Chapter 8
Emma stepped back, inspecting her work. She’d done a good job of rearranging the seldom used herbs and medicines, some of which were far too expensive and rare for the average healer to use. But, here in the Keep, they had something of everything.
There were dried thousand-bead fruits packed into tiny jars and pressed dragon lily leaves ground to a fine powder.
Emma had once used a combination of both to help a young pregnant woman expel a baby that had died inside her and refused to come away.
She’d once used a paste of many ingredients, including ground fennel seeds and acrid-smelling pig-dog roots, to cure a small child of an infection that would have killed him.
If I’d had these herbs and medicines at my disposal before I came here, I would have saved more people.
She reached up, her fingers dancing along the rows of jars, vials, and packages neatly lined up and labeled on the gloomy, dusty shelves.
Someone cleared their throat from the doorway behind her, and she flinched, turning around.
Thomas stood there, leaning against the doorframe, a strange expression on his face. “I didnae mean to interrupt,” he said, his voice light and almost teasing.
The cadence of his voice, low and gruff, sent a tingle through her, which she did not like. She didn’t enjoy feeling this way around Laird MacPherson. It made it hard to be firm and objective. She would be a fool not to notice his flirting, but it never meant anything.
She had to remind herself of that.
“Well, ye have now, so let’s hear it. How can I help ye, Me Laird?” she said tightly, crossing her arms across her chest.
He stayed where he was, leaning against the doorframe, face shadowed. That bothered her for some reason.
Not that she wanted to see his face, of course. Nothing like that.
“Wait, how did ye get in?” she asked suddenly, frowning. “I didnae hear a knock.”
“Oh, Delphine let me in. She’s gone back to sleep by the fire.” Thomas replied lightly, then paused. “Is… is she all right? She seems ill and slow lately. I worry about her sometimes, but she always says that she’s all right.”
Emma swallowed hard. Thomas’s concern about Delphine seemed sincere enough, but she knew that Delphine was keen to have her fading health kept quiet, especially from the Laird.
“She’s fine,” Emma lied. “Just tired, I suppose. She’s getting old, ye know.”
He nodded. “She works too hard. That’s why I brought ye in. More than one apprentice would be better, but ye know how stubborn Delphine can be.”
Emma shifted from foot to foot, trying to ignore the strange, tingling feeling swirling in her gut. It wasn’t an unfamiliar thing—she’d felt it around Thomas before, much to her horror—but the situation they were in was not ideal.
It was getting stronger by the week now, too.
She was, after all, all but trapped in a small storage room, with him between her and the exit, and Delphine dozing in a chair by the fire, unlikely to wake up any time soon.
She ought to have been afraid. Emma had felt fear in less private situations than this. She’d cringed away from fat drunks with wandering hands who had stunk to high heaven and stick-thin weaselly men who had followed her outside and along on her errands, whispering awful things in her ear.
There was no fear at all now. No simmering anxiety about what Thomas might do next or whether or not he would let her go past him.
I trust him not to harm me.
The thought made the tingling in her gut increase, a sort of pressure building in her chest. She shifted again, hoping to ease the sensation.
It didn’t work.
“I was wondering if ye could help me with this,” Thomas said, almost apologetically. He withdrew one arm from the folds of his plaid and held it towards her. “Nettle stings.”
Emma had no candle—there were too many dried leaves and flammable things in the storeroom—so she was forced to step closer to the door to see. And, of course, that meant closer to him, too.
He held out his arm for her inspection, meek as anything.
She winced. “How did ye do this?”
His forearm was blistered with red welts, the painful and distinctive rash of the stinging nettle. They’d become swollen a little, but it was nothing that wouldn’t fade away in a handful of days. Sooner if Emma treated it now.
“I had to get something from a nettle bush,” Thomas replied, a smile playing around his lips.
Emma did not look up. She was far too close to him now.
A forearm’s length, in fact. She held his hand in hers, cupping his elbow to turn his arm this way and that, inspecting the stings.
His skin was cool but not clammy, the palms of his hands warm and roughened from some sort of work.
His skin was surprisingly soft, too, underneath the fuzz of dark hair on his arm.
He had long fingers, strong and well-shaped, and she caught herself wondering what those hands would feel like on her bare skin.
She shoved the thought away, almost angrily, clearing her throat, and stepped back.
