Healing the Highlander (10 page)

Moreland acknowledged the gesture with a like one of his own. "Oh, no fear. We'll find the ones we seek. We've a good description of the woman. Funny thing about that, too." The knight paused to take a swallow from his cup before continuing. "Your own lovely lady is a perfect match for the description we were given."

NINE

Cozy, much?" Leah stood as she had since the prior had shown them to their rooms, her back against the wall, arms crossed. "These guys bring a whole new level of meaning to the word austere."

Drew wholeheartedly agreed, though he remained silent on the issue. The monks were doing the best they could. Brother John had apologized for their lack of "proper" marital accommodations before showing them to the only room they could offer with a bed large enough for two: the room set aside for the abbot's visits.

Standing here in the abbot's accommodations, Drew wondered little that that august man made his home at a larger, wealthier monastery.

Leah cleared her throat and tried again. "The only way I see two people sleeping in that bed is if they're both under the age of five. And small for their age, at that."

The room itself was narrow and cramped, with perhaps the smallest fireplace he'd ever seen. He suspected they'd need the fire to offset the chill they'd likely get from the large, shuttered window opening in the outer wall. Even now the flame of the candle sitting on the tiny desk at the foot of the bed danced and sputtered as a breeze wafted down from the ill-fitting shutters. The bed itself, though roughly half the size of his own at Dun Ard, was still a sight better than others he'd seen here at the priory.

"It could be worse. Most of those men you saw in the dining hall will be sleeping on the floor in a common room tonight."

"I don't really care where they sleep. But that bed still isn't big enough for the two of us. Period."

The tremulous huff of breath that followed her declaration told him more than her words and at last he thought he understood her concern.

Drew prided himself on reading people. He'd learned early how rare it was for people to say what they meant. Even more rare for them to mean what they said. Over time, he'd cultivated the necessary skills to look beneath the social games. It was easy enough. He only needed to separate himself from the crowd, stand aside, and observe.

The signs had been there all along with Leah. He'd simply not taken the time to see them. Her discomfort came not from the size of the bed, but in sharing a room with him.

"Dinna fash yerself over the bed space, Leah. You'll no have to share it this night. I'll take the floor." Though he wouldn't be foolish enough to deny the appeal of curling close to her, his body wrapped around hers, his arms encircling her curves.

The thought brought with it an involuntary flush of heat and a tightening of muscles.

She shrugged without making eye contact, an artfully careless gesture he saw right through. Quickly, she moved past him to press her hand down into the mattress, her nose wrinkling in a most attractive manner as she turned to sit on the edge of the bed.

"I guess this whole pretending to be married thing, sharing a room and all, it's not actually so different from sharing a campfire with you. I mean, we were alone together there, too. And the bed is better than sleeping on the ground. I'll give it that much."

"That it is," he agreed, tossing his bag to the floor in front of the little fire. She might aspire to brave and bold, but he could read her easily now that he knew the signs to watch for. "Not so bad at all." For a fact he'd slept in worse places, though he knew from experience the cold stone floor would only add to the aching in his leg.

He dropped to sit, glancing back to see her staring at the door, the bauble she wore around her neck clutched between her thumb and forefinger.

"What else troubles you, Leah?"

"Nothing," she replied hastily.

Too hastily, to his way of thinking.

"I don't suppose these doors have any bolts or locks or anything like that, do they?"

He doubted very much it was the monks she wanted to bar from entry.

"Dinna spare a worrisome thought to the English soldiers down below. You'll no come to any harm at their hands, no so long as yer under my protection. They search for a maiden, no a married woman. Now try to get some rest. We've two long days on the road ahead of us yet."

Rather than reassuring, his words seemed only to agitate her more.

"What makes you think I have any concerns about those men? I'm not worried about them. I don't care who they're looking for. I never even saw any of them before tonight."

She might well not have seen any of the soldiers before this night, but what she'd told him about her uncle made it clear she wanted to avoid any contact with English soldiers. He just wished she'd tell him the whole of the reason why.

The only piece that didn't quite add up was that while her uncle might well send his own men in search of a runaway niece, it wasn't likely soldiers such as those they'd met downstairs would be distracted from their mission on the king's behalf for such a task.

Not unless the task was somehow personal. Personal as in the side quest Moreland had described his men undertaking—to find his own uncle's missing bride. A missing bride whose description fit the woman he'd just publicly claimed as wife.

One look at Leah, her lips clamped tightly together and her arms crossed protectively in front of her, and he knew she'd be sharing no more of her story with him this night.

"Suit yerself, my lady." He turned his back to her, pounding at his saddle bag in preparation for lying down. "Just remember that's it no ever a good idea to stray too far from the truth in the stories you tell. No more than it is to keep yer traveling companions in the dark about what dangers they might expect to encounter."

Whether she was willing to admit it or not, something in what the knight had said downstairs had made her uncomfortable. He'd seen her reaction to the man's words and, though he'd known her only a short time, he realized it was more than her weariness from a day on the road that had hastened her desire to depart from the dining hall.

"Here. Take this." Leah had moved close, his plaid she'd worn all evening cradled in her arms. "I've got the blankets on the cot so you'll need this."

As he reached for the woolen, his fingertips brushed against hers and the resulting tingle reminded him of her injury from the night before.

"When did you lose yer bandage?" He caught up her wrist and pulled her hand down toward him for a closer look.

"I didn't lose it," she denied. "I just didn't need it anymore."

