Chapter 8 #4
“I felt like I belonged. And I think I forced Calum to realize he doesna ken me as well as he thought.” Muireall had been right.
Going with him, seeing him do what he did best, while also showing him things she could do that he didn’t expect, had felt good.
If it opened a door in the wall between them, she would call it a good start.
“But if I failed in that, it still felt good to care for the lads, even the little I could do out in the woods. I kenned ye would look after Kyle, and once I got back here, I would, too. Once we got them all back safely.”
Ella smiled, then chuckled. “Ye shouldha seen Calum grumbling about having the lads’ deer tied to his horse, dripping blood the whole way back here. He didna stop until the rain began.”
“So, the lads were successful hunters!”
“Aye, they brought coneys and a deer back to Cook. I expect ’twas an adventure they’ll no’ soon forget.”
Mhairi smiled sagely, her eyes bright and approving. “For ye, too, lass, aye?”
“I ken what ye are thinking,” Ella told her. “I finally feel as though I fit in at Brodie. And with ye.”
“Ye do, Ella. Ye have a place with me, caring for Brodie, if ye want it.”
Ella gave her a tired smile. “I’m grateful ye want me here.” But she still couldn’t give Mhairi the assurance she wanted. Not until she knew if things would now be different—better—with Calum.
She went to bed, dreaming of Calum’s change in attitude toward her.
She’d seen the admiring looks he’d given her once he was sure she was safe.
In her dream, he took her in his arms again and kissed her as he’d done in the hallway.
But this time, they didn’t argue. This time, they stumbled through his open door and into his chamber, then fell onto his bed, wrapped in each other’s arms, kissing, touching, and exploring with more heat and passion than she believed possible in her life.
Her arousal built quickly as his lips moved down her throat and his hands pulled at her skirts, seeking her burning flesh underneath.
Before her dream Calum could go further, pounding on her door woke her up. Her blood still raging in her veins, she wanted to cry. Instead, she got up, wrapped a shawl over her chemise and around her shoulders, and answered the door.
Kenneth stood there, looking grim as he stared over her head. “Euan’s hurt,” he told her. “They’ll need ye.”
Minutes later, dressed and downstairs, she heard raised voices coming from the bailey, and she ran all the way into the herbal to ready it.
Kenneth came in and lifted the sleeping Kyle from his cot. “I told Muireall. She’ll be down soon. I’ll see this lad safe somewhere else,” he told her.
“Good thinking,” Ella agreed. “Thank ye.”
Mhairi arrived before Kenneth left with Kyle. She confirmed Ella’s conclusion that the lad hadn’t developed a fever, and let Kenneth carry him away.
Several men carrying Euan between them came in next.
Euan’s right arm, wrapped in a piece of Brodie plaid barely recognizable for the blood that soaked it, dripped blood off his fingers, leaving a trail of red on the stone flooring.
The healer raised her voice. “Lay him down on the table, there. Good,” she added when they got him settled the way she wanted.
“Now, back up and stay out of my way, or leave. Ella and I will tend to him. Someone fetch Muireall.”
“I’m here. Kenneth woke me.” Euan’s bride’s voice cut through the rumble of concerned voices as Euan’s men trailed out of the herbal, but only going as far as the hallway outside the chamber. “What happened?” She moved to Euan’s side and took his good hand.
“I’m fine,” Euan rasped softly, trying to sit up.
The healer, who had just uncovered the wound on his upper arm, pushed him back down. “Ye are no’ fine. And ye will do as I say or—”
“Suffer the consequences. I ken it,” Euan rasped.
She quirked her lips, giving him a brief smile, then gestured to Ella. “Ye ken what I need.”
Ella nodded and fetched the pot of the herbal poultice to pack the wound, another of the tincture the healer used to prevent it from festering, cloth to wrap it, and wine to dull Euan’s pain. If he didn’t pass out, he would need it.
Ella poured a cup of wine and handed it to Muireall, then she and Mhairi helped him lift his head enough to swallow some of it.
Euan nodded his thanks as Muireall set the cup aside.
