Chapter 18
“Drink this, dearie,” Hepzibah Black said.
“Will it end the pain?” Elspeth asked through clenched teeth. She didn’t want to cry out, but she was screaming on the inside. Her whole leg was afire. She put the noxious smelling concoction to her lips and forced herself to take a sip. The old woman had added a healthy dollop of honey to the “tea,” but something bitter in the dark cup set Elspeth’s teeth on edge.
“It will dull the pain some, but it will no’ go away completely,” Hepzibah said truthfully. “Ye’ll feel a bit drowsy, and if ye wish to sleep, that’s all to the good. Dinna fight it.”
“But I’ll still feel everything?”
Hepzibah had explained in detail what she was going to do though Angus had protested that Elspeth didn’t need to know things that might scare her. The wisewoman had argued that truth was necessary, because all truth was God’s truth, and they’d need help from every realm of spirit if they would meet success.
Rob hadn’t said a word. He just stood beside Elspeth, propping her upright with an arm around her shoulders. She didn’t resist the urge to lean on him.
“Aye, lass. Ye’ll still feel, but I canna say ye’ll feel pain exactly,” Hepzibah said as she tipped the cup up again, encouraging Elspeth to drink. “The important thing is, even if ye do, the tea will help ye forget the pain, and that’s almost as good as not having it at all, is it no’?”
Elspeth wanted to argue that not having pain at all was infinitely better than not remembering it. But with each sip of the vile liquid, her brain grew fuzzier and her tongue seemed to grow to twice normal size.
All her limbs felt heavy, and her head became too much for her neck to support.
“Just a wee dram more,” the woman said, holding the cup to Elspeth’s mouth and massaging her throat to help her swallow. “Good! Now we wait a bit.”
The room took a decided tilt, and Elspeth clutched the edges of the table.
“Oh.” She put a hand to her head, her movement slow and deliberate, lest she miss her temple and keep going. “I’m dizzy of a sudden. I need to lie flat.”
Rob eased her down on the table.
Overhead, the thatch teemed with bright green wiggling things, squirming through the gray dried grasses. Then she blinked hard, and when she looked again, they were gone.
Angus was speaking slowly. She knew because his lips were moving. She watched his words float across the room, lumbering yellowish blobs, but she couldn’t hear them.
“I hurt for ye,” Fingal told her from the place Hepzibah had assigned the deerhound on the hearth rug. His voice sounded oddly like Rob’s. Then the dog stood upright on his hind feet as if he were a man and leaned on the mantel, hooking one ankle over the other.
The red shawl on the witch’s shoulders hummed a disjointed tune, and the raven in the corner woke and fixed a one-eyed stare on Elspeth. She knew without the bird saying a word that it didn’t like her a bit. But she was sure it could speak if it felt she deserved the effort.
Rob squeezed her hand, and warmth flooded her chest and upper body. She couldn’t feel her legs. Either of them. His lips moved, but the blue of his plaid started a high-pitched whine that drowned out his words. He reached over her and tied her to the table. It should have alarmed her, but she was too entranced by the sparks of color trailing his hands to care.
She smelled bread. Hot and yeasty and comforting, it filled her nostrils and made her mouth water.
The wisewoman propped Elspeth’s knee up. Rob grasped her ankle. Hepzibah tied a rope around her upper thigh so tight, Elspeth knew it should hurt, but instead she fought the urge to giggle. Then she stopped fighting. Her laughter danced through the air in flashes of light, borne up on grains of dust, sparkling in the sun.
Why had she never noticed how miraculous the world was? How filled with the fire of God? Everything swirled into everything else, all connected, all the same, all different, ever changing, and never changing. She could See back to the beginning and forward to the future at the selfsame time. And all the millions of moments, from deep in the past to those yet to come, stretching forever into the mist of tomorrow, converged in a single beat of her heart.
Angus clamped his beefy paws on either side of her head…to keep it from floating away, she supposed.
“Forgive me, leannán,” someone said. It might have been Rob. Or maybe it was the dog again.
And suddenly she was cast into hell.
***
Rob stumbled out of Hepzibah Black’s house and down to the loch. Blood was smeared all over his chest and arms. Who knew she still had so much in her? If he didn’t wash it off, he feared he’d go mad, finally and completely.
If Elspeth died, he was sure he would.
By rights, that bolt should have found him in the dark. Instead, it had ripped through Elspeth’s sweet flesh. He’d have given his mortal soul, and gladly, for the chance to trade places with her.
Why did God make others pay for his sins?
He knelt by the loch and washed himself, praying after a fashion as he did so. God knew he was not the contemplative sort by nature, so he didn’t try to dress up his requests with religious-sounding words.
Christ, they say ye be merciful. If ye would prove it, let her wake.
Elspeth Stewart was not a screamer. She’d faced a wolf pack with grim silence, but she had screeched like she was being murdered while he and Hepzibah worked as quickly as they could to push the bolt on through her thigh. Rob had thought it a kindness when she slipped into oblivion. Now that her wound was packed with healing herbs and dressed with bandages soaked in the last of Angus’s execrable wine, his gut was all jumbled up because her eyes remained closed.
