Chapter 21
Four days later
“… need to stop fretting, Callum. I promise you sleep is the best thing for her.”
The voice was soft, no louder than a whisper, and as soothing as the cool shade of the woods during the warmest summer months in Dunvegan.
But this wasn’t Dunvegan. She wasn’t at home in her beloved castle with its lopsided turret. She couldn’t be, because she couldn’t hear the waters of the loch washing against the rocky shoreline below.
Those waves were Castle Cairncross’s ceaseless lullaby.
There were no waves here, and none of the comforting creaks and groans of her castle settling its old bones for the night. It must be night, mustn’t it? Darkness pressed against her closed eyelids, and the voice near her was hushed, in the way that voices were always hushed at night.
Where was she? The answer was there, but it hovered just out of reach, like a butterfly fluttering over her open hand but too timid to land, its wings brushing her palm. She groped clumsily for it, but instead of answers, she found only a handful of shadows.
“She should have awakened by now.”
It was a man’s voice this time, low and deep and so familiar, like a warm palm stroking down her spine. His voice made her think of silvery moonlight, and deep, cool water, and … and … willow trees?
How strange.
But what would a gentleman be doing in her bedchamber? Or, no—not her bedchamber, but someone else’s. Someone else’s bed, as well, and a soft, lovely one it was, too, although it was a trifle worrying to wake and find oneself in a stranger’s bed.
Something had happened, but she couldn’t quite remember what. There’d been a pounding rain coming down on her, and the scent of hay and horses in her nose, and … a white cat? Yes, a woolly white cat—
No. Not a cat, but a lamb. A newborn lamb.
“Cream Puff.” The lamb’s name was Cream Puff, and she’d been nestling in someone’s lap. A child, perhaps? Yes, a child with very fair hair, and … something, but what? It was like trying to put together a puzzle with half of the pieces missing.
If she could open her eyes, all might become clear, but her eyelids were so dreadfully heavy. Her eyeballs darted about underneath her weighted lids—left, right, then left again—but she couldn’t quite manage to peel her lids off her eyes.
“She’s trying to open her eyes.” Someone leaned closer, their breath warm against her cheek. “Come now, Freya, you can do better than that. Let’s have them all the way open, shall we?”
Someone groaned. It might have been her, but she wasn’t certain. There was a pain in her head. She raised her hand to the place where it hurt, but she only grazed the edge of a bandage before gentle fingers wrapped around her wrist and eased her hand away.
“It’s best if you don’t touch it. We don’t want it to start bleeding again.”
Bleeding? Who was bleeding? Dear God, was it Sorcha? Or Cat?
She struggled once again with her heavy eyelids, and this time a sliver of candlelight found its way underneath them. Blurry shadows danced in her vision, but after a few blinks they resolved into recognizable shapes.
She was lying in a darkened bedchamber with a window opposite the bed.
There was a dressing table beneath the window, and a hairbrush and hand mirror neatly lined up on top of it.
There was a chair in one corner with a small table beside it.
She was tucked into a bed with downy white sheets and what felt like dozens of blankets topped with a thick patchwork coverlet that had been pulled up to her chin.
At her bedside sat a lady in a wrinkled blue dress, her face lined with exhaustion.
She knew that face. She would have known it anywhere. “Aila?”
“Ah, there she is. Very good, Freya. Yes, it’s me.”
Aila’s face came closer as she leaned over the bed. Her brow was furrowed with worry, and she looked so dreadfully pale and tired a little cry of dismay fell from Freya’s lips. “Are you unwell? You look as if you haven’t slept in days.”
For some reason, this made Aila laugh. “Four days, give or take a few hours, but there’s nothing wrong with me that a good night’s rest won’t cure. Indeed, I already feel much better, now that you’re awake. We’ve all been terribly worried about you, my dear.”
“Me? Why, what’s happened? It’s not Cream Puff, is it?”
“Cream Puff?” Aila’s gaze fell on something hidden in the shadows on the other side of the room. “No, Cream Puff is fine, as far as I know. Do you remember what happened?”
Ah. Something had happened, then. She’d thought it must have, but the line between dream and reality was rather fuzzy just now.
“I remember the rain, and there was wind, as well.” It hurt her head to think, but the memories were right there.
She groped clumsily for them, but they slipped from her hands before she could make sense of them.
