All The Time You Need (17 page)

She made the decision earlier not to tell him exactly what she was going to try to feed him. Opting for a fancier—though not at all accurate—name might entice him to try a couple of bites. Liver sounded so much less appealing. Almost as unappealing as the brown goo looked and smelled once she’d squished it into the chicken broth to feed to him.

“Doona want,” Alexander whispered. “Thirsty. Mead.”

“Okay then, if you’re thirsty, you can have a drink first. Then we’ll have a couple of bites.”

With one arm behind Alexander’s head, she lifted him forward and put the tankard to his lips.

“Water,” he sputtered, his face scrunching into a frown as soon as the liquid rolled down his throat.

“Exactly. Water’s good for you. And if I just had a glass of ice for it, you’d love it, I’m sure.” She lifted a small wooden bowl to his lips, and when he refused to drink, she tried some encouragement. “Have just a little sip for me. This is chicken broth mixed with just a touch of…um…
pâté
. My grandmother always swore by the healing power of chicken broth. You get a few swallows of this down you, and tomorrow I’ll bring you some of that honey mead the cook tells me you like so much.”

“Stinks of offal,” he managed to say before taking his first swallow. “Tastes of…liver.”

He had her there. This liver mash and real
pâté
were about as much alike as milk and milk chocolate. She’d be the first to admit that she’d pulled the new name out of thin air, thinking if she made this nasty concoction sound better, it might go down easier.

“Liver,
pâté
…same thing,” she lied, keeping her smile fixed in place as she attempted to dismiss his complaint. “In an offhand sort of way. What’s important is that it’s good for you, so you need to eat it. It’ll help build strong red blood cells to replace all those that Master Montague drained out of you. Come on, just a little more.”

Two more small swallows and the old man’s eyes drifted shut.

“Hard bargain to get what I want,” he whispered.

“I know,” Annie agreed. “But you did really good. We’ll have a little more of this later on, and tomorrow, I promise, you’ll get your mead.”

One corner of Alexander’s lips curled into what she hoped was a smile before his face went slack and he drifted back into the world of sleep that claimed so much of him.

Annie tucked the covers around him again and placed the tray back on the hearth before returning to the bedside to study her patient. His color was better, no doubt about it. And he was waking more frequently, though for only very short periods of time and never when anyone else was in the room, making it difficult to get anyone to believe her when she told them he was improving.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, patting his covered foot. “Soon enough, you’ll be sitting up on your own, taking visitors and talking to your whole family. Then they’ll see I was right.”

At least, she hoped that was what was going to happen. If not…No. She didn’t want to think about any of the possible
if nots.
She’d never been completely responsible for anyone’s wellbeing before, and she certainly didn’t want to blow it now that she was.

With a long, empty afternoon and evening ahead of her, she concentrated on making a mental list of all the things she needed to do.

“Number one,” she said aloud as she paced the length of the room. “I need to figure out some undeniably necessary reason to get back to the arbor. Too bad you’re not awake to help me with that one. After all, you know your son much better than I do. Number two…”

She paused, realizing there really wasn’t a number two on her list. Until she could thoroughly search that arbor and locate some clue to the mystery of how she could get back home, taking care of Alexander was her only task. And she knew from experience that once he’d wakened and gone back to sleep, she faced several hours of boredom and inactivity.

Noting the sound of swordplay continued outside, she considered checking back in on the battle below. There was no reason not to, right? It wasn’t like she had anything else to do, or like anyone would catch her ogling the men as they practiced. Aggie wouldn’t be back until tomorrow, and no one else came up here in the afternoons. Why shouldn’t she? She couldn’t think of a single reason not to indulge in a little voyeuristic entertainment.

Once again she carefully climbed the shaky platform to catch a glimpse of the activity in the courtyard below. Jamesy and Finn were still hard at it, and another couple of men had joined in, but Alex was nowhere to be seen.

“His bucket’s gone, too,” she murmured.

Perhaps he’d gone for more water. The well was just off to the right, just beyond her line of vision.

If only she were an extra inch taller.

Annie stretched up as far as possible, straining to see out beyond the thick stones that formed the window opening, out to where the well stood. By hooking her fingers over the stone casing of the opening, she could give herself just enough of an edge to lift up onto the very tips of her toes. Not good enough. But if she pulled herself up, she should be able to support her weight against the edge of the window opening. Mustering all her strength, she pulled herself up to balance against the opening like a precariously posed ballerina. It wasn’t a spot she could maintain for long. Already the muscles in her arms were shaking in protest of the effort she’d demanded of them. In spite of the strain, the position worked perfectly to allow her to see one side of the well, even though the man she’d hoped to spot wasn’t there.

What the position didn’t work well for was letting herself back down.

When she attempted to lower her weight back onto the balls of her feet, the bucket wobbled and toppled from under her, sending both itself and the three-legged stool on which it had stood pitching over on the floor with a loud clatter. She hung from the window casing like a rock climber whose rope had broken, her fingertips mashed against the sharp outer edge of the stones.

As she struggled to hold on, it took her a moment to realize the little squeaking sound she heard came from her. Another moment passed before the realization set in that she wasn’t going to be able to hold on. Already her fingers were slipping over the rough stone, carving little ridges into her skin.

There was no way she had the strength left to pull herself back up onto the ledge. All she could do now was to hang on. The sting in her fingers was nothing compared to what she’d feel falling the eight or so feet to the stone floor below.

