Editor's Choice Volume I - Slow summer Kisses, Kilts & kraken, Negotiating point (3 page)

The kraken still approached, apparently undaunted by the numerous holes piercing its rubbery hide. They’d almost reached the pier now, and more men stood on the wharf firing at the beast. Geneva reloaded yet again, her movements clumsy as the water churned beneath them and the small craft rocked.

A tentacle surged up out of the waves and crashed down on the gunwale, sending shards of teak flying in all directions. Geneva and Rannulf each rolled to the side, she hampered by her corset and petticoats. The man on her other side dropped his rifle and pulled a sword from his belt, hacking down on the tentacle that tangled in the fabric of her skirt. It thrashed, dislodging itself from her skirt, but slamming Geneva into a bulkhead as it flailed.

Her ears rang as her head impacted the sturdy wooden structure, and the breath was knocked from her chest. The boat bumped onto something, shuddering, and she hoped to heaven it was the pier rather than the squid. Suddenly, another noise rang in her ears, over even the sound of gunfire. A war cry in Gaelic burst up from the cabin below a moment before the hatch slammed open and her patient, pale but wild-eyed, emerged, claymore in hand.

With a frenzy of strength he shouldn’t have possessed, the man attacked the tentacle, and a second that crashed into the deck a few feet farther toward the bow. Though he shouldn’t even have been able to stand on his injured hip, he moved with a speed that had to be magickal and his presence seemed to inspire his clansmen, who fought that much harder.

Geneva caught her breath and stood, reclaiming her rifle and finding a new vantage point from which to fire. More men fought with swords, now that the beast was upon them, but she didn’t have one, so a firearm would have to do. An eye showed right at the waterline beside the boat and she fired at that, hoping it would be more vulnerable.

Someone on shore tied the boat to the pier, steadying it somewhat. Magnus leapt over the gunwale into the shallows and, with a mighty blow, skewered the beast in the other eye. The creature thrashed and sank, the tip of its head falling onto the beach and two bleeding tentacles floating limply on the surface.

“Is it dead?” She dropped her gun and turned to Rannulf.

He tipped his chin. “I think so.”

Geneva turned to stare at Magnus, who staggered up onto the rocky shore beside the pier. He gave one last war cry and laid his sword on the ground before he collapsed.

“How did he do that?” Geneva set down her rifle and ran toward the pier. Rannulf leapt over the rail and lifted her with him. Together they hurried to Magnus’s side.

“’Tis this land. It gives him his strength.” Despite being well into his middle years, Rannulf still outpaced Geneva and reached Magnus first. With gentle hands, he checked his nephew for breath and nodded to Quentin who’d also passed Geneva. “Take his feet.”

If they were anywhere but on a rocky shore, Geneva would have told them to leave the fallen man be. Instead she called over her shoulder, “Someone bring my medical bag,” and hurried to keep pace with the Highlanders. When they reached the road, it seemed like the entire village had clustered around them. She’d have been shoved away from the wagon the men laid Magnus in, if Rannulf hadn’t hauled her up with one meaty hand. Moments later, he did the same to Alice, who had caught up at some point. Rannulf pulled Alice down to the straw beside him while Geneva dropped to her knees and laid her head against Magnus’s chest.

“He’s breathing, and his heartbeat is stronger than it was on Mull.” None of this was medically possible. The man ought to be dead. More than ever, she was sure magick was at work. “Rannulf, you said he draws strength from the island itself?”

Quentin cursed. While everyone in Britain knew magick existed, most managed to go through their entire lives without encountering it face-to-face, and here on the fringes, the possibility of witch-burning still existed.

Rannulf held up a hand. “They need to know. The doctor kens the ways of magick, don’t you, lass?”

“I do.” Geneva pushed aside Magnus’s shirt and applied pressure to one of the wounds on his chest, the worst he’d reopened. “I can keep a secret, too. If the magick isn’t evil, you’ll get no trouble from me.” Of course she’d inform the Order. Keeping track of such things was part of its purpose.

Rannulf tipped his head gravely. “Being here strengthens the laird. Being away weakens him. With luck, we’ve gotten him home in time.”

“You mean he can never leave Torkholm?” How sad, to be trapped, able to see nothing of the world.

Quentin growled under his breath. “None of your business. First thing in the morning, it’s back to Mull with the two of you and good riddance.”

“He can leave, for a little while.” Rannulf cast Quentin a quelling glance. “A few hours to Tiree, or a half day of fishing, but he’s worn out when he returns.” Tiree was the nearest inhabited island, perhaps an hour by boat according to the maps Geneva had studied.

“Even here, he can die, can’t he?” She checked the wound beneath her hands, pleased that the bleeding had slowed. His skin still showed the ashen pallor of the critically injured.

