Highland Brides 03 - On Bended Knee (22 page)

“My da,” she sobbed. “He’s so verra ill!”

Colin held her, else she would have collapsed, so much did her leg pain her from the long, hard run. “I dunno—I dunno what’s wrong!” She shook her head hysterically. “He was laying in the dark!” she explained. “I thought he wasna breathing but he was! Och, I dinna want him to die!” she cried out, her heart wrenching painfully.

“Where is he?” Broc asked.

Seana reached out to seize Broc’s arm. “Home,” she said. “Help me, please, Broc! I dunno what to do! He is feverish and I dinna know what to do!”

Broc drew her into his arms as he had all those years ago. He held her reassuringly, and patted her back. “Dinna worry, Seana, we’ll do what we can! I promise, lass—we’ll do what we can!”

“Hurry, please!” she begged, and he took her by the hand. “We’ll take our horses,” he told her and pulled her after him.

She shrieked in surprise when Colin lifted her up suddenly into his arms. “She’ll ride with me,” he said, and his tone brooked no argument. Seana was too relieved at being held to protest his handling of her. Her legs hurt far too much to insist he put her down. She sagged against him and wept softly against his neck, clinging to him. She was so afraid they would be too late. The scent of his skin soothed her somehow, and the salt of his flesh mingled with that of her tears.

“Thank ye,” she whispered to him and hugged him fiercely.

Colin squeezed her in answer. “Everything will be all right, Seana,” he whispered. “Dinna worry.”

Nothing seemed all right, nothing but the arms that embraced her. Seana held on tight and prayed with all her might.

Colin let her weep even as they rode, allowing Broc to take the lead. He gave in to a moment’s irritation that Broc seemed to know where they were going without needing to be told—though only for an instant, because Seana’s pain was tearing at his heart.

He had spied the look upon her face just before she’d collapsed into his arms. Though she’d tried to hide it, he’d known. That more than aught else was the reason he’d lifted her into his arms and carried her to his mount. Only for the briefest instant had he experienced a pang of jealousy to see Broc dragging her away. There was no time this moment for petty male pride, and he refused to allow it to command him again. When Broc reined in his mount just beyond the woodland’s edge, at the place where the cliff rose high above Chreagach Mhor—the MacKinnon’s ancient druid fortress—and came to pull her down into his arms, he let her go to him, and dismounted to follow.

For an instant, he was nonplused, for he saw no hut anywhere within sight. Only when Seana led them to a small entrance along the cliffside did he realize where she had brought them.

It was an oversized cairn, one of many that were spattered across this land. This particular cairn, however, was significantly larger, almost like a cave, though it was not. The only difference between this and a cave was the numerous cracks that let in sunlight where the stones met one another. He ducked to follow Seana and Broc within, and breathed in the scent of damp loam.

The single room was dimly lit and sparsely furnished. Dust motes danced wherever the sun’s rays pierced the ancient druid crypt. Seana’s da lay upon a narrow pallet in the rear of the room, and Seana made her way toward him, and fell to her knees beside him. A black cat, the same perhaps that had landed atop him in the forest, sat at Donal’s side, curiously watching their approach.

“Da,” Seana whispered. She reached out and gave the cat a single stroke, as though grateful for her presence.

Her father didn’t stir.

Colin was momentarily appalled at the place where she lived. Something like anger surged through him, but he wasn’t certain at what, or whom. How could anyone live like this for all their lives? He felt sick to his gut as he knelt beside her next to her father.

Seana cast him a tearful glance, and he tried to reassure her, but words failed him.

“Help him… please,” she begged, and rose to give Colin the room he needed. She stood and Broc pulled her into his arms, comforting her.

Colin at once inspected her father. The man didn’t move. He lay as still as stone, and just as cold, as though he’d long ago been entombed within this ancient crypt of his. Colin had to set his hand against the man’s nostrils to feel the faintest breath.

“He’s verra ill,” he told Seana, worry etching his brow. “We need to get him out of here!”

“I tried,” Seana told him tearfully, and began again to sob. “I could not.”

“We’ll take him to Meghan, Seana. Meghan will know what to do for him, lass.”

Knowing there wasn’t time to waste, he lifted her father into his arms, and carried him out of the cairn into the sunlight, wincing as his eyes adjusted. Only when his lungs filled with warm air did he realize the cold that had seeped into his body while in that hovel.

Words escaped him at the realization of how she had lived—at his own cruelty. Her expression of long ago—the wounded look she’d given him—came back to haunt him a thousand fold.

The cat followed them out. Sitting like a sentinel at the portal, it mewed after them.

Colin’s first coherent thought was that he wasn’t going to let her go back.

Not ever.

If he had to give them both a bloody home, she wasn’t going to lay her head not even one more night against that sodden ground. It was a wonder the both of them hadn’t died long ago in that place, and it occurred to him suddenly that he understood why Seana had never let him follow her home. His heart twisted for her.

Anger and shame clawed at his gut. How could he have dared to add to her grief? How could he have treated her so cruelly all those years ago. Seana was the bravest person he would ever know. There wasn’t an ounce of self-pity in her body, and he vowed never to let her see the pity in his eyes. He loved her too much to hurt her ever again.

Aye, he loved her, damn it!

He loved her and he didn’t care if she didn’t love him back. It didn’t matter.

All that mattered to him this instant was Seana. He would do anything, he believed, to see her happy—even if it meant letting her go to Broc.

Colin was right.