He ignored her attempt to resist him because he had no intention of being thwarted in his inspection of her injury. Silly woman. The cut on her thumb had been deep and he wanted to make sure there was no redness or swelling.

It was bad enough that she'd likely been sent by the Fae and needed to avoid the English for some reason she didn't choose to share. The very last thing he wanted to add to all that would be his having to care for her if she were brought low by a fever.

He turned her hand over, drawing it closer to the meager firelight even as she pulled against him.

Nothing. No redness, no swelling, not even a hint of her thumb ever having been marred with an injury.

He rubbed the pad of his thumb over the now unblemished spot and looked up. Immediately her gaze darted away, toward the ceiling, toward the door, anywhere but at him.

"I told you it wasn't that bad to start with," she muttered.

When she pulled against his hold again, he released her. She stumbled in her haste, sitting down heavily on her cot before she blew out the candle and quickly curled up under the blanket, her head on the pillow.

He studied her unmoving form for several minutes before settling down on his side to stare into the flames.

It wasn't that bad to start with?

Of all the poor character accusations Drew might fully deserve, he could not be rightly accused of being a fool. He'd seen the cut on her thumb with his own two eyes. Her blood stained the hem of his plaid where he'd stanched the flow from the wound.

And now, with barely a day passed since the injury? It might as well never have happened.

Though he knew there could be only one explanation for such a thing, he simply didn't like the explanation presenting itself.

She wasn't merely sent by the Fae for purposes of their own. She likely was one of the Fae.

TEN

She was lost, hiding in a small dark hole, just seconds away from being found. Panic burned its way into her throat like a hot acid, bubbling up from her chest until she'd thought she'd drown in it. Still the echo of footsteps came closer and closer. She huddled in the dark, taking a backward step that sent her hurtling down into a black void. Falling. Helpless.

Leah awoke with a start, beads of perspiration dotting her forehead as she tried to remember where she was.

A dream. It was only a dream.

Unlike the ones her sister used to have, Leah's dreams were nothing more than her unconscious mind trying to assimilate all her stress and worries. Still, her heart pounded against her chest like an animal trying to escape her body.

So much for rationalization.

She'd only just managed to recapture some small measure of normal calm when she heard the noise.

A rustling sound, soft and quiet, like something dragging over stone.

Her muscles tensed, freezing her in place, terror washing over her as though she were a child caught in a nightmare. Except that the noise she'd heard was real, not a part of the nightmare she'd awakened from.

Barely daring to breathe, she forced open her eyes and slowly shifted the woolen blanket away from her face. An ambient flickering light filtered through the room, cast by the flames burning in the little fireplace.

Straight ahead of her she could see a plain wooden door. Closed. Okay. She knew where she was. This was the room in the monastery. The room she shared with Andrew.

Somewhat reassured, she filled her lungs with a great gulp of air. That had to be it. He must have made the noise. She twisted a little more, peering down toward the fire where he should be sleeping.

Not sleeping.

She shifted to get a better view, pushing the blanket off her head. What the hell?

If she didn't know better, she'd swear he was practicing yoga poses.

Half-naked yoga poses. Oh my.

Unable to take her eyes off him, she swallowed, her throat as dry as if she'd been stranded in the desert. If he wasn't the most gorgeous thing she'd ever seen, she

didn't know what was. Her heart pounded in her chest again, but it wasn't fear that set it to racing this time. It was Andrew.

Shirtless, with only his plaid wrapped low around his hips, he stood in perfect profile. The fire sent patterns of light and dark flickering over his back as he slid one foot behind him and lowered his body into the controlled lunge of the Warrior.

If she'd had him demonstrating those poses for her wars ago, she might have ended up with a higher grade in that gym class. Or flunked entirely.

After a few moments, he returned to his original position. When he once again stretched out his arms, muscles rippled and she shivered, feeling as if a wave of heat flowed the length of her body.

It was only as he extended the other leg that she heard the noise again, as if his limb wouldn't quite cooperate in the operation. His body shook, like he was off-balance, and she realized his face had contorted in a grimace as he pushed down into the lunge again.

"What are you doing?" The words were out before she could stop them.

His concentration broken, he collapsed to his knee, head bent as if in prayer.

"Go back to sleep, Leah. I dinna mean to awaken you." He sounded winded when he spoke, as if he'd been at this for a long time.

"You didn't wake me. I had a nightmare." She pushed herself up to sit, letting the blanket fall off her shoulders. She was much too warm to need it at the moment anyway. "What were you doing? Was that yoga?"

He didn't answer right away and for a moment she wondered if he'd even heard her question. Instead, he pushed himself to stand and, keeping his back to her, he clasped his hands behind him while staring into the fire.

"I doona ken the name of what I do. Many years ago, I took wounds in battle. My muscles stiffen if I doona work to keep them active."

A logical explanation. Of course anyone at any time could figure out how to bend and stretch their bodies. Her brain must have been deprived of more oxygen in that river than she'd thought to come up with something so ridiculous as to assume he was practicing yoga poses.

And yet, his movements had seemed so fluid, so structured, so . . . classically eastern.

As she mulled over his explanation, he turned to face her, the firelight glinting off his bare chest, highlighting the contours of sheer muscled beauty. Perfection if not for the silvery scar jaggedly cutting a path that began at his shoulder and disappeared beneath the low-hanging waist of his plaid.

She wondered briefly that she hadn't noticed the scar night before last when his shirt had been draped across a bush to dry. Of course, he'd kept his plaid secured over that side of his body, or certainly she would have. It wasn't the sort of thing she could easily miss.