Beloved Stranger (10 page)
Authors: Patricia Potter
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #General, #Historical, #Scottish
She walked even faster.
E used her crutch to walk. Every step required every ounce of strength he had. His chest both burned and ached. His leg would barely hold him.
He had struggled to his feet after the woman and child left.
He would not put them in danger. He would go into the woods and rest, then try to make it to the border. She must be right. Someone beyond the border would know him, recognize him.
And she would not regret helping him. He would make sure she was amply rewarded.
He knew he had to leave, even though a voice deep inside him told him he belonged here, or at least with Mistress Charlton and her young lass.
Kimbra felt it, too. He knew that. Which was why he had to leave until he could discover who and what he was. He was drawn to her, but what if he had a family of his own? He would not dishonor someone who had helped him, and he knew every day he stayed could lead to exactly that.
Yet where would he go?
North. The day was cloudy. He had no idea which direction was north.
Bear followed him, as though it was his job to protect him. He tried several times to send him back, but the infernal dog refused to heed him.
His clothes felt unfamiliar, and he regretted the necessity of taking them. They did not belong to him; he felt that to his bone. He wondered whether he would have felt that before his head injury. Had he been a just man as well as a warrior?
He stumbled, the pain in his leg crippling him. His chest was a fiery inferno. How long had he been gone, and how far had he come? Not far, yet he could not see the cottage, and trees were closing in around him. He prayed he was going in the right direction.
He took several more steps, then found a fallen log to sit on. He knew if he went all the way to the ground, he could not rise again. But he had to rest.
Bear sat with him. “Go back,” he said.
The dog sat and stared at him.
Frustrated, Lachlan stared back in a battle of wills. He did not know why Bear was following him and refused to go home. He was Audra’s dog, meant to protect a child, not a warrior.
Warrior. Somehow the word did not ring true to him. He wanted to read and sing songs and play the lute. He had no urge to kill another human being, yet he probably had. Many times.
As for being fierce, not even a dog obeyed him.
The thought did not relieve him. Why did nothing seem familiar?
“Go home!” he ordered again.
Bear lay down and rested his head on his paws, all the while looking at him.
“God’s tooth,” he muttered. He could not take the child’s dog.
He would have to go back. Put the dog inside or tie him up.
He tried to stand. Weakness flooded him. He grabbed for the crutch, but it fell. He noticed his breeches were wet with blood.
Kimbra Charlton had been right. He was not . . . ready.
He tried again to rise, but his legs would not hold him, and he fell beside the log. He looked up through the trees. The sun was fast disappearing, and he shivered from the damp air that seemed to be growing colder.
He would rest a few moments. Just a few.
He reached out for the dog, but the animal moved out of reach, watching him with dark eyes. Then Bear bounded away.
Lachlan’s eyes closed.
IT was dusk before Kimbra and Audra reached the cottage.
No welcoming bark greeted them. She went inside. She’d left two large pieces of log in the fireplace, but they were down to embers now, and the cottage was cold and dark.
Kimbra placed her sleeping daughter down on the pallet. She didn’t want to alarm her, and when Audra slept, she slept deeply. She probably would not move for hours.
She hurried into the solar chamber. In the darkening gloom, she saw the bed was empty.
What had happened to him? He was too weak to go anywhere.
She returned into the main room and added some smaller pieces of wood to the embers. In moments they flamed, and she lit a candle.
Audra stirred and mumbled something.
She knelt by her daughter and comforted her, even as her thoughts were in turmoil.
Where was the Scot? And Bear.
The dog would never have left without a good reason.
Had someone come by and taken the Scot, and Bear thought he should follow?
Yet nothing was out of place. The stick the Scot had used to hobble around with was gone.
Had he gone on his own?
But how could he? His wounds had been too severe. She had seen and tended too many wounded men not to know that determination would carry them only so far.
She remembered his insistence that his presence not harm her or Audra.
She placed the candle in a lantern, then went outside to look around. Dusk was quickly turning into night, every moment further darkening the sky. A wind blew, and clouds raced across the sky. The air had turned cold.
She would have to look for him.
But that meant leaving Audra alone.
She closed her eyes for a moment. She didn’t want to make decisions like this. She couldn’t. Her heart ached. Her conscience hurt. She couldn’t leave her daughter. She couldn’t leave the Scot somewhere to die.
She heard a bark, then saw Bear running toward her, stopping at her feet and looking up at her.
“Bear? Do you know where he went?”
Bear barked again.
“I can’t leave Audra.”
Bear ran a few feet toward the woods, then looked back again, obviously begging her to follow.
The Scot couldn’t have gone far. Audra should be safe for a short period of time.
She followed Bear through the woods, though she could barely see. A mist was falling, and it eclipsed all but the few feet illuminated by the lantern.
Bear would run ahead, then bark and wait until she reached him. Then he would bound ahead again, barking again, encouraging her.
He could not have gone this far.
She started to call Bear and turn back, when the dog’s barking changed. It was high-pitched and frantic.
Still holding the lantern with one hand, she slowly moved forward, the branches of trees brushing against her skin. She stopped suddenly.
A body lay next to a log.
She hurried over to the still form.
Her Scot’s breathing came in short rasping sounds, and blood had spread over the ground. She muttered one of Will’s favorite curses and stooped down.
She tried to wake him. He moaned slightly, and his eyes flew open, but they appeared unseeing.
Fury at him rose up in her. He had been improving, and now he’d been lying on the cold ground in a mist, and his efforts had opened the wound just newly closed.
She said fool in every way she knew, then decided that didn’t help much.
He was losing blood and could catch an infection in his lungs if he had not already. She told herself she should leave him here. She knew she couldn’t.
She shook him as gently as possible, and he started up, a roar in his throat rather than a moan, his arms thrashing about.