Let her walk again.
Hepzibah assured him the damage would have been greater had they drawn the bolt out, but it seemed to him that now both sides of her leg were equally offended by the cold iron. Elspeth was young. She should be dancing and skipping, not leaning on a cane like a crone. Or worse.
Let her live.
He could bear anything if that prayer was answered. But she was so pale, her skin practically translucent.
He looked down at his wavering reflection in the water. There was one more request swirling in his brain, but he hesitated to lift it to God. It almost seemed like too much to ask.
Let her forgive me.
He rose and trudged back to the cottage. Only Elspeth Stewart could answer that last prayer.
***
Elspeth burned with fever for the next three days on Hepzibah Black’s straw tick mattress. When her eyelids fluttered open, she didn’t seem to see a thing. There was no recognition in her blank stare. When she did speak, she answered Rob’s questions in a babbling language no one knew.
“Except the angels,” Hepzibah had said.
Or the demons.
Rob still blamed the old woman’s poisons for Elspeth’s state.
“No,” Hepzibah assured him. “The concoction I gave the lass before we worked on her has done its work and already passed. If that was going to harm her, it already would have.”
“Then why are ye trying to give her more?” he demanded. Each time Elspeth showed the least responsiveness, Hepzibah forced more fluid down her. Despite her protests to the contrary, Rob wouldn’t swear the old woman wasn’t a witch.
“This is no’ the same mixture as before,” Hepzibah said. “’Tis, but sweet basil and blavers.”
“Blue cornflowers?”
“Aye, pressed down and steeped twice. They’ll strengthen her will to return to us,” Hepzibah said. “Her spirit wanders now.”
Whatever the cause—the witch’s brews, the blood loss, or the raging fever—it was obvious that Elspeth teetered on the cusp of life and death, and Rob feared she leaned too close to the edge. He barely left her side.
When she convulsed with chills, he climbed into the bed with her and warmed her with his body. Fingal would have joined them, but Rob threatened to tie him outside if Angus couldn’t keep the hound away.
“Dinna be so surly, Rob,” his friend had muttered as he stomped outside with his dog. “Ye’re not the only one who suffers on the lass’s account, ye know.”
Maybe not. But Rob was the one responsible for the lass’s injuries. If he hadn’t stolen her away, she’d be safe now. But she’d be Lachlan Drummond’s wife.
He decided a body could learn to live with guilt.
***
The water was delightfully warm. Elspeth let the liquid sluice down her bare body to the cloth she’d spread on the plank floor. She was back in Angus Fletcher’s homely bedchamber, thankful to have peeled out of her road-weary clothes.
A creak on the steps made her turn.
Rob was standing there, just looking at her. The hunger in his cobalt eyes made them go even darker.
Her belly clenched and her nipples drew tight as his gaze traveled over her.
“Let me,” he said.
Or maybe he only thought it, for his lips didn’t move. His voice resounded in her head just the same.
She held the cloth and jar of soap out to him.
He was suddenly beside her without having walked across the room. And she felt his hands on her, smoothing his palms over her. The calluses at the base of his fingers nicked her skin and set it to dancing.
He scooped out a dollop of soap, and his touch glided over her, across her shoulders and neck, around and under her breasts. She draped her arms over his shoulders. He toyed with her nipples, circling them with his thumbs. He made her ache. Then he rolled the needy flesh between his thumb and forefinger, giving a slight tug.
The core of her being throbbed.
He kissed her, and their souls mingled, all tangled up in their shared breath. Rob made love to her mouth with his lips, teeth, and tongue while his hands continued to wash her.
He soaped her ribs, her navel, the mound of her belly. He reached around to stroke the length of her spine.
“Spread your legs.”
Again, she couldn’t be sure if he’d only thought the command, but she was powerless to disobey. She wanted him to touch her. She ached for it.
He invaded her softly, spreading her gently. The whole world went liquid and warm. He pressed the wet cloth to her and squeezed till the water ran down her legs and puddled under her feet.
She was a river. A loch. A place of deep secrets and hidden magic, but he knew them all. She ached for him to dive into her so she could keep him forever, like the water horse keeps its mate. Greedily, hungrily, because need has no sense of right or wrong.
It just is.
He cast a spell with his fingers, stroking and teasing, working the convoluted charm on her flesh. Marking her as his with each caress. Her insides twisted back on themselves, coiling tighter.
He dropped to his knees before her and found her secret spot. Joy raced in her veins beside the anguish of longing. Bliss called to her, washed over her, bearing her up on its gentle waves, rushing her toward the fall.
Then he stroked harder. Her limbs jerked.
Elspeth’s eyes flew open. Her heart pounded between her legs in unrelieved wanting. Her thigh screamed at her, and her body’s deep need receded in the face of agony.