“Yes. We had a rather bad storm. It’s over now, but it’s left a path of destruction in its wake.” Aila hesitated, then, “You had a bit of an accident, Freya. The wind from the storm tore a heavy limb loose from one of the oak trees near the stables, and I—I’m afraid it hit you.”
The stables … a bit more of the puzzle emerged, and painstakingly, the pieces started to fall back into place. “There was a young girl, in the stables.” Margaret? No, that wasn’t it. “Maisie. I came upon her in the stables, tending to a newborn lamb.”
“Maisie Innes?” Aila gave a thoughtful nod. “That makes sense. That young one has a soft heart for the animals.”
“Yes.” Maisie had reminded her of Sorcha, who for all her mad ways tended to her animals with the gentle tenderness of a mother with a newborn child.
“She ran away to the stables with the lamb, so I walked her home, but her cottage was farther than I thought, and Cream Puff kicked me in the chin. Aren’t newborn lambs meant to be biddable creatures? ”
Aila chuckled. “One would think so. Perhaps you got a stubborn one.”
“I daresay I did.” The MacLeods did tend to attract the mulish ones, of every species. “The wind was howling by the time I left Maisie with her father. I was on my way back to the castle, but I … well, it seems I didn’t make it.”
“You did make it, thanks to Callum. Not entirely in one piece, however.”
“Callum …” He hadn’t come to the stables with her, had he? But he’d come for her at some point. He must have done, because she remembered his voice, telling her … telling her that it was all right. That he had her, and she would be all right, because he’d take care of her.
And she’d believed him. Every word.
It all came rushing back to her then. The green sky last night, then hiding in her bedchamber this morning.
Her walk, and the cowardly way she’d dodged Callum and Miss Niven, and the spiders abandoning their webs, and Titan’s sleek neck under her palm.
The scent of fresh hay and dust in her nose, Maisie and Cream Puff, and …
Callum.
Callum, his hands gentle on her face, and his voice soft and deep in her ear. He’d taken her into his arms and gathered her tightly against him, so his warmth became hers.
He’d held her hand, and she’d trusted everything would be all right, because he’d said it would be, and he … and she …
Well. He was making it difficult for her to put him out of her mind. Really, how was she meant to forget about him when he kept insisting on saving her life?
Because that’s what this was. First the rampaging mob in Dunvegan, and now the wayward limb of an oak tree. For all that he was often cross and grim-faced, Callum made a rather gallant hero.
“You gave us quite a scare, my dear, but now you’re awake, I daresay you’ll mend quickly. I’m going to fetch you some beef broth, and perhaps a bit of toast. You’ll watch over her for me for a little while, won’t you, Callum?”
Callum! She turned her head on her pillow, wincing at the pain that shot through her temple. “Where—”
“I’m here, lass.” A heavy footstep echoed in the quiet room, and one of the thick shadows in the corner of the bedchamber detached itself from the rest and approached the bed.
Then Callum was standing over her, his shoulders slumped, and his face so drawn and pale her fingers twitched on the coverlet, as if they would reach for him of their own accord.
“I’ll be back soon with the broth.” Aila rose and went to the door, but she turned back before leaving. “Callum, take my chair. You look like you’re about to drop.”
Then Aila was gone, leaving her alone with Callum in a dimly lit bedchamber that was now pulsing with fraught silence.
Fraught, because there were dozens of things fighting to spill from Freya’s lips at once, and she couldn’t say any of them.
Because if she did—if she dared to speak a word about her feelings for him—the rest would all come tumbling out after it like the Balnagown River bursting free of its banks.
Once the truth was out, there would be no putting it back again.
But there was one thing she could say. “Thank you, Callum, for coming for me, and … well, saving my life. Again.” Dear God, had there ever been a more awkward thanks than that? She plucked at her bedcovers, avoiding his eyes as heat raced into her cheeks.
Callum didn’t seem to notice, which was odd, indeed, as he was staring at her so intently she blushed even harder. His expression was strange, as well. She’d never seen that look on his face before, both devastated and hopeful at once, as if he were suspended between life and death.
“I’ll always come for you, Freya.”
They were, above everything, the words she wanted most to hear, but as lovely as they sounded on his lips, they weren’t true, and wishing wouldn’t make them so.
She wanted to tell him that, to beg him not to promise things it was out of his power to give her—but after all he’d risked for her, she simply couldn’t force such cold, ungrateful words past her lips.
“That’s kind of you,” she said instead. “Let us hope you’ll have no further occasion to.”