Chapter eight
I had told her I would keep my back turned.
I had meant it, too, but then she broke down.
It wasn’t a shriek or a dramatic wail meant to summon pity.
It was a small, strangled sound that slipped from her as if she had fought it with all her stubborn pride and lost. The sound cut through me like a blade.
I turned to find her sitting on the edge of the bed, bent awkwardly toward one boot, her shoulders trembling and her hands clenched around the worn leather as if she could force it off her foot by sheer will.
Her hair had fallen forward, hiding most of her face, but I could see the sheen of tears on her cheeks. For a breath, I did not move.
I’d seen men weep after battle. I’d seen warriors grip their own spilling guts and beg for their mamas. I’d watched fear turn strong men weak, but I’d never been affected by anyone’s pain as I was by Katreine’s. I felt gutted.
“Katreine,” I said quietly.
She went still at once, as if my saying her name had struck her. “Do nae look at me,” she ordered, but her voice cracked on the command.
I crossed the room despite the feeling that I was crossing a divide I might not be able to return from.
“I said do nae look at me,” she snapped, wiping angrily at her face, only making the tears come faster. “Turn around.”
“Nay.”
Her head jerked up, fury flashing through the tears in her eyes. “Ye said ye would.”
“Aye,” I replied, dropping to one knee before her. “And then ye started crying.”
“I’m nae crying.”
I looked at the tears slipping down her cheeks, and she glared at me as if daring me to contradict her. A smile might have come to me had the sight of her not carved something raw out of my chest. “Then yer eyes are leaking something fierce.”
Her mouth trembled, and she looked away quickly, as if she feared what I might see if she held my gaze too long. “Leave me be.”
“I can nae do that.”
“James.”
The way she said my name was meant to warn me off.
Instead, it rooted me to the spot. I reached for her boot, and she jerked her foot back so sharply that she went pale and drew a sharp breath.
It was clear she was in great pain and stubbornly trying to hide it.
The lass had backbone, that was for certain. “Enough,” I said. “Let me help ye.”
“I do nae need help.”
“Aye, ye do.”
Katreine had to be the most stubborn lass I’d ever met. It should have irritated me, yet it didn’t. I admired her spirit even in the face of her pain.
She glowered at me. “I need ye to turn around.”
“I will,” I assured her. “Once ye are in the tub and I ken ye will nae fall on yer face getting there.”
Her eyes flashed. “I’m nae a bairn.”
“Nay,” I said, looking at her too long, “ye’re the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met, and that’s far worse.”
She looked as though she wanted to strike me. Then she tried to bend to reach her boot again, and the movement wrung another choked sound from her throat.
That sound snapped the last of my patience. I caught her ankle gently, and this time, when she tried to pull away, I held on. Not hard enough to hurt her, just enough to make it clear I was done letting her pride injure her further. “Hold still,” I commanded.
“I hate ye,” she whispered.
“Nay, ye do nae,” I assured her, slightly amused that I was arguing with how she felt about me. Why did I even care?
“I do hate ye,” she insisted, her lower lip trembling slightly, which made me want to run my thumb gently over it to reassure her. I didn’t, because I wasn’t a fool. Instead, I gave her a steady stare meant to show she’d not win this argument. “Then hate me while ye sit still.”
Her lips pressed together, but she obeyed, though it cost her. I could see the fight in every rigid line of her body, in the way her hands twisted in the folds of her skirt, and in the proud lift of her chin as she stared past me toward the wall.
Carefully, I loosened the laces of her boot. The leather was stiff from the road, damp near the sole, and smeared with mud from the day’s ride. I eased it from her foot slowly, pausing when she hissed between her teeth.
“Did I hurt ye?”
“Nay.”
She lied with the same stubborn certainty with which other people breathed, but instead of saying so and starting yet another argument, I set the boot aside and reached for the other.
That was when I saw the blood. At first, it was only a dark stain near the back of her leg, hidden by the fall of her skirt and the dim light of the room.
Then she shifted, and the fabric pulled away just enough for me to see dried blood streaked down the pale skin behind her knee and disappearing beneath her gown.
Every part of me went cold. “What is that?”
She froze. “What is what?”
My jaw tightened. “Do nae play me for a fool, lass.”
“I’m nae,” she protested so earnestly that I believed her.
I pushed her skirt back, ignoring her protests.