“Well, I’ll use some burdock salve for the pain. It’ll heal in two or three days, I reckon, but the pain should be gone within a day at most with the salve.”
She glanced up and immediately wished that she hadn’t. Thomas was looking down at her, his expression shadowed, but she could tell that his eyes were intent. Hungry, even.
He was watching her every move, and his closeness sent a spike of heat through her chest. She cleared her throat again, louder, and made herself let go of his arm. His fingers trailed over the inside of her wrist as she stepped back, but she wasn’t entirely sure whether or not it was an accident.
“Do ye have burdock salve, then?” he asked, his voice simmering with amusement.
She gave him a look. “Do we have burdock salve in the Healer’s Chambers? Aye, Me Laird, we do. Every man and woman in the land knows to rub burdock on a nettle sting, anyway.”
He chuckled, returning to his position of lounging in the doorway. Emma turned her back, reaching for a small tin of salve. She opened it, sniffing to check for freshness. Thomas’s presence seemed to burn itself onto her consciousness. She knew he was there in a strange, intense sort of way.
She strained her ears to hear for any sounds of Delphine stirring, but there was nothing. They were alone.
Alone.
The idea made the dark thing in Emma’s gut fizzle in excitement, and it would not be ignored.
She composed herself and turned back to her patient. “All right, give me yer arm. I’ll use up the rest of the salve on these stings. Once it’s rubbed in, ye should feel the pain start to recede.”
He raised an eyebrow, extending his arm obediently. “All of it? I feel somewhat greedy. What if someone else gets a nettle sting?”
“Ye are mocking me.”
“Aye, I am, but only partly.”
“Well, I can assure you that we do have more burdock salve. We don’t just use it for nettle stings, ye know.”
“Ah. Well, I know now.”
Steeling herself, Emma dug her fingers into the cool, jelly-like salve, scooping out a good portion.
She turned his arm over, starting with the soft underside.
Smearing the paste over his skin in gentle, practiced circles, it was easy to forget whose hand rested in hers, whose regular breaths she could hear.
She could almost feel the warmth from his body and smell the faintest scent of crushed grass, which must be coming from him.
She swallowed hard, keeping her head bent and focused on her work.
“I’m starting to understand why yer fingers are always stained green,” Thomas observed, breaking the silence. “Ye are always dipping them in and out of salves and pastes.”
“Aye, and the gathering of herbs. I don’t mind. It’s a mark of honor for a healer to have green hands. It’s a sign that ye are a hard worker and a good healer.”
“And ye are a very good healer, indeed.”
He spoke quietly, barely above a whisper, and there was no reason at all for the shiver that rolled down her spine.
“Done,” she said briskly, setting aside the now-empty tin and wiping her hands on her apron.
Thomas blinked, seeming a little taken aback. “Oh, that was quick.”
“Only a thin layer of our salve is needed. So, if there isnae anything else…”
“There is. Something else, I mean.” Thomas flashed her a quick, tight smile and glanced over his shoulder.
He was looking at Delphine, Emma realized. Checking that she was still asleep. Perhaps that ought to have made her suspicious, but she was starting to feel like she was drunk, her senses slow and hazy.
“What is it?”
He sighed, scratching his head with his good hand. His glossy black locks were dull and untidy—as far as Emma could tell in this light—sticking up in tufts. She longed to smooth her hand through his hair.
She didn’t, of course.
“I’m to go to an important event soon. It’s a family event, I suppose ye could say.
They’re keen for me to be married, and if I go alone, I’ll be harangued all night about it.
I’m tired of being set up with women I don’t fancy who can barely hide their eagerness to be Lady MacPherson. I’ve had enough.”
Emma folded her arms across her chest. “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?”
“Well, I’ve thought of a solution. I’ll bring someone along as my fiancée. Or almost fiancée, whichever gets my family off my back. Then, I’ll be able to go along in peace. Do ye see where this is going?”
Emma blinked, frowning. “Aye, but what does this have to do with me? It’s not like…” she trailed off, her eyes widening. “Oh. Nay.”
“Ye do not even know what I’m going to say.”
“I do, and the answer is nay, nay, a thousand times nay.”
Thomas narrowed his eyes, shifting his position. He still leaned against one side of the doorframe, but now his arm stretched across the doorway.
“The least ye could do is hear me out.”