While the healer worked, Iain arrived, pushing through the men now clustered in the chamber’s doorway. “What happened?” His demand silenced the low rumble of the men watching the healer work.
Euan tried to sit up again to answer his laird, but Mhairi pushed him down. “Now is no’ the time, laird,” she objected.
“Then someone else can fill me in. Euan wasna the only man there.” He turned to the men determined to watch over Euan. “Well?”
One of his men stepped forward and described their encounter with a second band of raiders.
“We had the ones Euan thought Calum found in our custody,” the man said, “which left only a few of us to fight off the new band. Six more of them. They came out of the forest before we kenned they were there.”
“Where are they now?” Iain’s question cut through affirmative noises the men who fought the raiders added to the speaker’s report.
“Dead, the lot of them,” the man told him. “Including a few of the ones we’d rounded up who broke free and joined the fight. The rest should be in our dungeon cells by now.”
“How was Euan hurt?”
“Three of the late arrivals went after him.”
“Three?” Iain shook his head. “Damn, Euan. Trouble still follows ye.”
Ella knew Calum would not be happy when he heard about this.
But she was glad Iain had ordered him to stay behind.
Could he have fought in a battle like the one they described?
And survived? Or would he have wound up like Euan—or worse?
She glanced at Muireall, sorry for her friend, but grateful Calum was here to avoid this fight, and to find the lost lads.
“Aye, well,” the man continued, “it took longer than it should have for any of us to get to Euan. We were all fighting for our lives. The three on him kept driving him away from the rest of us. I finished off the man I was fighting and took out one of the men on Euan. Then another, but the third had time to do that before another of ours got him.” He gestured toward the bloody arm the healer calmly worked on while Euan.
Muireall kept a comforting hand on his good shoulder.
“How bad is it? Iain directed the question to the healer.
But his glance strayed to Ella, then Muireall, and Ella wondered if he thought Euan would be as difficult a patient as Calum had been.
Or if he would heal faster. Ella continued handing the healer whatever she asked for, while sending Muireall encouraging smiles and nods.
Muireall stood with the hand not touching Euan clenched in front of her waist, her face alternately pale and flushed.
“Ye’d best sit down,” Ella told her, worried that Muireall would faint from shock and the fear of seeing so much blood on her husband.
Iain put one of the healer’s stools behind her and gently encouraged her onto it.
The healer glanced up at Iain. “’Tis bad enough he’ll be with me for a while. Have ye seen enough, laird? Do ye have what ye need?”
“Aye.”
“Then ye and ye men, get out and let us work.”
Iain nodded and gestured for the others to precede him. At the door, he paused. “Keep me appraised,” he ordered. When the healer nodded, never looking up, he left.
“Muireall, talk to yer man,” the healer ordered. “Yer voice will soothe him.”
Muireall pulled her stool closer to Euan’s other side and began speaking softly.
Ella knew her friend’s loving tones were the balm Euan needed more than the wine.
Muireall and Euan were very much in love.
While her friend’s voice was tinged with concern, even fear, Ella could see the effort she made to hide her feelings, and to reassure Euan that all would be well.
Ella hoped she was right. The wound sliced deeply into his upper arm muscles.
He was probably fortunate not to have lost the arm completely.
The healer worked quickly to stop the bleeding, pack the wound and wrap it, then she poured a generous measure of the tincture on the wrapping over the wound, soaking it.
But Ella saw that Euan had a long struggle ahead of him to heal and regain his strength in that arm.
And such a wound, in his sword arm, might have the potential, like Calum’s, to change the course of his life, and make fighting difficult if not impossible. Ella’s heart broke for him, and for Muireall, who would face that future, whatever it might be, with him.
Like Ella had hoped to do with Calum. Would her friends face the same challenges?
The same fears and heartbreaks? Nay, they were already married, happy in their union, and fully supported each other.
Their situation was vastly different from hers with Calum.
Muireall would be able to tend to her husband with no fear of him rejecting her help.
And Euan would be glad of her devotion. Ella was certain of that.