smiled down at her. “I brought them from Persia. The desert. There is so much sand and heat and sun, it hurts the eye to contemplate it all. Everything is already roasting in the heat, making fire a useless thing to pursue, as well as nearly impossible to make. Nae wood about, unless you carry it with you.”
“So, why make a fire?”
His smile widened. “To cook. ’Tis also useful for heating things.”
“Things?” Those ale-colored eyes were doing strange things to her heart, making it skip a beat, pump mightily, skip another. Lisle swallowed to keep it to herself, but she couldn’t look away.
“Things like incense, coffee…skeans.”
Lisle’s eyes widened, and her heart decided to pump itself into the area just below her throat, making it difficult to breathe and impossible to swallow. Skeans? she wondered. “What are you planning on using it for?” she asked, with a voice that was almost nonexistent.
He didn’t answer, but he released her gaze to look down at himself. Lisle also watched as he pulled a long, wide blade from his belt and twirled it, catching the light.
“Skeans,” he replied finally.
She gasped. He ignored it to walk over to the brazier and stir the coals a bit before settling his knife underneath them.
Then, he reached to start pulling more knives from his belt, dumping them on the chair seat in front of him, and always using his right hand to do so.
When he came across another wide, flat blade, he put it in the coals, too.
Lisle watched, mentally storing the information of where not to sit, in the event she got to do so, since he’d had close to twenty blades tucked into his belt.
She didn’t know how many for certain. She hadn’t been counting until he already had them jumping about on the padded seat.
She was trying to keep the same fear that was clogging her throat from transferring to the rest of her.
It was a forlorn idea. Her back was already tight with dread, and her palms clammy with moisture.
He was heating blades…and such a thing was used to brand things like sheep.
Sheep were branded. Wives weren’t branded…
were they? He wouldn’t dare! She’d fight him!
She didn’t fight well, though. She was worse than clay in his hands.
Despite her imagination and the cold water that felt like it was filling her veins, replacing the blood that should be there, Lisle colored. She didn’t fight him well, at all.
She should have kept to herself. She knew, without asking, that he knew she’d been in the chapel this morning.
She knew his plot. She was going to be punished.
Or…she shouldn’t have spoken to Angus. She should have stayed out of it.
She should have stayed in ignorance. She should have stayed in her room, and never snuck about his castle.
Langston looked her way and frowned slightly. “Something bother you, sweet?” he asked.
You. She answered it in her mind. And what you’re going to do. She shook her head. Her tongue wasn’t working for anything other than adding to her misery by giving her a mouthful of spittle she couldn’t force her throat to swallow.
His lips twitched, and then he was raising his hand to push the kilt band that was across his left shoulder away, revealing a lot of blood on his shirt.
He was cursing, too, softly and viciously.
The chest band of his sett dropped to his side, held in place by his belt, and then it wasn’t held at all, as he unclasped the belt and let it fall to the floor with a thud of sound.
He didn’t help the plaide fall off. He didn’t need to.
Lisle watched as green and gold material unwound itself from his frame and joined the belt at his ankles.
Lisle already had both hands to her mouth.
It was to stop the sound at seeing him, and then it was to stop the disappointment.
He was wearing a shirt of broadcloth and the ends of it curved to midthigh.
He had wonderful, full-muscled thighs, she noted, and they were especially visual as he stepped from the pile of clothing he’d just made.
He glanced her way and stalled for a moment, in perfect statue form.
It had to be obvious what was on her face, because his lips went into a smile he was trying not to make and he looked away, while two spots of color touched the tops of his cheeks.
Lisle made a strangled noise and turned her back on him.
It helped control the burn of her blush and confuse it with anger.
He had no right to be so beautiful! None.
No man should be as gifted. The black hair was striking enough, especially with the way he kept his jaw clean-shaven of any beard.
The ale color of his eyes was another striking feature, as was such handsomeness that women had probably swooned over it well before she almost did.
There was no excuse for adding to his handsomeness by creating such a muscled physique.
That was totally unfair! And it was unfair of him to show it so easily to any woman…
even if she was his wife and watching him with such speechless admiration on her entire frame that he flushed over it!
She heard material ripping and her back clenched.
She heard the swish of cloth as it moved, followed by the sound of his movement.
Her shoulders and neck joined the fray with her back, stiffening before he could reach her.
She knew he was coming. Then, she heard the sound of rocks moving, followed by a hissing noise that was immediately pursued by a sharp intake of breath, one that came with his groan attached.
Lisle glanced over her shoulder. He was sitting in the chair he hadn’t peppered with weapons, and he was branding himself!
She wasn’t far away, but the walk took forever.
Then, she was at his side and on her knees, her eyes filling with tears as he held the blade to his shoulder.
He had unbuttoned his shirt to his waist and peeled it off his left shoulder, proving where the ripping noise had come from since he’d torn the material in the process, and also showing why there was so much blood, and it just kept trickling out as she watched.
“Oh, Lang…ston,” she said, splitting his name into two syllables with a sobbing sound between them.
“Lisle,” he said finally, in a gruff tone.
“Aye?” she asked, lifting her eyes to his.
“You canna’ coddle a young warrior, either,” he told her. He was moving the cooled blade away and dropping it, where it fell soundlessly to the pile he’d already made. He didn’t move his gaze from hers as he did it.
Then he narrowed his eyes, blackening them and shutting her out.
Such a thing had her moving her hands, clasping them together, and then plunging them against her breast where her own flesh moved to allow them the space.
It didn’t help. Everything was hurting, and it was emanating from the spot her hands were pushing into.
Langston grabbed up another blade and held it against his shoulder, tensing everything along his entire frame to absorb what had to be agony. He didn’t make a sound this time. The tears slid from her eyes, coated her cheeks, and dropped from there to the ball of her conjoined hands.
He dropped the other skean, let go of the tenseness, and allowed himself to fall back against the chair. He didn’t say a thing. He had his eyes closed, his lips pursed as he breathed shallowly, and there was more than one line creasing his forehead.
Lisle dropped her view to his wound. It was black and red and angry-looking, with a line of white flesh encircling it. There wasn’t a sign of fresh bleeding.
“You’re hurt,” Lisle said.
“’Tis but a scratch,” he answered the air, since he hadn’t opened his eyes and would have been looking more toward the beams above them than anywhere else.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I got careless.”
“You fight your own men? Must you be so stupid?”
A smile touched his lips, moving them out of the kissable look he held them in. “Nae, and nae,” he replied.
“I doona’ ken you,” Lisle said to that.
“I’m na’ fighting my own men…or at least, they weren’t at the time, and nae, I am na’ that stupid.”
“You go about with an untended wound, acting like ’tis naught, and call yourself smart?” she asked.
It was definitely a smile. Lisle watched as his lips curved, then went back to a pout.
“I did have it tended when it happened…well, shortly after, anyway. And I had excellent care. I pay the best surgeons, you know.”
“Then why is it you have to tend it yourself now?”
He opened his eyes to slits and moved his jaw down prior to rolling his head toward where she still knelt. “Because they seared the opening, na’ the sides. Such a method requires time to heal. I dinna’ give it time.”
“So you had to seal both sides, which will make a wicked scar.”
He nodded.
“Because both sides were bleeding too much to keep it secret, and it was getting too painful to do your business without someone knowing you get hurt, too. You bleed. You’re not invincible.”