Highland Brides 03 - On Bended Knee (12 page)

She’d better go.

Before he changed his mind and seduced her right here where they sat.

Despite her angry words and all her bluster, the look in her eyes this instant told him that if he truly wished it… she would be his tonight…

She nodded. “Aye.” And made to rise.

He set a hand upon her shoulder, couldn’t seem to help himself.

He hadn’t meant to.

He wanted to tell her to run.

He wanted to tell her to stay.

“G’nite,” he said. “I shall see ye on the morrow?”

“G’nite,” she said, and placed her hand over his upon her shoulder.

For an instant, she did nothing more, and then she brushed his hand aside, and bolted away. She stopped once to look back, and said, “Until the morrow.” And then she smiled and was gone, vanished into the forest like a sprite.

Colin stared for the longest time at the place where she had disappeared, seeing that smile again in his mind.

It had been a perfect smile, one that had lit even her eyes, one that warmed his heart…

With the blink of an eye, night had fallen, and there was nothing there now but shadows where she had stood… and a pair of golden eyes twinkling back at him from the darkness.

They disappeared the instant he spied them.

Colin blinked, and looked again, but there was nothing there at all.

There were those who said these woods were filled with faeries and brownies and that at night their magic lit up the forest like falling stardust, but as far as Colin was concerned those were old wives’ tales and he didn’t believe a one of them.

It was probably just some wretched beast staring back at him… a fox or a cat, mayhap.

He shook his head, and took a deep breath to clear his senses, then gathered up what he could of Seana’s pot still to take home with him.

She had obviously begun a new batch of her spirits because the pot still was heavy with the substance. He hated to waste it, but he couldn’t carry it home like this, so he proceeded to empty some upon the ground. But he hated to waste it all.

Colin lifted up the pot still when it had lightened sufficiently and then emptied the rest into his mouth. It was a good strong spirit, still slightly warm. He choked a bit as it went down, but he didn’t stop. He let it pour down his throat. A little spilled down his chin.

There were those who took their measure of a man by the way he drank his
uisge
. Colin had been drinking since he’d been old enough for his da to shove it down his gob. A little burn never killed a man, his da would say, but he hadn’t entirely been right.

A little
uisge beatha
sometimes did.

But it was all part of the game, and no man worth the name ever shied away from the fire water. You put your faith, not in God, but in your brewer, and your lips on the… mouth of the bottle… or was it that… you put your lips on the mouth of the brewer…

Och, but his brain grew fuzzy, even as he drank.

This spirit was strong.

He finished it, and gathered the pieces of the still, then carried it home, as he’d promised her, ignoring the itty bitty bursts of light that twinkled along the path to light his way.

Fairy dust, that’s what it looked like—if he believed in such things, but he didn’t…

Magic lived only in the minds of old women such as his grandminny Fia—God rest her soul—and in a wee dram of good
uisge beatha.

And in Seana’s smile.

He smiled, then, for the image of it was imprinted upon his mind… and damned if he didn’t suddenly feel better than he had in years.

And it wasn’t the
uisge beatha.

It was the damned
uisge beatha
.

Damn, but Colin was as sick as he’d ever been in his life. This was the second time in the space of a week that he’d found himself spewing his guts out over that damned drink of hers. He hadn’t realized it until this morning, but it was her father’s spirits he had drunk at Meghan’s wedding. Who the devil had procured that waste? Not he, damn it all to hell. Leith, perhaps. He was going to have to talk to Leith and be sure they never bought that rotgut again. If he didn’t know better he’d think she was trying to poison him!

Rolling over on his bed, he flung an arm over the side.

Christ help him, he was going to die.

That’s what that secret smile was as she’d fled the woods, leaving him there with her vat of poison.

She’d known he would drink it and that he’d lie here in misery, waiting to take his final breath.

She hadn’t managed to kill him the first time, so she’d devised a way to weasel into his head and stay until he’d been driven out by lust and madness to find her. And then she’d poisoned him again. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t forced it down his throat. She’d known he would drink it.

Just as she must have known he’d come after her.

He tried to remember… was Broc sickened by her spirits, as well? He didn’t think so, but Cameron surely had been. The poor boy had gone into the woods and they hadn’t seen him again until late in the day.

Colin groaned in sheer misery. He rolled over once more in the bed and threw an arm over his eyes to shield them from the light.

“Somebody kill me,” he muttered to himself.

“Somebody will if Meghan sees you like this,” Leith said from the doorway. “You’re verra lucky she’s in Montgomerie’s bed just now and cannot be bothered anymore with tormenting her brothers.”

Colin would have laughed at Leith’s pitiful attempt to cheer them both, but he didn’t have the strength. “Go and tell her to come home!” he demanded of his older brother.

“Aye,” Leith said, “and she would take one sniff of this room and beat you o’er the head with a broom.”

Colin groaned in misery. “But then she would return with one of her potions and I would be as good as new,” he argued.

Leith laughed. “Where in damnation did you go anyhow… one minute you were there next to me working on the fence, and the next you were gone.”

“To speak with Donal the drunk’s daughter,” Colin mumbled.

Leith lifted a brow. “Aha,” he said, “I understand now!”

“Nay, ye dinna,” Colin argued, covering his eyes once more.

Damn, but he was going to die.

“Anyhow, you’ve a wench here looking for you, says the smithy.”

