Highlander in Her Dreams (22 page)

She nodded.

He gave a half smile. “I told you my cousin is cunning,” he reminded her. “He crafted an explanation no one would question, claiming the men set sail for the Isle of Barra, hoping to enjoy a bit of carouse and wenching with our allies, the MacNeils. They are generous, openhanded hosts and notorious wenchers. Many of the younger clansmen hereabouts enjoy paying calls there. Some of the older ones, too.”

“And you?”

“Me?” Amusement sparked in his eyes. “I will no' lie to you, lass. To be sure, I've enjoyed visiting the Barra MacNeils. And, aye, I've savored the lustier revels they offer their guests, but”—he took her hand and pressed a quick kiss to her palm, another to the back of her wrist—“the MacNeils have no' seen me in recent times.”

She blinked. “Why not?”

“Ahhh, sweetness, I think you know,” he said, his half smile broadening into a grin.

“Maybe I'd like to hear the words.”

“Then you shall have them.” His gaze dipped to her breasts as he carefully undid her gown's laces, then eased open her bodice, allowing him to caress her naked skin. “My world isn't all harshness and cruelty,” he said, his touch causing an immediate melting between her thighs. “Many are the pleasures, including those that men find on the Isle of Barra.
You
are my pleasure and have been since that first day I saw you. Since then, my only reason for e'er sailing to Barra has been to quench my need for you.”

“With other women—oh!” Her breath caught when his fingers brushed a nipple.

Squeezing it gently, he looked down, watching as the nipple tightened beneath his lazy toyings. “With. Other. Women. Aye.” He spoke the words slowly, his still gaze riveted on her breasts. “Poor substitutes for the one woman I burned to have for my own.”

“Oh, Aidan.” She bit her lip, her
heart
melting this time.

He looked up at her, the blaze in his eyes scorching her soul. “'Tis you I want, Kee-
rah
. You and no other for the rest of my days.”

She nodded, her blasted throat once more too thick for words.

“I canna recall the names of those other women, nor even their faces, save that I sought out ones that minded me of you,” he said, cupping her breasts with both hands now, kneading and plumping them. “All I can remember is the emptiness I felt inside each time I left their beds. That, and my gnawing need for the woman in my dreams.”

Aidan!
Her voice sounded strange in her ears, urgent and roughened, blurred by the roar of her pulse, the wild thundering of her heart. “I couldn't bear to lose you,” she tried again, wrapping her arms around his neck, willing to plead. “Please come back to my time with me. You can't stay here. I know your cousin will kill you. He—”

“Will no' have me running away with my tail between my legs like a frightened and whipped cur,” he finished for her. “MacDonalds do not flee from their foes. They fight them and win the day. Conan Dearg's days are past.”

Kira glanced away. “He doesn't sound like someone easy to defeat,” she said, worry squeezing her chest. “You said he's an expert swordsman.”

He snorted. “You doubt that I am as good?” He arched a brow, all arrogant chieftain again. “Sweet lass, I am better.”

“Even so—”

“He is in my dungeon and powerless.” His mouth crashed down over hers, claiming her lips in a deep, searing kiss. Hot, hard, and demanding. “And all this talk of him has left a bad taste on the back of my tongue,” he vowed, breaking away to look at her. “I've a powerful need to banish it with something sweet!”

In a blink, he was on his knees, her skirts shoved up to her hips and his face but a breath away from that-part-of-her-that-should-be-wearing-panties.

Kira froze, unable to move. Not wanting to. She looked down, the way he was staring at her there, making her wet.

“Oh, no,” she gasped.

“O-o-oh, aye,” he purred, his voice deep with passion. “
This
is the sweetness I crave. You, all hot, wet, and slippery.”

He glanced up, the heat in his gaze sizzling her as he jerked her skirts up even higher, then leaned close, nipping and kissing his way up the inside of her thighs before he buried his face between her legs and licked her.

Crying out, she fisted her hands and threw back her head, arching into him and almost climaxing the first time he flicked his tongue over her clit.

“Don't stop,” she breathed, her knees nearly giving out on her when he replaced his tongue with a circling finger and then licked along the center of her, plunging his tongue right into her. Deep, deep inside her. “O-o-oh, my God! Aidan—”

Aidan!

The rough and urgent voice again, not hers at all, and this time followed by a loud pounding on the door.

They both froze, passion doused.

Tavish shouted, “Come, man! Open the door!”

