“Nay!” shouted the tallest one, while little Michel vigorously shook his head.
“Then ye had best let me see what I can do to help her.” The moment the boys lowered their knives, Brian moved to crouch beside the woman, praying that he was not going to have to tell the boys that they had been guarding a corpse.
Chapter 2
Arianna fought against consciousness when it nudged at her. Despite her best efforts, it won the battle, rushing over her on a wave of pain. She struggled to breathe through the worst of the pain only to be distracted from that effort when her stomach cramped viciously with warning. Arianna groaned out a curse, forced her aching body onto its side, and let her body rule as it forcibly expelled all the water she had swallowed.
“I told ye she was still alive.”
Adelar, she thought, and took a moment from her misery to give thanks. One of her boys still lived. When her stomach ceased to torture her, she would find out how Michel fared.
“Ye should listen to Adelar, monsieur. He is verra clever. Anna says so.”
Ah, and there was Michel, Arianna noted even as more spasms overtook her. Both her boys were alive. She could die now. Not happily or peacefully, but gratefully.
Arianna was pulled from her blinding misery by the rough touch of a man’s calloused hands on her upper arms. Her bare upper arms. She wondered what had happened to her clothes but was too sick to truly care. She then wondered why the mere touch of a man’s hands should ease her misery so much, the warmth of his big hands chasing away some of the chill that had sunk its teeth deep into her bones. A man’s touch had never done her any good before.
“Done trying to rid yourself of your own stomach now, lass?”
The man’s deep, gruff voice tickled something to life deep within her, something that had nothing to do with fear, pain, or sickness. Nor with the fact that her heart warmed at the sound of a fellow countryman’s voice after being so long away from home. Arianna was not sure what that something was but instinct told her it could cause her a lot of trouble. She no longer had much faith in her own instincts, however, and she was too weak and too wretchedly sick to puzzle it all out anyway.
Her attempt to pull free of the man’s grasp was thwarted by him with an ease that annoyed her. Before she could gather the wit to protest, she was rolled onto her back. Arianna found herself staring into a pair of dark blue eyes. It took her a moment to yank her gaze away from those fine eyes, just enough to notice well-shaped dark brows and an almost lush growth of equally dark lashes. Whoever this man was, he was unquestionably trouble. She did not have the gift of sight as some of her Murray kinswomen had, but she could foresee that much. Arianna wished she had the strength to grab the boys and run.
And was that not just her luck? she thought as he efficiently bathed her face. She washes up on shore—bruised and battered, her hair a gnarled, sand-dusted mess, her shift and stockings torn and filthy—and then spends far too long heaving her innards out on the ground. Is she aided by some kindly old crone? A plump, long-wed matron? A lowly servant? No. She is found by a man, a very handsome man. Arianna suspected that fate had chosen to ensure that no man would ever find her an object of his desire.
It was probably for the best, she decided as he sat her up and poured wine into her mouth. She would not know what to do with a man who desired her anyway. She had certainly failed abysmally with her late husband. Arianna rinsed out her mouth and spit, knowing she did so with more vigor and skill than any true lady should have. She decided to blame her brothers and a vast horde of male cousins for that indelicacy.
“Better?” the man asked.
“Nay,” she replied, not surprised that her voice was so weak and hoarse as she was certain she had damaged it while heaving half the ocean out of her stomach. “I believe I shall just lie here and die.”
“Nay,” cried Adelar as he grasped her by the hand. “Ye must stay with us.”
She smiled at the two boys looking at her with wide, frightened eyes. “I but jest, lads. Just allow me to rest for a wee bit and we will soon be on our way.”
“On your way to where?” demanded the man still holding her in his arms.
“And who might be asking?” She wished her voice were stronger for the weakness of it robbed her words of all the cool haughtiness she had attempted.
“Sir Brian MacFingal,” he replied, and nodded toward the tall, thin youth standing behind him. “That is Ned MacFingal, one of my brothers. Ye were sailing on a ship I had hired to bring me some goods to sell.”