Go, and leave him here. He is not worth it.
Audra is waiting for you. She’s all alone.
“Scot,” she demanded loudly.
Nothing.
She shook him harder. This time his eyes seemed to concentrate.
“You cannot stay here,” she said. “You will die. You must help me.”
“Tired. So tired.”
“You should be,” she said. “You were addled enough to walk far from the cottage when you could barely move this morning. Where did you think you were going?”
“Did not want . . . you . . . to risk . . . more.”
“Well, now you and your bloody conscience or whatever it is are going to cause more problems.” Her voice was harsher than intended, mainly because of worry.
The mist turned into rain. She should have brought Magnus with her, and the litter, but she hadn’t fancied dragging it through the woods. She had hoped he had not gone far, and that he could return on his own.
Obviously, he could not.
He shivered, his entire body moving.
She made her decision.
“Bear, stay with him. Lie down and keep him warm. I’ll be back.”
Using the lantern for what little illumination it provided in the rain, she ran as quickly as she could back to the cottage.
It wasn’t long before she reached the stable and quickly saddled Magnus. She hitched the litter she’d made days earlier to the horse, then started back.
She was reminded only too well of her other journey a few nights earlier. This was a short distance, and not so dangerous, but her heart pounded, and she knew it pounded with fear for him.
Chapter 7
H
E didn’t stop shivering, even when she got him back to the cottage. He was unconscious. She knew she couldn’t get him up on the bed. It had been all she could do to roll him onto and off of the litter.
E didn’t stop shivering, even when she got him back to the cottage. He was unconscious. She knew she couldn’t get him up on the bed. It had been all she could do to roll him onto and off of the litter.
She dragged him into the main room next to the fire and covered him with everything she could find.
The weather hadn’t been icy cold, but the damp cool ground and rain could be deadly for someone so weak.
She put more wood in the fireplace, then tried to pull off his breeches. When she couldn’t, she used her dagger to cut the cloth around his wound. His leg was gapping open, the stitches she’d so carefully made pulled away.
Kimbra left his side and went to Audra. Her daughter was still sleeping. Bear was inside and had settled down next to her.
She reached down and picked up Audra and took her into the other room, settling her in the big feather bed. She closed the door behind her as she returned to the Scot.
She probably should have cauterized the Scot’s wound when she first brought him here. But now she had no choice. It was bleeding badly and had torn too far apart to be sewn back again. She thanked God he was unconscious. If only he remained that way.
She went over to the fireplace and placed the dagger in the flames and watched until she thought the metal hot enough.
Her stomach turned over. She had done the same thing for Will, had seen his body react though not a sound escaped his lips. And he had still died.
She wrapped her hand with a piece of cloth, picked up the dagger and approached him. “Stay unconscious,” she pleaded softly.
Kimbra kneeled beside him, steeling herself to do what needed to be done to staunch the bleeding and close the wound.
She pressed the dagger against the wound, heard the sizzle of heat against skin and smelled the odor of burning flesh. His body jerked, then relaxed. But she knew the agony he would feel when he woke.
He shivered, and she lay down next to him, putting one arm around him, letting his body absorb her body’s heat.
She rose several times during the night to fuel the fire. She wiped his damp face with a towel, pushed back strands of his hair, felt the stubble of new beard.
She willed him to fight, willed him to live with all the strength of her body. It was as if his death would be hers as well. As if they had become one.
By now she knew every scar on his tall, lanky body. She didn’t know the scars in his mind.
And so she prayed as she had not prayed since her husband died.
Inverleith
Rory planned to leave the next morning when two messengers arrived. One came from Janet at Dunstaffnage. She had received a ransom demand for Jamie and had sent it on to Jamie’s father in Edinburgh. Jamie Campbell was alive!
If Jamie was alive, then Lachlan could be as well. Perhaps a messenger was on his way with the same demand for his brother.
The second message came from Queen Margaret. It was a summons to Edinburgh, a plea. She needed counsel about her infant son, now king, and there were few people she truly trusted. Most of those had died at Flodden.
Rory had not been a confidante to either the king or his bonny queen, but King James had granted him the greatest boon of all, his wife. The king had mended a century-long feud between the Campbells and Macleans, and for that Rory had vowed fealty. There was no question of refusal, even now. He would have to journey to Edinburgh.
Archibald would accompany several Campbells to the border with the ransom. Rory would join them as soon as possible.
Felicia wanted to go with him, but she could not leave Maggie and little Patrick that long. Her children were yet too young.
Rory saw the longing in her eyes as he bade her farewell. “I wish you were going with me,” he said.
“My days of adventuring are over.”
“I think not, love. They will come again.”
She looked mollified by the observation. Until the babes came, she’d created chaos wherever she went, a quality that had amused and befuddled him. But since the bairns came, she had been the model of motherhood. Still, he sometimes glimpsed a longing for adventure in her eyes. Someday, he’d promised, he would take her back to sea.
Now she shared his concern for Lachlan. She loved his brother as much as he did.
Rory blessed every day he’d had with Felicia and would miss her greatly.
“Why do you not ask Janet to come stay here with you until Jamie returns?”
Her eyes brightened. “I will.”
He’d already saddled his horse, and the animal was waiting in front of the entrance. He could tarry no longer. He leaned down and gave her a long lingering kiss.
As he reluctantly drew away, he touched her face, memorizing its feel. He did not know how long he would be gone.
“Hurry back. I do not want to come after you.”
And she
would.
would.
He left then. If he hadn’t, the look in her eyes would have delayed him even longer.
B
EAR’S barking warned Kimbra as she loosened the damp cloth binding the Scot’s chest.
She looked outside. Thomas Charlton was dismounting slowly and obviously painfully.
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