Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Beatrice remembered snippets from the days she was lost in a poisoned stupor, like a dream she had walked through. A woman’s face she didn’t recognize floated over her, smearing salve across her throat and assuring her that she would recover from this.
When she finally lifted out of her muggy, mushy state and was able to sit up on her own, she felt powerful in a new way.
I survived.
Effie was sleeping in the bed next to her, so reminiscent of her tending to the girl when she had been sick that Beatrice couldn’t help but smile. Shona was slumped in a chair across the room, an open book on her lap.
Beatrice realized she hadn’t been left alone for a moment while she was recovering, and she wanted to find Leo to express her gratitude.
Slipping noiselessly out of bed, she crept into the corridor lit by the early morning sun, half-shrouded in haze. The fetid smell of sick sweat clung to her.
She didn’t want to waste time. The memory of his fingers stroking her and his mouth sucking on her nipples, each stolen second on the terrace where she had almost climaxed on his hand, clung to her.
I go through all of this, and the one thing I think of is Leo?
In the corridor, two guards stood just outside the door to her chambers. They both started when they saw her, one of them reaching for her as if he expected her to crumble like a weather-battered statue.
“Mistress, ye are up and on yer feet again,” he said. “I’ll go find the Laird and tell him the good news.”
“I can find him meself,” she insisted.
“Aye, but do ye feel strong enough yet?” The guard rolled his shoulders back. “We can come with ye, in case there’s danger.”
Beatrice almost asked what danger there might be, but then she remembered all the air getting sucked out of her lungs and her throat constricting. Her memory of the cèilidh was hazy, and she wasn’t sure what had happened.
Someone wanted me dead.
“I daenae ken who to trust,” she mumbled, her voice breaking. “Do ye two ken what happened? Did they find out who tried to hurt me?”
The guards exchanged looks and shook their heads.
Beatrice didn’t bother asking any more questions. After all, who was to say that they also could not be trusted?
“Let us come with ye, mistress,” the first guard said. “Or at least one of us, so ye’re nae on yer own.”
“She’s nae on her own. I’m here.”
Violet materialized at the end of the corridor.
As she is wont to do.
Beatrice laughed inwardly.
Violet was next to her in moments, ordering the guards to leave them alone.
“Ye stay here in case Effie wakes up,” she instructed. “I daenae want her thinkin' somethin' went wrong while she slept and that poor Beatrice expired in the night. Ye understand me?”
The guards nodded but said nothing.
Beatrice had never been so relieved to see anyone, especially not a woman she had only recently met.
Neither of the guards looked guilty to her, but she meant it when she said she didn’t know whom to trust. Someone in Leo’s employ might not wish her harm, but a worm could turn at the promise of money, power, or rank.
“We’ll take ye to see Leo right away,” Violet said. “After that, we must go to the healer. Make sure there’s nothin' wrong with ye. Ye’re up and about, and that’s good, but we want to ken for sure that the poison is out of yer system.”
“Who did this to me, Violet? Do ye have an idea?”
Violet shook her head, her countenance so grim that Beatrice almost didn’t recognize her at that moment.
“Leo’s got his fair share of enemies, nay doubt about that, but I cannae imagine many of them are in this castle.” She turned Beatrice towards her and studied her face. “I will say ye still look a little frail, but ye only just woke up. The sooner we get ye to the healer, the better.”
She led her into the tower, past the study where Beatrice had expected them to go, and to Leo’s private chambers, the one with the window Beatrice could see from her room.
The walk was too long for her heavy legs.
She barely had time to finish the thought when the door was yanked open, revealing Leo clad in only a sleep shirt. He looked haggard and unkempt. Beatrice ventured a guess that he had not gotten much rest since she had tumbled into sweat-soaked oblivion.
In an odd motion, Leo reached forward as if to hug her, then stepped back and cupped her face in both his hands.
“Ye’re all right, Beatrice?” he asked, though it sounded closer to a statement she wouldn’t dare defy. “Ye’re alive.”
“She’s a strong lass, this one,” Violet agreed, clapping Beatrice on the back a little too firmly and then tapping it as if to apologize.
“I cannae express how worried we were.” Leo dropped his hands to his sides. “Violet and Eloise sat with ye when we finally convinced Effie to go to sleep.”
“Effie’s still in me chambers, by the way.”
He glanced in the general direction of Beatrice's room. “Aye, she must be happy that ye’re awake.”
“She doesnae ken yet,” Beatrice said. “She was sleepin’ soundly when I left her.”
Leo’s face tightened, and Violet shook her head as if reading his mind. “The guards are still there, Leo. We didnae leave her alone.”
“Are ye worried whoever poisoned me might go after her?” Beatrice asked. “Do we ken who did this anyway?”
Leo jerked his head. “Violet, go stay with Effie until she wakes up.”
Violet nodded.