“Aye,” Rannulf said. “The power only does so much. He can take ill, or be killed outright in battle, same as any other man.”

“Do you have a physician here on the island?” Others had been injured in the squid attacks, too. Did the island’s magick work for them? “What do the other residents do?”

“We’ve healers.” Quentin’s glare burned like acid on the back of Geneva’s neck as she bent over her patient. “Better than any quack. We don’t need your kind here.”

“Stubble it, lad.” This was obviously an old argument between the two men. “Your laird won’t thank you for chasing off the ladies who saved his hide. You think without care, he’d have survived until we found him?”

“Sorry.”

Geneva ignored the grumbled, grudging apology and caught her breath as they entered the bailey of a medieval castle at the top of the island’s central hill.

Clearly, she’d stepped into a fairytale of local granite and blooming wildflowers, gaslights and well-oiled machinery side by side with architecture unchanged for centuries.

Alice spoke the words caught in Geneva’s throat. “It’s beautiful.”

Rannulf gave Alice a warm smile. “Aye. ’Tis home.”

Chapter Three

After she reset Magnus’s pelvis and restitched several of his wounds, Geneva left him under the watchful eye of a maid. Geneva and Alice followed Rannulf to a steam-powered lift that creaked and groaned its way back down to the great hall. A relic of the castle’s medieval origins, the giant stone-walled room was full of what must have been half the village. Long trestle tables were arranged in a U-shape, and in the center, a line of perhaps a dozen men and women sporting a variety of bandages waited, some standing, others on benches. The rest of the crowd, at least a hundred, gathered around the outside.

“If you don’t mind, Doctor, I’d thought you might take a look at some of the other wounded men, since you can’t leave until morning.” Rannulf cast her a sheepish grin. “Our healers are good, but with the kraken attacks, there’ve been more wounded than two women can handle.”

Geneva chuckled and exchanged wry glances with Alice. “In for a penny, right? Lead on, Mr. MacAuley.”

He did, placing her bag on the head table and sending a maid for hot water and soap. Other supplies were already laid out. “Sure of us, wasn’t he?” she whispered to Alice.

“Mmm.” The older woman shot a glance that bordered on indecent at Rannulf’s back. “Still, he seems like a good man.”

“That he does.” Geneva had yet to see anything not to like in the burly older man.

Rannulf, or someone at his direction, had lined the patients up in order of need, meaning they saw the worst wounded first. A man named MacRae, game warden for the laird, had a festering cut on his arm that had been stitched by his wife, but not before infection had set in. “Healer said it wasn’t worth bothering with,” he grumbled as Geneva and Alice painstakingly cleaned the wound. He held still, fortified with a dram from Rannulf when Geneva rebandaged it with a poultice of bread mold, unstitched to let the toxins drain. “Can’t get close to them since this damn kraken business started.”

“Come by the castle first thing in the morning,” she said. “I want to look at that arm one more time before I leave. I’ll leave instructions with Mr. MacAuley. Someone will help you take care of it after I’m gone.”

“Thank ye, miss. Yer an angel, to be sure.” With a little help from another man, he made his way from the room.

“And who do we have here?” Geneva knelt in front of the next patient, a boy of perhaps eight. His leg was propped up on the bench, his face flushed with pain.

“David, miss,” his mother said. “He got knocked from the pier by the squid this afternoon and I think his ankle’s broke.”

“Let’s have a look.” Geneva peeled back the shawl covering the boy’s leg and studied the bent and swollen ankle. “Yes, it certainly does look as if it’s broken.”

“Will he be able to walk again?” Tears leaked down the mother’s face.

“I’ll do my best. I’d like to give him a few drops of laudanum. This is going to hurt something awful when I set the bone. Alice, can you prepare a splint?”

“Already working on it,” Alice said. “Here’s the laudanum and a spoon.”

Geneva carefully measured the dose. On such a young child, the stuff could be deadly. After she’d given the medicine a few moments to work, she set the broken ankle and bound it tightly in the splint. “No walking on that at all for at least six weeks.”

The huge oaken door to the castle slammed open. Two women, one in her forties and one perhaps twenty-five, stood in the entry way. The younger, a stunningly beautiful brunette, screamed, “What is the meaning of this?”

Rannulf left Alice’s side to confront the two women. “We brought someone to help the wounded. Not that it’s anything to you.”

The older one, still attractive although her hair was streaked with gray, shoved Rannulf back. “I am the healer for Torkholm. How dare you bring some foreign slut to take my place?”

“I wasn’t aware that Edinburgh is considered a foreign country.” Geneva stood and crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at the intruders, her body blocking her young patient from them. “If you’re skilled and want to help, by all means do so. I’m not interested in taking over your position.”