As if in the far-off distance, she heard the door behind her opening. She would have called out for help, but she had no concentration to spare, all her energies focused on keeping her from letting go. She tried to prepare herself for the impending pain, but when her fingers did slide from their hold, she knew there was no way to prepare.

The jolt against the hard, cold stone didn’t happen. Instead, the hard surface she found against her face was as warm as the arms that had caught her.

“What in the name of all that’s holy did you think you were doing, hanging from the window ledge like that?” Alex demanded. “We’ve doors to reach the bailey below. And stairs. You’ve no need to climb out the windows. No’ even if you thought to escape.”

She could have played the offended party here, demanding he put her down or take his hands off her, but having just had the overwhelming adrenaline surge that accompanied a major fright, she felt too weak to stand on her own. Too weak to even think on her own. Let him think whatever he wanted for the next few minutes as she recovered her wits.

As for her, all she wanted was to be held against his strong brick wall of a chest, safe and sound, her arms wrapped around his neck in exactly this way until the last remnants of fear roiling through her body drained away, like a child being held by her parent.

“Well?” he asked, tightening his hold as he clearly waited for an answer, pressing her body even closer to his own.

Okay…that had been a really bad analogy. With him holding her like this, she didn’t feel at all like a child and her parent. Not even a little bit. The feelings racing through her body as he held her like this weren’t in the least bit paternal. Or maternal. Or fraternal, for that matter. They weren’t any kind of
ternal
she could imagine. They were of an entirely different nature.

It felt as if a smooth, liquid heat melted through her body, coursing along every vein and artery, hardening her breasts and tingling down into her very core. She felt—

“Oh,” popped out of her on a gust of embarrassment as she realized that what she felt was probably the most intense physical attraction she’d ever experienced. Even knowing that, she had to force herself to loosen her grip around his neck and draw back from him.

He allowed her feet to slip from his grasp to touch the floor, but he kept one strong arm around her, under her arms, holding her body snug up against his, face to face.

The all-over body tingle intensified until she wasn’t sure she could stand it any longer, her breathing little more than sharp, shallow gasps for air.

Bringing the flat of her palms up against his chest, she pushed away from him.

Good Lord, but the man had a magnetic presence. He was the magnet and she was the puddle of iron filings, drawn to him like on those game boards she’d had as a child.

“I’m waiting,” he reminded, his eyes glittering with some emotion she couldn’t put her finger on. “What possessed you to attempt to climb up the wall?”

Her brain faltered for a moment as she remembered why she’d been up there, and she bit back the words that would have implicated her in having spied on him, shirtless and glistening in the sunshine below.

“Shutters,” she answered breathlessly, finally able to remember her original purpose in having foolishly arranged the makeshift ladder. “Needed them open. For the sun. Fresh air. For your father.”

And just like that, while trying to recover from possibly the most embarrassingly erotic moment of her life, she suddenly knew what approach she’d use to try to convince the acting laird of Dunellen to allow her to return to the arbor.

Chapter 10

Alex moved slowly along the dark corridor, hoping to keep the flame on the small candle he held from blowing out. The sun had sunk below the horizon hours before, sending all the inhabitants of the castle scurrying off to their beds, allowing him at last to complete the visit he’d attempted to make earlier in the day.

He needed to see his father. To talk to him even if his father couldn’t hear or answer him back. He had sought the time he needed earlier in the day but had been completely distracted from his intended course when he’d found Annie hanging from the window ledge by her fingertips.

By the saints, the experience had shaken him to his core. But whether it had been his fear of the woman falling or his having held her in his arms that had been responsible for his rattled emotions, he couldn’t bring himself to admit. Even now, hours later, he could still see her hanging so high above the floor, her fingers slipping across the stone just before she dropped. The thought of what might have happened had he not chosen that exact moment to enter his father’s chamber knotted his stomach.

Even in the best of circumstances, Annie had a disquieting effect on him. So disquieting that he often found himself going out of his way to avoid her. That much he would freely admit to. But on this particular occasion, when he’d held her in his arms and her breathing had quickened to his touch? It was that which had sent him from his father’s chamber immediately after determining that, other than some minor scratches to her hands, she was unharmed as a result of her unwise adventure.

It was that same experience, that same reaction to her, that had sent him storming to the depths of the castle, ranting like a madman, searching for whoever was responsible for leaving the shutters closed in his father’s chamber. He wasn’t proud of the scene he’d caused, but he felt sure that particular little task would never go undone again.

Outside his father’s bedchamber, Alex stopped, one hand resting on the heavy wooden door as he debated whether to enter, remembering all too well his last uninterrupted visit to his father. The day he’d first returned home, he’d rushed directly to his father’s bedside after he’d learned of Alexander’s failing health. On that occasion, he’d been assaulted by a horrid metallic smell as the door had opened. The odor of stale blood and filth. The odor of death and decay. The smell had been little more than a precursor to the sight that had awaited him inside, that of his father’s arm limply hanging over the side of the bed, dripping blood into a collection pan on the floor. Alexander’s eyes, when Master Montague had lifted the lids, were without recognition or, indeed, any sign of life at all. Alex had been unable to bring himself back to this room again until this afternoon, and that visit had gone so far astray that he’d done little more than glance at his father before he’d made his escape.

Now, here he stood, waiting, doubting his decision to come back again.

After a long moment’s internal debate, he took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. There was no point in this delay. Nothing at all to be gained in questioning his decision to come here. He had no choice but to go inside. It was his father, the true laird, lying on the other side of the big door. There was no other counsel he could seek.