Leo’s gaze landed back on Bea. “I’m goin' to take ye to the healer right away.”
“I need to bathe, Leo.” Beatrice said plucking at her sweat-soaked garments.
Violet had retreated, leaving the two of them alone in the corridor.
Leo touched Beatrice's face again, his gaze softening.
“We must be careful going forward,” he said, quickly pulling some clothes on and then throwing a cloak over her shoulders. “We daenae ken why ye were targeted, but we mustnae let it happen again now that ye’re on the mend.”
He peeked over his shoulder to check that she was not fully naked before he turned the rest of the way around.
The worst of it is over. The poison is out of her, and she survived it.
Leo was impressed by how she had fought and refused to give in to the beckoning void. Arsenic was no weak poison; it ravaged the body. He had seen too many men succumb to it in a grisly fashion that still turned his stomach.
“Sit with her, me Laird,” the healer instructed. “I’ll go put together a mix of herbs to build her strength back up.”
Leo pulled a stool next to the cot as Beatrice held a handkerchief the healer had given her over the cuts in her arm. Her eyes were a bit brighter now.
Even just being up and out of her bed is doing wonders for her.
“Ye ken, I remember a bit of what happened around me when I was unconscious,” she admitted. Her face was slack, and her eyes were glistening as if she were about to cry. “I could hear people speakin’ and movin’ around me.”
“Did ye hear Eloise readin’ to ye? She did it all night.” Leo chuckled to himself, as if at a private joke. “I told her nae to, but I guess it was a good thing she didnae listen to me.”
“Why did ye tell her nae to read to me?”
Leo sighed heavily. “I didnae think ye could hear anythin'. I thought it was a waste of breath.”
Beatrice blinked at him. “Were ye worried about me, Leo? Nae worried in the way ye’d be worried about anyone who was hurt in yer castle, but were ye worried about me? Worried about what might happen?”
Leo kept his eyes on her face. The lines and contours of her naked body under the thin sheet called to him, but he knew better than to look at it under the circumstances.
I daenae ken what I was feelin’, lass. I daenae ken if I was angry, worried, or scared. Too much was out of me control for me to even contemplate how I felt.
“It was terrifyin' to see what happened to ye,” he told her after a long moment. Beatrice started to sit up, but he put a hand on her arm. “Nay, daenae hurt yerself.”
“I’m all right. I can do it.”
She sat upright, holding the thin sheet to her chest. Her breasts pressed against the fabric, taunting him further. It was impossible not to look at them, not to look at her in such a vulnerable state.
I think she kens what she’s doing to me.
“Before the arsenic took hold,” she was saying, but Leo could barely hear her over the blood rushing from his head to his groin, “when we were out on the terrace—”
“Lass, let’s nae recount that.”
“Why nae? Did ye nae like it?”
Like it? Did I nae like yer soft lips? Did I nae like suckin' on yer breasts? Did I nae like how ye were ready to give yerself to me? To submit in the way I wanted ye to?
Leo cleared his throat. “There are bigger concerns now. Ye understand why we must be careful. We daenae ken who is out to hurt ye, Beatrice.”
Her eyes lowered, and her teeth bit into her lower lip. The sheet began to slip down, and Leo found himself unable to look away as her breasts were bared inch by slow inch.
He reached forward. Beatrice leaned towards him, but he merely grabbed the sheet and pulled it back up to her throat before she could let it drop below her chest.
“Ye are still under me protection, Beatrice,” he said, pushing the sheet firmly against her.
Beatrice lay back down, her face blank.
She will undo me.
“Here we are!” the healer chirped as she returned with a sachet, heavy and pungent. “These ought to do more than just build up yer strength. They’ll make ye stronger than ye were.”
“She’s quite strong already,” Leo said.
“I need me gown,” Beatrice demanded. “I cannae return to the castle naked.”
“Oh, aye, but walkin’ around naked is good for the lungs,” the healer laughed, then pulled a simple shift out of a pile and waved it in front of her. “Here, put it on. It’s clean, at least. I will burn yer nightgown.”
Leo turned away as Beatrice rose from the cot and put on the shift. Once she was covered, he draped the cloak over her shoulders, his hands lingering on her.
Beatrice pressed a hand to his chest and gave him a quick, tender smile.
“Ye are keepin’ me safe, Leo,” she murmured. “I ken that ye daenae have to, but I’m glad that ye are.”
“Ye are under Clan MacSween’s protection now.” Leo swallowed hard before saying the next part. “Even after this is over, I want ye to ken that I willnae allow anyone to harm ye.”
“Nay?”
He shook his head. “Ye may nae be a MacSween for the rest of yer life, but ye have earned me respect for all of it.”
“Lucky lass that I am,” she teased.
“Ye are being cheeky now. Perhaps ye are feelin’ back to yer old self.”
She undoes me already.