Colin peered up at the doorway at his brother.

Leith lifted a brow. “She wouldn’t happen to be Donal the drunk’s daughter, now would she?”

“He’s fixing her still,” Colin replied in self-defense… or mayhap it was more in defense of Seana.

“I see,” Leith said, grinning.

“Nay, you don’t,” Colin protested once more. “It isn’t what you’re thinkin’ this time.”

“And you’re not sleeping off a night’s drunk either,” Leith countered, and laughed without pity.

“Go to bloody hell!” Colin muttered. He tried to rise. “Damn,” he said, and stumbled out of the bed.

Leith chuckled.

“I’m going to take the lass to see Meggie today,” Colin explained.

“Well, you’d better be sobering up or you’ll never get whatever it is you’re after. Meggie will blast your arse!”

Colin cast him a rankled glance. “What makes you think I want something from her?” he asked Leith, offended by his brother’s assumptions.

Leith shrugged.

Did everyone just expect him to want something? Did they never just assume he wished to help?

He thought about that, and was forced to ask himself… When was the last time he’d done something simply for someone else’s sake, and not his own?

It was a cold hard question, but one he was still contemplating when he reached the smithy’s.

“I don’t want you to straighten it out! It
must
have that verra same kink when you’re done!”

“Och, lass, it would be easier to make you a whole new piece than to try to fit this one together the way you want me to! I canna do it! If ye want the kink, I’ll give you a new kink!” The smithy lifted up the copper tubing he’d been working with and bent it in one swift stroke over his knee. “There ye go, a kink!”

“Let me have my pot still back!” Seana demanded furiously. “I will fix it! You’ve no idea what you’re doing, stubborn man!”

That was the sight that greeted Colin as he entered the smithy’s shop.

The smithy held on to the still, preventing her from taking it. “Colin said to fix it, and fix it I will!” he told Seana, refusing to return it.

Seana tugged at the contraption, trying to wrest it away from him. “Nay, ye willna, ye big oaf! It doesna belong to Colin! It belongs to my da! Give it back!”

Colin was grateful his headache had eased, else he’d never be able to deal with the two of them now. He walked up to them, and took the pot still from the smithy’s hands. Seana tried to grab it from him but he held it high.

She gave him a look that would have curdled his belly if her damnable
uisge beatha
hadn’t already beat her to it.

He smiled down at her reassuringly. “I’ll make him do it as you wish,” he promised her. And then he handed the vat with all its copper limbs back to the smithy. “Fix it as she told you to.”

“Och, but, Colin!”

“If anyone can do it, you can,” he assured the smithy. “I have every faith you’ll find a way.”

The older man’s face contorted with disgust. “As if I did not have anything better to do!” he complained, taking the pot still from Colin. He returned it to his workbench. “But I’ll not raise a finger to it while she remains in my presence,” he swore, and refused to work while they remained. He crossed his arms and leaned against his bench, waiting expectantly.

“Hmmph!” Seana exclaimed.

“Dinna fash yourself,” Colin told the man. “We’ll be out of your way this minute.”

“I will not!” Seana protested.

Colin leaned to whisper in her ear. “A man has his pride, lass.”

The scent of her skin was sweet, like fresh green grass and sunshine, momentarily distracting him. More than anything, he’d like to lay her down in some meadow and make love to her sweet body…

Och, God, how could she affect him so even in the miserable state he was in?

“He’ll fix it for ye as you wish. You have my word.” He gave her a pleading look, of the sort he reserved for Meggie when he needed her help and she didn’t want to give it. His sister had always been his greatest challenge. She couldn’t be swayed by his charms—she was his sister, after all.

“Verra well,” she relented.

Colin grinned and chucked her beneath the chin. He gave her a wink, relishing the fact that she was not wholly immune to him. “Let’s go’n see Meghan, lass.”

All hope was not lost, he thought, but hope for what, he had no idea.

It was a longer walk to Meghan’s than Seana anticipated, but she didn’t mind.

Truth to tell, she was rather enjoying Colin’s company this morning. He was charming when he wished to be, and she could see why the girls were drawn to him, beyond that beautiful face of his.

She couldn’t quite bring herself to tell him so, however. It wasn’t even easy to admit to herself.

Something had changed between them, it seemed.

After last night, she felt a certain gratitude toward him that she hadn’t expected to feel. But beyond that… something else was different as well. It was an easy companionship between them today, and she could tell that he, too, was enjoying their familiarity. Despite the fact that he seemed sick this morn, he was jovial and waggish, and hadn’t complained the first bit when she’d refused to ride upon his horse. He dismounted and, holding the animal by the reins, walked patiently beside her, even when her legs grew tired and her limp grew evident.

Seana wasn’t afraid of the beast. It was a beautiful black mare with a gentle manner, but she hadn’t strengthened her limbs so well by allowing herself to be coddled and carried about. Nay, it was good to walk. If her legs pained her just a bit, it was a small price to pay for the simple joy of setting one foot before the other. The worst of it all was the slight hobble to her walk that betrayed her now, and she was certain that was what had quieted the mood between them.

Seana didn’t miss the way he studied her legs, though he pretended to ignore it. It made him uneasy, she could tell by his silence, though she couldn’t quite tell if he was repulsed by the debility itself or if it were simply his guilt that made him avoid her gaze.