Beloved Imposter (8 page)

He went back into the room.

Moira was washing the lady’s face with cool water, and some of the fever flush was fading.

Mayhap God was with him this time.

He knelt at her side. “I can send word to your clan that you are ill.”

“Nay,” she said with a soft sigh. “I would no’ wish to be the cause of war.”

“They must know you are missing now. They will be worried.”

“My father is in Edinburgh.”

“Your mother then.”

A cloud passed across her face, and she turned away.

Was there some reason then that she would not want her family to know where she was?

By all that was holy, he had been responsible for enough misery. And now he was responsible for her. He would do as she wished. For now. But he felt bloody uncomfortable doing it. The longer he waited, the more blame could come to the clan.

He had returned home to try to bring peace after years of war. As a youth, he had taken part in the bitter warfare with the Campbells. It wasn’t until he heard a woman’s tortured cries and realized a child had died that his blood had cooled. He would never forget that day. Though he had not dealt the death blow, the cries of the mother still haunted him.

And then he had wed Maggie, though he had never felt worthy of her. She had brought gentleness to his life. Now he was facing conflict with still another clan, one nearly as powerful as the Campbells.

He rose to his feet and turned to Moira. “Let me know of any change. Even the smallest one.”

Felicia had always taken pride in being forthright and honest. Now lies were tumbling from her mouth quicker than fleas jumped onto a dog.

She had not expected the stricken look on the lord’s face, nor Moira’s deep concern. She had expected that everyone would leave her in peace just as they did when she was ill at Dunstaffnage. She was naught to the Macleans. The lord only wanted rid of her.

A few hot stones wrapped in cloth and placed next to her cheeks, pepper to make her sneeze, and no sleep to make her eyes red-rimmed made her look ill. Enough, she’d thought, to delay the journey.

She thought she might have four days to make her escape. Not much more. Janet would have returned to the Camerons, and there would be no outcry there. The steward at Dunstaffnage was not a timid man, but he did fear her uncle. He would not report her escape to his lord until he felt certain he could not find her. He would comb the entire area for her before admitting failure.

But rather than being left to herself to recover, she was being smothered by care, by worry, by concern. It was new to her; no one other than Jamie had ever shown such bother over her before. Even the cold, angry lord had seemed uncertain. She’d felt warmed by the concern in his eyes. For the first time, they had reflected something other than the fact that he felt her to be a monumental nuisance.

He had looked intensely masculine and appealing. He entered a room like a storm, directing all attention to himself just by his presence.

He is a Maclean, her family’s greatest enemy
. And hers was his.

And now he was thinking about sending someone to notify Janet’s family. Her family.

Dear mother of God
. She had become enmeshed in a web of her own creation. This was why she so rarely lied.

“Milady, do you feel ye could eat something?”

She nodded. “Mayhap a little.”

“I will return in a wee moment.”

Moira left, and Felicia rose from the bed, and looked under the bed where she had hidden the rocks. She had only a few moments, if that many, before someone else came to inquire about her health.

Using the fireplace tools, she placed the rocks in the fire, waited until they heated, then very carefully wrapped them back in pieces of cloth and scampered back to the bed. She placed the wrapped stones against her cheeks, forcing herself to bear the heat. When she felt sufficiently fevered, she again placed them under the bed, then snuggled down under the covers.

Moira arrived several minutes later, a tray in her arms. Unfortunately there seemed to be naught but a tankard and a bowl of porridge.

Moira’s face darkened as she saw the newly produced flush in Felicia’s cheeks. “Here, milady,” she said, presenting the tankard filled with a foul-smelling brew. Felicia sniffed, then sneezed.

” ‘Tis good for ye, milady,” Moira said.

Since she had an interest in seeming to try to make herself well, Felicia forced herself to drink the mixture, which truly was quite terrible. The porridge was not much better.

“The fever seems worse,” Moira said, her brow crinkling with worry.

