Chapter 13 #2
He took the basket and folded back the linens covering it. Bread and cheese. He walked to the banks of the loch and sat. She followed a few seconds later, sitting beside him. She dug into the basket, then passed the food to him. He scanned the battlements, looking for the tell-tale golden head.
“So…where is MacPherson this morning? I’m surprised he allowed you out of his sight, what with a monster prowling the castle.”
She gave him a narrow look. “Why do you say such things?”
“Because it’s true, and you are well aware of it now.”
She shrugged, popping a piece of cheese in her mouth and gazing back at him placidly, uncaring.
“It doesn’t repulse you?”
Her brows drew together. “Repulsed? By what? I’ve seen you take the sickness into yourself and suffer with it. There is nothing repulsive in that.”
“Aye, but I did not always do that.”
She shook her head, rolled her eyes. “What do I care for what you once did? Do you do it now?” When he shook his head, she nodded, satisfied. “I didn’t think so.”
He had to look away from her direct midnight stare.
She did not care. She was a fool. A sweet, beautiful fool.
She should be terrified of him. Of what he could make her into with but a little more instruction.
She had no idea. His little fool. But she was not his.
She was MacPherson’s. Sick anger stabbed at him, and he didn’t trust himself to speak.
They ate in silence for a few minutes. He watched her, and she avoided his gaze. He wondered how long he had, how long before MacPherson discovered the wizard was with his woman.
“What will you do about Lucas?” Rose asked, breaking into his dark thoughts.
“Lucas?” He frowned thoughtfully, then remembered the small boy who’d taken refuge in his castle after his mother and sister had been stoned and burned. “Ailis’s brother.” He exhaled heavily. “I suppose he shall live at Strathwick for now. Why?”
She toyed with her bread, picking hunks out of it and tossing it into the water.
Fish darted up, snatching at it. “Lucas told me Allister is to blame for everything. He seems to think the villagers would forget if not for Allister rubbing salt in the wounds.” She hesitated, sending him a quick, sidelong look.
“So I think you must deal with Allister.”
He laughed incredulously. “You mean punish him? Make a martyr out of him? Wouldn’t he love that! No, I think not.”
She shook her head vigorously, leaning in closer. “No, no. Not death. He must be discredited somehow. Such as you did to Pol. Heal him publicly. That will take the wind from his sails, methinks.”
William shook his head dismissively. “Unfortunately he is hale as a horse. The man nearly severed his own arm once and it didn’t even fester.”
Rose’s shoulders slouched, and she frowned down at her food, picking at it again and worrying her bottom lip.
He was amused by her effort to aid him and thought her idea a clever one—he’d thought of it himself.
Unfortunately, Allister and he were too much alike.
He knew he must do something about Allister and Pol and Tadhg—the instigators of all his trouble. He just hadn’t decided what yet.
“There’s a reason for that, you ken?”
His statement startled her from her thoughts. She blinked at him. “For what?”
“A reason Allister never ails.” He slid her a speculative look, gauging her reaction.
“What is that?”
“He’s our brother—Drake’s and mine. Born on the wrong side of the sheets, of course.” He smiled at the irony of it—it never failed to amuse him.
Her mouth dropped open in shock. “Your brother? Is he a witch?”
“I believe so.”
She let out an incredulous breath. “Does he know it?”
William snorted. “Nay—he doesn’t even know we share blood. His mum never told him.”
Rose shook her head at him. “You find this humorous.”
“Somewhat.” He leaned toward her. “Think of it—he is what he seeks to destroy.”
“Then you should tell him and let him destroy himself.”
“I doubt he’d believe me.”
She leaned closer, brows arched. “Make him.”
The intensity of her expression riveted him, put him in mind of other, more salacious things.
His gaze swept over her, noting the blush that stained her neck and cheeks as she gazed back.
A strand of copper had come loose from her plait, and it lay against her cheek.
He longed to brush it back, to twine it around his fingers, to…
She looked away abruptly, her breathing disturbed. “Stop it.”
“Stop what?” he asked innocently.
“You know.”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
She shot him a furious look. “Aye, you do. Looking at me like that—like a hungry wolf. It’s not friendly at all.”
He felt like a wolf—ravenous, feral. And he didn’t want to be her friend, regardless of what he’d said before. He gave her a hard smile. “Sorry. No more looks. I vow it.”