She welcomed the pain. Pain meant she was alive. Biting her lip to hold back a groan, she ran a hand under the coverlet and found a thick bandage on her leg. The bolt was gone, but she couldn’t remember anything about how that happened.
She poked about for a memory but couldn’t even find the dark hole that time had fallen into.
Dawn was creeping in through thin places in the thatch overhead. The blanket covering her was worn and much patched, but someone had tried to keep her warm and comfortable.
She didn’t recognize whose bedchamber she was in, but she knew the man lying beside her with his head on her pillow. And his hand resting on her breast. She couldn’t find it in her to be offended by the simple, possessive gesture.
Rob’s mouth gaped with the relaxation of sleep, but there were dark circles beneath his eyes.
She felt as if she’d journeyed a long time. Wherever she’d been, he’d obviously stayed with her. A warm knot of tenderness tangled itself in her chest. She smoothed his hair with one hand.
His eyes opened, and he blinked at her with a sleepy, puzzled expression.
“Am I dreaming?” he asked.
“If ye are, I’m having the same dream.”
He sat up suddenly. A smile, the first genuine smile she’d ever seen on him, lit his face. “Ye’re awake! And in your right mind.”
“In my right mind?” she repeated. “That’s high praise from a madman.”
“Ye canna ken a madman unless ye’re a bit daft yourself, they say.” He pulled her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss into her palm. “That’s two answers, in any case. Ye’re going to live. Ye’re awake. D’ye think ye can stand?”
“I dinna know,” she said as he leaped and ran around the bed to offer her his hands. “It looks as if I’m about to find out.”
He pulled back the blankets, and she didn’t recognize the shift she was wearing. She ran her fingers over the thin linen and looked askance at him.
“That belongs to Hepzibah Black.”
She tossed him a puzzled frown.
“Never mind. Ye dinna remember some things. She said ye might have a hole or two in your memory, but that’s a small matter. You’re awake now, and it all may come back to ye, though it might be a mercy if some of it did no’, she said.”
“Who said…what?”
“Dinna fret. It matters no’ a bit.” Very gently, he lifted her legs and set her feet on the floor beside the bed. Pain streaked up her leg, but she fought back the wince.
“Here, take my hands.” He didn’t give her a choice and fairly lifted her to her feet. “Aye, ye can stand! Ye’ll be walking again afore ye know it.”
“D’ye mind if I wait a little longer?” she said as she plopped back down. The pain made her slightly dizzy.
“Oh, aye, I’m a dunderhead.” He dropped to one knee before her. “It’s just I’m so glad to see ye awake and to see the light shining out of your face.”
“And I to see your face.” She cupped his cheek. His beard had grown long enough to be a soft pelt.
He covered her hand with his. “I’ve got to ask ye now before your mind returns to ye entire.”
“When ye set yourself to be charming, Rob MacLaren, ye do go all out.” She snorted. Evidently he thought her mind faulty, but baring a few gaps in her memory, she felt clearer about everything than ever in her life. “Ask me what ye will.”
His smile faded. “I did ye a grave harm, Elspeth Stewart, when I stole ye from your wedding. I put ye in danger and brought this injury upon ye. Do ye think ye can ever forgive me?”
All that he’d told her about his wife and Lachlan Drummond bubbled to the surface of her mind. She should probably wait to hear her betrothed’s side of the story, but Rob’s was pretty convincing.
And Rob wasn’t the one who shot her with a crossbow. That she remembered very clearly.
“Aye, Rob, I forgive ye. But…” She gnawed her lower lip.
“But what?”
“Even if I pardon ye, I dinna think ye’ll have any peace until ye forgive the one who’s wronged ye.”
A wall slid down behind his eyes. “Forgive Drummond, ye mean?”
“Aye. There are two sides to every tale, and—”
“This is naught but the poison talking. Hepzibah filled ye with evil humors afore she did her work,” he said. “She claims she isna a witch, but I wouldna swear to it. Your mind is no’ yet clear.”
“No, I’ve never been so clear.” She reached out and caught one of his hands. “It’s a truth written in the rocks and trees and the beating of our hearts. Forgive.”
“No.” He shook off her hand. “Ye canna ask it of me. He took so much…”
Elspeth’s heart ached at the enormity of Rob’s loss, but she feared for him as well. For his soul.
“Aye, he did.”
“And his offense wasna only against me.” Rob was pacing now, agitation showing in every muscle and line of his body. “’Twas against Fiona. Tell me ye would forgive one who drove someone ye loved to their death.”
Her shoulders sagged. “I suppose I could.”
“Then ye’re either a saint or a liar.” He glared at her.
“At least ye must forgive yourself,” she said. “Fiona’s death was no’ your fault.”
Rob wouldn’t meet her gaze.
“Bitterness is like death. I see it growing in your heart, Rob, wild as a cankerwort and as hard to root out. Forgive yourself while ye can.”
“I’ll no’ forgive Lachlan Drummond. And I’ll no’ forgive myself for letting it happen. Never!” Rob strode toward the door. “I’d rather roast in hell.”