Aidan shot to his feet, his face a mask of fury. “I'll kill the bastard,” he snarled, storming across the room and yanking open the door. “Did I no' tell you—”

“'Tis the young lad, Kendrew,” Tavish panted, bursting into the room. “He's been hurt, out by the gatehouse. Men just carried him in the hall.”

Aidan swore. “The gatehouse? What happened? Was there trouble with the other lads?”

“He had a skirmish, aye. But not with any lad.”

“Then who?”

Tavish looked uncomfortable. “If he's to be believed,” he said, slanting a look at Kira, “it was your cousin.”

“Conan Dearg?”
Aidan stared at him. “That's no' possible.”

Tavish shrugged. “Aye, it canna be. Conan Dearg is still in the dungeon. I checked myself.”

“What exactly happened?” Kira put in, joining them. “Kendrew was in a scuffle at the gatehouse? Could he have mistaken one of the guards for Aidan's cousin?”

“My guards wouldn't fall upon the lad.” Aidan shot her a frown.

Tavish snorted. “That, my friend, is what Kendrew claims happened.”

Aidan's eyes widened. “What? That Conan Dearg
fell
on him?”

“Nay.” Tavish shook his head. “He said the blackguard
leapt
onto him. From the top of the gatehouse arch. Kendrew babbled that he saw the blackguard up there, creeping about on his hands and knees. When he called to him, he says the lout jumped down on top of him, knocking him into the mounting block before running away across the bailey.”

Aidan rubbed his jaw. “That doesn't make sense.”

Kira looked at him, Kendrew's tale making perfect sense to her.

Aidan's cousin had an accomplice at Wrath. Someone willing to let him in and out of the dungeon. Even scarier, he'd learned about the gatehouse arch.

And was trying to find out how to use it.

Kira noticed two things the instant she followed Aidan and Tavish into the smoke-hazed, torchlit great hall. How quickly two plaid-wrapped, sword-toting Highlanders could plow their way through a teeming, jam-packed crowd of men, and the sharp, metallic smell of blood.

Trying to close her nose against the latter, she hurried after them, not missing the way half the men in the hall hastily glanced aside as she dashed past them. Not surprisingly, the other half gaped at her openly, their bearded faces filled with suspicion.

Or hostility.

Only one soul ignored her.

A portly, ruddy-faced giant of a man who needed only a furred, sleeveless jerkin and a winged helmet to look like one of the Vikings who'd once ruled Wrath. Tall, broad-shouldered, and with a wild mane of reddish blond hair, he would've looked genial dressed in anything but his somber, dark robes. Maybe even like a merry, red-cheeked Norse Santa, were he not so focused on the strapping youth sprawled on his back across the rough planks of a trestle table pushed close to the hearth fire.

Clearly a
healer
, the man stood at the head of the table, gently probing an egg-sized lump on Kendrew's forehead. He glanced up at Aidan's approach. “He's not by his wits,” he said, the words loud in the quiet of the hall. “The blow to his head is making him spout foolery. He'll fare better once he's rested.”

Aidan humphed. “I'd hear what happened. From the lad, or whoe'er. And someone—anyone—send men to comb the castle and grounds.” Stepping up to the table, he frowned when Kendrew moaned. “The lad didn't end up like this from tangling with a mist wraith.”

The healer shrugged. “The sharp edge of the mounting block could've cut his shoulder. The knot on his head might be from the block's stone as well,” he suggested, pulling on his beard. “Depends on how he fell.”

“Pah!” quipped an older woman hovering close. “He didn't fall. Conan Dearg attacked him. The lad swore it.”

A second, equally grizzled old woman clucked in agreement.

She held a laver while the other dipped a rag into the bloodied water, then swabbed at the gash in Kendrew's shoulder. “Aye,” she gabbled, turning bright eyes on Aidan, “the laddie said your cousin waved something strange at him, laughing that he'd now ‘best every foe, because he'd see them coming before the battle began.'” Straightening thin shoulders, she flashed a gap-toothed smile and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Conan Dearg then leapt down from the arch, knocking the poor laddie into the mounting block and dashing him on the head wi' the object.”

“The object?” Aidan folded his arms.

“The thing he claimed would let him see any foe's approach,” the other old woman chirped, once more dipping her rag into the laver.

Kira stared at the two women in horror, scarce hearing their babbling. She saw only the youth's shoulder gash and the filthy rag clutched in the woman's gnarled and age-spotted hand.