The sight before me sent a hot, vicious surge of anger through my blood.
The backs of her thighs were chafed raw in places, the skin broken where the saddle and hard riding had punished her.
Blood had dried in thin, rust-colored trails.
Bruising had begun to bloom, dark and ugly against her skin. For a moment, I could not speak.
I had done this by my command. I had pushed the pace.
I had heard her insist that she could keep riding, and I had let myself believe her because it suited my plan to reach Edinburgh and collect the king’s reward.
I yearned for the castle, the name, the life I had spent too many years clawing toward, and Katreine had paid for my longings in blood. “God’s blood,” I muttered.
She snatched at her skirt. “Do nae look.”
“Katreine—”
“I said do nae look!”
Her shame struck me nearly as hard as the sight of the injuries. She was not angry that I had seen skin. She was angry that I had seen weakness, and I was beginning to understand that this lass guarded weakness like others guarded treasure.
I rose enough to sit beside her, though not too close. “Why did ye nae tell me?”
She laughed once, a brittle sound. “Because I made a bargain with ye, and ye would have used it against me.”
I stared at her. “Used it against ye?”
“Aye. Ye would have slowed us.”
“Because ye’re hurt.”
“Because ye would have decided ye knew best.”
“I do ken best when yer bleeding down yer leg.”
Her eyes cut to mine, fierce even through her tears. “I need to get to Morgana.”
I recognized the name of the witch who lived in the Dark Woods on MacLeod Clan territory. I knew of Morgana only from Munro’s wife, who had once been cursed by the witch, and from whispers on the wind. I stared at Katreine, trying to think what to ask. “Why do ye need to see the witch?”
An uneasy look flitted across her face, but it was gone so quickly that I might have believed I’d imagined it, had I not been staring at her. She took a deep breath and folded her hands in her lap before answering my question. “I have a patient who I think can help me heal.”
I nodded slowly. That made sense. I’d heard enough about the witch to know she was powerful, yet I felt Katreine was holding something back.
Since we were not actually going to the Dark Woods, it didn’t matter, unless she was keeping secrets that could put us in danger.
Being a warrior had taught me to be cautious and thorough. “What ails yer patient?”
“’Tis personal,” Katreine responded. Something in her tone sounded evasive, but since she was sitting here in pain, I decided to address it later.
“We will speak of Morgana later,” I said.
“Nay, we will nae.”
“Aye,” I said, my voice hardening despite myself. “We will.”
She looked away.
I drew in a breath and forced myself to temper my tone. Anger would not help her. Guilt would not mend her skin. Wanting to shake her until sense rattled into her head would not make her trust me.
And may the gods help me, for some reason I could not explain, I wanted her to trust me at least in this. Mayhap, it was because I knew I had deceived her and not taken her to the Dark Woods.
“Let me get ye undressed enough to bathe,” I said. “I’ll keep yer shift on ye, and I’ll turn away where I ought.”
Her gaze snapped back to me. “I can manage.”
“Can ye?”
The stubborn answer rose to her lips. I watched it form, watched pride lift her chin, and then watched pain drag the truth across her face before she could hide it. After a long, taut silence, she gave a stiff nod.
I moved slowly then, giving her every chance to stop me.
I unlaced what needed unlacing and loosened what needed loosening, keeping my eyes where they belonged as much as any man could when the woman before him was undoing something in him I had no name for.
Her gown slipped from one shoulder, then the other, leaving her in her shift.
Even through the plain linen, even with tears drying on her face and pain making her tremble, she struck me as beautiful in a way no woman ever had.
She had an inner light that beckoned to me.
She was not polished like a noblewoman, though with the right clothes and her hair dressed, she could be. She appeared delicate, but not entirely, or she would not have been able to withstand the pain of the ride. She was alive and fierce.
Desire stirred, unwanted and immediate, but tenderness rose with it, swallowing the sharper edge. I wanted to touch her, aye, but not as I had wanted to touch women before, in simple lust. I wanted to ease the hurt from her body and shield her from further pain.
The thought came so swiftly and with such force that I nearly stepped back from it.
I had no right to want such things. Not now, not yet, and definitely not from her.
I was taking her to the king for my own gain.
I could tell myself she would be rewarded for whatever service he required of her, and I could reason that kings did not summon healers only to punish them, but the truth sat heavy in my gut.