“I think I just need rest,” Felicia said.

“I will stay with ye.”

“Nay,” Felicia said. “I know you have duties, and I have taken you away from them. ‘Tis nothing but weariness, and I canna sleep with someone worrying over me.” She said the last with a smile to indicate it was her own foible and not Moira’s presence that was the problem.

“The lord—”

“The lord would like to see me better,” she said.

The woman clucked, but gave her one more worried look and backed out of the room. She hesitated before closing the door, obviously loath to leave her charge. “Ye let us know if ye need anything?”

“Aye,” she said.

“I will have someone outside the door.”

“There is no need,” Felicia protested.

“The lord will have my head if aught happened to ye.” She hesitated. “He is a good mon. He should have no blame on this.”

“He will not,” Felicia said, hoping that it was true. She truly did not wish to be responsible for any violence.

Moira gave her a rare smile. “He would make a good husband.”

Did everyone wish to marry them off? “He obviously has no wish to wed,” she said.

“He has had much sadness,” Moira said. But then she quickly disappeared out the door and closed it quietly behind her.

What sadness?

She tried to remember everything she had heard about the Macleans. There had been the curse. And since then constant war. In her mind, the Macleans had been frightening and evil. But in truth, she had seen little that was frightening and even less that was evil.

The man called Archibald had been uncommonly thoughtful after their initial encounter, and the Maclean laird had not fit her image of a monster. He was, in fact, the opposite.

The sea was alluring too, beautiful, but there was also deception and danger in the tides, in the rush of water against rocks.

It was foolish even thinking such things. She should be thinking about escaping from the keep and making her way to her cousin.

She found herself yawning. Mayhap something in the foul potion she’d just consumed made her drowsy, or the fact she had stayed awake last night and had had little sleep the nights preceding that.

She fought it. The fever would leave without her trickery. So would the sneeze.

Mayhap a short nap. No more.

Her eyes closed.

Rory stabled his horse.

The quiet had worried him. He’d expected Camerons at the gate, and he didn’t understand why they were not.

Surely the disappearance of the daughter of the house would have aroused men to search all the lands around the area where she disappeared. The fact that this was not happening caused him concern.

He had ridden out with several of his men. They had spied no Camerons, only a band of Campbells. He had ordered his men to disappear into the wooded countryside. He wanted no confrontation even as he saw the disappointment in the faces of his men.

Rory knew they were not pleased. Their grumbling was meant to be heard. Patrick would have fought.

None called him coward. They had seen him fight in the past. But he had heard their whispers that Maggie had softened him, had changed him. He had been gone too long.

They wanted Patrick.

Bloody hell, he wanted Patrick back as well.

When he returned to the keep, he strode up to the chamber the Cameron lass occupied.

He knocked lightly.

No answer.

Moira should be there.

He opened the heavy door and stepped inside. The fire warmed the chamber and cast flickering shadows across the bed.

The lass was asleep. Long black lashes sheltered those striking eyes. The red of fever had left her cheeks. She breathed naturally.

His prayers had been answered. Apparently, Moira had left her because the danger was over.

He wanted to lean over and touch her cheek, to feel that the fever was indeed gone. But he knew that was an excuse. It had been a long time since he had touched a woman.

Rory could have bought women in the ports he visited. He probably wouldn’t have to buy favors at all. Women often looked at him with invitation in their eyes.

But when Anne had followed Maggie in death, he had forsworn casual dalliances, which seemed disloyal to him.

He found himself staring down at the lass. He did not know why she intrigued him. Nor did he understand the brief tenderness that made him want to reach out.

She seemed so alone. She had, in truth, seemed that way when she entered his courtyard and met him with a quiet dignity that affected him far more than tears would have.

He stared at her for several more minutes, at the wild red hair flowing over the pillow, the stubborn jaw. He thought of the fire that had been in her eyes earlier.

Before he realized what he was doing, he leaned down and tucked an errant curl behind her ear. Her skin was smooth. Cool.