The tight set of her shoulders relaxed slightly. “Good, because there is something I’ve thought long on, and until now I haven’t had a single person with whom to discuss it.”
“Aye?”
“The colors we see when we heal…what do you think they are?”
He slanted her a meditative look. “What do you think they are?”
She pursed her mouth and raised her brows. “I asked you first.”
He lifted a shoulder. “I know not.”
She sighed, pushing the loose hair behind her ear and giving him a challenging stare, daring him to call her foolish. “I think it’s the soul.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “Then it certainly follows why you think it is a gift from God. But to actually see a person’s soul would make us more than human, don’t you think? Like some sort of angel or saint.”
She frowned at him, bewildered. “What are you talking about? ‘Gift from God’? I didn’t say that.”
He suppressed a smile. “Your letters. My favorite phrase—repeated in nearly every letter—was how it was my duty to God and mankind to help your father. I had to wonder, however, that if God shared His great design with you, just when He planned to reveal it to me. I have wondered all these years and am now feeling rather left out. He seems to have forgotten me up in the mountains.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You did mock my letters!”
He laughed aloud at her horror. “I didn’t, Rose, I vow it. I loved your letters. Every one of them. I looked forward to them, in fact—with dreaded fascination.”
She arched a glacial brow. “Really? Then why did you ignore them?”
He disregarded her question, perversely enjoying how agitated she was becoming. “I didn’t just ignore them—I burned them, too.”
She let out a huffed breath and began tossing food and linens back in the basket, muttering to herself all the while.
As she stood, William reached a hand toward her, grasping a handful of kirtle and pulling her back down, laughing in earnest now. “All but one—all but one. I kept one.”
She glared at him as she sat on her knees, still ready to flee. “Which one was that?”
“The one in which you shared something of yourself. I meant to answer that one…but I could never think of what to write.”
She planted her hands on her hips and shook her head in bewilderment. “You mock the source of your healing, but who else but God would give you such a wondrous gift?”
He tried to look evil, raising a brow. “Many say the devil.”
“A man’s contemporaries can never perceive greatness. Look to the Bible for such stories.”
His evil visage dissolved in pained laughter. “Rose. I am no saint. I have killed men with this gift. Your betrothed’s father, for one. I did that.”
She shook her head stubbornly. “No, I cannot believe it of you. You did what you thought was right at the time.”
“I don’t know that I thought it was right. Even at the time.”
She did not reply to that. Her mouth was still set in a stubborn line. He sighed. Her refusal to think ill of him was sweet, if terribly misguided.
Continuing with their earlier conversation, she said, “So…you do not believe the colors we see are the soul?”
“I don’t know what a soul is. Have you ever seen a ghost?”
“No, but my sister sees them.”
He leaned back on the grassy bank and stared across the water at the castle. “I saw one once. It spoke to me…and it looked human. No light or color—I even tried to pass my hands over it. There was nothing there. What is a ghost if not the soul trapped here on earth?”
When he glanced over at her, he could see that the thought intrigued her. She arched a fine auburn brow at him. “Then what are we seeing?”
“When a person dies, the color leaves them. But they are the same as before. A bag of flesh, containing bone and blood and humors. The light and color is what animates them, what makes the heart pound, the blood rush. It is what warms the skin…” He shook his head helplessly.
“It’s as vital to life as the blood in our veins, but I still know not what it is. ”
She smiled ruefully at him.
“What?”
“You said you hadn’t thought of it. That you didn’t have any theories.”
“That’s not what I said. I said I know not. And I don’t.”
She shook her head, still smiling. Then her eyes brightened, and she leaned forward. “Can you see your own color?”
“No.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. She reached toward him, passing her hand over his. He could almost feel it, the heat of her, and his body tightened in response, the lightness of his mood falling away.
She smiled wistfully. “It’s blue. Like your eyes. It’s different from any I’ve seen before…more vibrant.”
Arrested by the softness in her eyes, William didn’t respond immediately. When he could speak, his voice was gruff. “I see the same in you.”
“Really?” Her smile was like the sun on his face. “What color am I? Is it as I imagine? Dark blue?”
He nodded. “You’re beautiful—a dark, vivid blue, indigo lightning.”
She chewed her lip thoughtfully, pleased with the description. William stared at her profile, memorizing every line of her face, the sweep of her lashes, the bemused curve of her lips that he wanted to taste…. Her forehead creased into a frown. He followed her gaze.