Medieval healing at its finest.

Hygiene at its worst.

Shuddering, she clutched Aidan's arm, pulling him back from the table.

“Make them stop,” she urged him, her voice rising when the rag-dipping old woman tossed the dripping cloth onto the floor rushes, then produced another, promptly blowing her nose into its ratty-looking folds before plunging the thing deep into Kendrew's wound. “He'll get an infection! Maybe even die. Those filthy rags are full of germs.”

“Hush, Kee-
rah
.” Aidan patted her hand. “Nils and the birthing sisters know what they're about.”

“Oh, no, they don't,” she shot back, her whole body trembling. “They'll only make it worse.”

“Kee-
rah
, leave be,” he warned again, but three startled faces were already looking her way.

The tiniest, most wizened woman peered sharply at her, her lips tightening to a thin, disapproving line. The rag-dipper appeared confused, her knotty hand still pressing the offending cloth against Kendrew's shoulder until Nils puffed his broad chest and plucked the thing from her hand, tossing it not onto the rushes, but into a pail at his feet.

“Lass!” he boomed, fixing Kira with a twinkling blue-eyed stare. “I dinna understand half of what you said, but what I did grasp is just what I've been trying to get through the thick heads of certain she-biddies for years!”

Planting beefy hands on his hips, he cast a frown on the two old women. “To think they call themselves midwives,” he scolded, his tone good-natured all the same. “Me, having seen the work of the great healers of the East, and some here still choose not to heed me when I tell them to use clean lengths of linen and fresh water on wounds.”

“Fresh,
boiled
water,” Kira allowed, sensing an ally in Nils the healer.

Even if the so-called clean bits of linen he was now pulling from some hidden cache in his robes looked anything but snowy white.

They'd surely never been bleached or disinfected.

But they were a vast improvement over the ghastly rags the birthing sisters seemed so fond of.

A chill running through her, she opened her mouth to say more, but glanced at Aidan first, relief sweeping her when he jerked a quick nod, giving her his approval.

At his elbow, Tavish grinned. “Nils learned the healing arts in Jaffa,” he disclosed, edging close so only she could hear him. “He went there as a lad, tagging along on an uncle's pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre, but the poor man succumbed to the journey. Nils was stranded there for years, learning much before he could return. Naught you might say will shock him.”

No' even talk of flying machines and tour buses filled with Ameri-cains?
Kira was sure she heard Aidan mutter beneath his breath.

She hesitated, her gaze flicking from the healer, to Tavish, to Aidan.

The she glanced at Kendrew, his pale face and glittering eyes deciding her.

“These, too, should be boiled.” She indicated two impossibly large-looking bone needles lying on a nearby stool, a suspicious coil of horse-tail thread revealing their purpose. “Kendrew could catch an infec—…I mean, it could go bad for him if these things aren't properly cleaned before they're put to use.”

The two old women sniffed in unison.

The same men who'd narrowed eyes at her when she entered the hall crowded round, looking on expectantly. Those who'd averted their gazes shook their heads and grumbled, but pressed forward just the same, curiosity winning out over stubbornness.

Nils the Viking hooted and grabbed her arm, pulling her closer to the table, thrusting one of his almost-clean cloths into her hands.

“She'll bespell him!” someone objected from the throng.

“Be wary, Nils!” another agreed. “You might find those healing cloths turned into snakes next time you reach for one!”

Ignoring them, Nils handed her a bowl of unsavory-looking paste. “'Tis woundwort,” he told her. “My own special betony healing salve. If you aren't faint of heart, you can apply it to Kendrew's shoulder. It'll help draw out the evil.”

“Of course,” Kira agreed, steeling herself. “I should wash my hands first.” She forced a smile, not wanting to offend. “You should, too. Anyone who touches—”

“Ho, Nils! You speak of evil. I say
she
be evil.” A female voice cut her off, rising clear and angry from somewhere near. “Telling a healer and his helpers how to care for the lad!”

Spinning about, Kira almost collided with the speaker, a beautiful woman with the creamiest skin and brightest hair she'd ever seen. Flame-bright hair that glistened in the torchlight, her braid swinging as she plunked down a basket of fresh linens at Nils's feet, then whipped around to disappear into the crowd without a further word.