Thank the saints.

He should take her to the Camerons on the mom, but mayhap it would be best to give her another day of rest, time to gain her strength.

It was not because he wanted her to stay another day.

He carefully opened the door, left the room, and closed the door behind him. He despaired at his reluctance in doing so.

Chapter 6

Streams of light woke Felicia. She burrowed deeper into the feather bed and stretched like a lazy cat even as she realized her situation was precarious.

She knew she should feel urgency. Fear. She should feel terror.

Yet she should be safe enough today. She would talk to servants. She would explore. She would find a way out.

She must!

She touched her cheek. She’d dreamt that someone had touched it last night. Not just any man. Lord Rory Maclean.

He should be the last man in Scotland to haunt her dreams. Her uncle had proclaimed all Macleans to be devils. But she had not seen that in him. Instead, he appeared a man very much alone, but not unkind. And certainly not a monster.

Her cheek still felt warm from that brief impression, or dream, or whatever it was. It was far warmer man the hot rocks she’d held against her cheeks. Rocks didn’t convey tenderness, nor did they send rivers of heat throughout her body.

Had it really happened?

And if it had? He was the enemy.

She sank deeper into the bed, trying to avoid the image of the Maclean standing above her, his hand touching her. She should shrink from the thought. Instead, she was drawn to it like a moth to light, and it remained a small treasure stored in her mind.

Memories. The touch awakened memories. She had known tenderness before, but it had been so long ago …

She turned over, trying to reject the clanging thoughts and memories. They were too painful. Instead, she concentrated on the warmth and comfort of the bed.

Another image struck her.
A bare cot in a tiny room in a nunnery
.

One of the options she’d considered. Still considered, as a last resort, if she could not find Jamie. Or, if she did, but he could do nothing.

She had always considered herself devout. Perhaps not as much as she should be, but she tried. A life of prayer and peace had seemed a bearable compromise to marriage.

But as her body remembered and reacted to that dreamlike sensation, she realized she was probably not very suited for a religious life.

That frightened her far more than any of her previous thoughts. She
had
to find a way to leave the walls of this keep for London. And before those beguiling feelings deviling her caused her to make mistakes. She could
not
be attracted to Rory Maclean.

The door opened, and Moira entered, carrying a tray. She glowed as she looked at Felicia.

“My herbs did well. Ye look much better.”

“I feel much improved,” Felicia said. “Thank you for all your care. I know I am added trouble.”

“Nay, it is good to have a lass here again. My lord has been—” She suddenly stopped, obviously afraid she was speaking out of turn.

“My lord has been what?” Felicia asked.

” Tis not my place to say,” Moira said. “I will return with yer clothes. They be washed and mended. My lord said ye should also have anything else you need. We still have clothes that belonged to his or Lachlan’s mither.”

“Lachlan?” She immediately identified the name as the one belonging to the Maclean who had chained his Campbell wife to a rock.

“He is Lord Rory’s brother.”

“Tell me more about your lord,” she said. “Does he ever smile?”

Moira looked wistful. “He once smiled all the time.”

“But no more?”

“He ha’ much sorrow.”

Felicia knew there were three Maclean sons. She also knew each had different mothers and each mother had died young. She knew all that because it was part of the legend and smug gossip among Campbells. Deserving, they all said.

She also knew that one of the Macleans was said to have destroyed a Campbell village years earlier. It was said that women and children had been killed then. She found it difficult to believe the man responsible for that was Rory Maclean. He had not been welcoming, but he had treated her with every courtesy. Would he do the same if he knew she was a Campbell?

She couldn’t stay here in his keep to find out, yet she wondered at Moira’s words.

“What sorrow?”

Moira searched her face as if trying to decide whether she was worthy to hear more. Then she nodded as if making a decision.

“He lost two wives. Inverleith is a sad place fer him.”

“He loved them?” She had heard of too few love matches.