With the benefit of her grandmother’s lessons in medicament, Meghan knew exactly what to do.

Seana was grateful to her for the way she treated her father, as though he were part of her family. She laid him within a room inside their manor and cared for him diligently, giving him potions to ease his pain and cooling his fever with damp rags. He swung from hot to cold and cold to hot and Seana was afraid at the pallor of his skin.

“Will he be all right?” she asked Meghan. She stood watching, worrying her lip until it was tender.

Meghan shook her head. She cast Seana a glance over her shoulder. “I dunno,” she said gravely. “He is verra ill, Seana.”

A sob caught in Seana’s throat, and she wanted to weep, only she knew it wouldn’t help matters at all. Meghan didn’t need the distraction just now, and Colin and Broc were away speaking to Meghan’s husband.

“I have tried everything I know to do,” Meghan admitted, casting Seana another worried glance. Meghan’s green eyes met Seana’s and they shared a look. Meghan conveyed both comfort and strength to prepare Seana for the worst. Seana swallowed hard and walked to the other side of her father’s bed. She sat down, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible and yet needing to be as close to her da as she could.

“Once before, I tended such an illness.” Meghan peered across the bed at Seana as she dabbed a cloth over her father’s forehead. Seana was grateful for the gentle way Meghan drew the rag down over his gaunt cheeks. “My grandminny Fia…”

Seana barely recalled the old woman. She sometimes had come across her as she’d foraged in the woodlands for herbs. Sometimes, even, Meghan had been with her, but Seana had been far too shy to speak. She had hidden in the brush, watching from a safe distance, wishing she’d had a grandminny who had patted her head so lovingly and kissed her so gently upon the cheek.

Her gaze returned to her father. Her da had not been so affectionate, but he was all she had in the world. Seana didn’t know what she’d do if he were to die.

“What happened to your grandminny?” Seana dared to ask.

Meghan shook her head sadly, Seana lowered her gaze, understanding. She reached out to pat her father’s hand, and then dared to take it into her own, holding it gently.

Her heart leapt as he suddenly opened his eyes. He looked straight at Seana and spoke.

“My Love,” he said, though his voice was weak and Seana had to strain to understand him. “You’ve come…”

Seana swallowed and squeezed his hand. “You’re going to be well soon, Da,” she promised. “Won’t he, Meghan?” She glanced hopefully at Colin’s sister.

Meghan nodded, though hesitantly, and Seana dared to believe.

He shivered. “I left Seana weeping,” he rambled, and Seana realized he did not recognize her. He must think Seana was her mother. “We have to go… go g-get her…” He closed his eyes. “She’s just a wee baby,” he said and drifted off once more.

“I’m right here, Da,” she tried to reassure him, and his eyes fluttered open once more.

This time, Seana thought he recognized her.

“Seana?” he asked weakly.

Seana smiled. “Aye, ’tis me, Da.”

He smiled up at her, and then sighed somewhat contentedly.

“You’re going to be all right, Da.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head.

“Aye!” she countered firmly. “You will be!”

He gave a shuddering breath and reopened his eyes. “I will join My Love now… but one day,” he told her, “you’ll see me again, dearlin’…”

Seana refused to listen to him. “Nay, Da, ye willna leave me!”

“Aye,” he argued weakly. He seemed to realize suddenly that she was holding his hand and he gave her fingers a squeeze. “And you will see me again,” he promised. “You will see My Love, and there will I be next to her. She’s waiting for me now, ye know?” He gave a feeble smile and then coughed over the effort of speaking.

“Da!” Seana protested. Tears streaked her cheeks.

He cast Meghan a glance. Meghan remained silent, removing the rag so he would speak without distraction.

“Two cats,” he told her, turning back to Seana. “And we shall be your shadows, looking over ye always, my daughter. You shall see…”

“Nay, Da,” Seana protested, holding his hand tighter, as though to keep him from leaving through sheer will. “You will not die yet!”

“Look for me,” he commanded. He coughed, then closed his eyes, drifting once more into a troubled sleep. When he opened them the next time, he seemed not to recognize her at all. His eyes were glazed with fever and faraway.

“My Love,” he whispered hoarsely, and reached up as though to touch her face.

Seana swallowed, for he’d never called her that in all her life, and she knew who it was he thought he saw. Her mother. Grief held her tongue.

“Dinna leave Seana to cry all alone,” he begged of her, then tried to rise.

Seana urged him back down upon the bed. “Nay, Da, rest!”

“Dinna leave her to weep!” he said urgently. His gaze focused suddenly upon her.

Seana shook her head. He didn’t recognize her. Tears welled in her eyes and she gulped back her grief. “She… I willna,” she promised.

“Go to her now!” he demanded.

Seana tried hard not to burst into tears. She didn’t know what to do, what to say.

I’m here, Da, she wanted to cry out. I’m here!

Meghan once more began to cool his face with the cloth, and he settled himself, drifting once more into a fitful sleep. Seana laid down at his side, weeping softly while she listened to his labored breath.

“I should have brought him sooner,” she lamented. “I should not have left him so long…”

“You did the best ye could,” Meghan reassured.

“I should have taken him out of there,” Seana sobbed, blaming herself. If she had only been brave enough to find a husband sooner…

If only she had gone directly to Broc, instead of going to Colin.

But, even then there were no assurances that Broc would have had her, and she had been helpless to do anything at all. Broc was good and kind to her to be sure, but he didn’t look at her the way Colin did…