Kira opened her mouth to protest, but the rag-dipper scuttled forward then, snatching the cloth and bowl. “Sinead and the others speak true.” She shunted Kira aside with a bony elbow. “With so many strange goings-on these days, it willna do to have
you
poking and prodding at the laddie.”

Bristling, Kira rubbed her ribs. “I only wanted to help,” she said, amazed the tiny old woman could pack such an elbow jab. “I know you mean well, but—”

“And what do you know?” another clansman demanded. “You dinna look like a healer to me!”

“My father was a healer.” Kira lifted her chin, hoping the lie wasn't flashing on her forehead. But better a lie than tell them she knew what she did from life in a future century. “He worked for a king,” she added, borrowing the name of her dad's boss, Elliot King, at the Tile Bonanza.

An uproar rose from the hall. Men pushed closer, scores of bushy brows snapping together as they glared at her, skepticism in every eye.

Aidan was frowning, too. He stood watching her, his arms still folded and his dark expression saying exactly what his tightly clamped lips didn't.

He'd warned her to keep out of it and she hadn't.

“My father
did
work for a king.” She put her hands on her hips and glanced round, letting her own dark look dare any of them to challenge her. “I helped him sometimes.”

She left off that her helping consisted of long-ago summer jobs at the tile shop's checkout.

“Then prove it.” One of the men edged closer, clearly unimpressed. He pointed at Kendrew, sleeping soundly now. “Do something for the lad.”

Kira swallowed.

Heat was beginning to bloom inside her. Any minute now it would sweep up her throat and burst onto her cheeks, revealing her for the liar she was.

“It isn't that easy.” She straightened her back, aware of every stare. “My knowledge isn't very fresh. It's been years since I helped my father,” she added, almost choking on the words.

It was more than years.

Considering where she was, her father hadn't even yet been born!

And even if he were here, he was a ceramic tile salesman, not a healer of kings.

She bit back a groan. She'd really flubbed it this time. Aidan had every right to be frowning at her.

“Good lass.” He stepped forward then, slinging an arm around her shoulders. “I will have water boiled for the cloths and stitching needles,” he said, nodding to Nils and the two birthing sisters. “Now tell us what else you know. Perhaps something that will ease young Kendrew's pain?”

Kira sighed and shoved a hand through her hair.

What Kendrew needed was morphine and penicillin
. A clean, freshly laundered bed in a sterile-smelling hospital, with cute and smiling nurses cooing over him, rather than being cared for by a dark-robed giant who looked like a Viking and two tiny, birdlike women who smelled like they hadn't bathed in a hundred years.

If ever.

She slid a glance at them, hoping Aidan's threat to make his men bathe applied to them as well. Not that their stares would be any less hostile if their bodies were sweet-smelling.

“See?” The rag-dipper pointed at her. “She canna answer you, my lord,” she gloated, beaming at Aidan.

“Well, lass?” He squeezed her shoulders, the gesture giving her courage. “Prove to Ella and Etta that you know what you're about.”

Kira took a deep breath and closed her eyes, concentrating.

Silence filled the hall as everyone waited. A great, ominous silence, unbroken until a long-ago memory flashed through her mind, filling her ears with her dad's grumbles and groans. His endless fussing the day he'd been brought home from work with a huge lump on his head after a heavy box of tile had tumbled off a shelf, striking him.

Kira almost smiled, remembering, too, how her mother had immediately slapped a cloth-wrapped bag of frozen peas onto his head and given him two aspirins.

Her eyes snapped open and she did smile, certain she had the answer.

“I know how to care for that lump on Kendrew's forehead,” she announced, pitching her voice to sound like a healer's daughter. “I'll need something cold. Really cold.” She slipped out from under Aidan's arm and faced the crowd, hands on her hips. “What can you bring me that is cold as winter ice?”

A sea of blank faces stared back at her.

“The siege well in the kitchen has cold water,” Tavish spoke up. “Would that do?”

Before she could answer, Mundy the Irishman pushed forward. “There's a wee spring out near the byres with water much colder than the kitchen well. One sip is enough to make a man think his teeth will crack.”

“That's it!” Kira clapped her hands. “Go, and bring me buckets of it. And”—she glanced at Aidan—“send someone to the kitchens for several small sacks of dried peas.”

He looked at her, his brows starting to pull together again. “Dried peas?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “Just make sure the sacks are as clean as possible,” she added, hoping ice packs made of dried medieval peas soaked in spring water would decrease the swelling as quickly as her mother's bags of frozen veggies.