“You? Ha!” The younger woman spat. “We don’t
help
the likes of you, and we don’t need you here, either. Leave now, before the island itself curses your very bones.”

Geneva felt the air for magick, and found a trace. The healers had some power, it seemed. On the off chance that they could truly curse her, she tried to remain polite. “As I said, I’m only here to help. I’m leaving tomorrow at first light.”

“Ye’ll be gone
now.
” The older woman’s hands clenched into claws.

“You’re too busy already, Edda,” one man called. “Those of us you don’t like are last in line. I’ve waited three days for you to see me. Be off, and leave the doctor to do her work.”

“Doctor? Is that what they’re calling whores nowadays?” The older woman sneered.

A child in the crowd began to cry, and something in Geneva snapped.

“I don’t give a damn what you think of me.” She advanced on the women until she stood toe-to-toe with the younger. “You’re disturbing my patients. Get out of this room. Right. Now.” She poked the woman’s shoulder with each of the last two words before turning to Rannulf. “Get rid of them.”

“Aye, Doctor.” He grinned broadly and began to peel the older woman’s fingertips from the door jamb, to her screeching fury.

“I’ll go,” spat the younger. Her blue eyes glared daggers at Geneva. “Know this. Keep your hands off my fiancé. Touch him, and I’ll kill you myself.” On that, she whirled and left.

Geneva shook her head and returned to her patients, forcing down her anger. Did she mean the laird? Was Magnus really betrothed to that shrew? She pitied him more for that than for his shattered hip.

* * *

Magnus heard his angel’s voice again. Who had his men brought in to tend him? Someone from the mainland. Her accent was all wrong for the Hebrides. Or was he still where he’d been before? Had he only dreamed the journey home and the battle that had greeted him on his return?

“Magnus?” This time he knew the voice.

“Rannulf?” His lips unglued before his eyelids did. A few seconds later he managed to blink, and the face of his uncle swam into view. “Home?”

“Aye.” Rannulf helped Magnus sit and held a cup of water to his lips. “You’re back on Torkholm. You’ll be up and around in no time.”

Magnus sipped at the cool liquid and sank back against the plump pillows behind his head. “Thank the gods. I thought it was over, when I realized I was away.”

“It was a close call. If it hadn’t been for Dr. MacKay and Mrs. Alice taking such good care of you, you wouldn’t have made it.” Emotion they’d never express in words roughened the burr in Rannulf’s always raspy voice. “We owe them, lad. Owe them dearly.”

“Aye. Send something.” Money wasn’t an issue. Magnus’s Norse ancestors had founded this island on plundered wealth, but subsequent generations had amassed a fortune through businesses and investments all over Britain. “Did we lose any men in that last attack?”

“Not one—just a few bumps and bruises. As to a thank-you gift, well, we won’t need to send anything.” Rannulf’s blue eyes twinkled. “They’re both here. Right now they’re treating some of the other men wounded by that last kraken—much to the annoyance of Catriona and Edda.”

“Bloody hell.” The mere idea of the affront taken by the island-bred herbalist and midwife made Magnus’s head ache. “Edda thinks we’ve gone too far by bringing gaslights and steam-powered pumps to the island. I’m surprised this doctor is still breathing.”

“Aye. It wasn’t pretty, but I’d lay my money on the lowlander this time. Dr. MacKay put Edda in her place in no uncertain terms. Sent her and Catriona marching straight back to their cottage.”

Magnus winced. “Quentin must have been thrilled.” His cousin had been one of Magnus’s closest friends since childhood, but he was moody at the best of times, and he didn’t take well to change. Most importantly, he was betrothed to Catriona.

“Quentin was out checking on crofters, but I imagine he’ll be a bit upset when he hears.” Rannulf had a gift for understatement.

“Obviously it’s a day for miracles. I look forward to meeting this doctor.” In truth, Magnus always looked forward to visitors, especially educated ones. It was nice to chat with people who saw the rest of the world. One could only get so much from days-old newspapers.

“Orders were to fetch them when you woke up. I’ll go get the doctor now, and the nurse. Mrs. Alice worked with Miss Nightingale during the war. You were in good hands, lad.”

Magnus hadn’t seen that particular light in the older man’s eyes in years. Not, in fact, since Rannulf’s wife had passed almost a decade earlier. Since the man was the closest thing Magnus had known to a father since he was ten, it meant a lot to see Rannulf smiling. “The nurse…is she pretty?”

“Aye, pretty as can be and a widow. A mite old for the likes of you, though.” Rannulf’s grin twisted, a sure sign of mischief. “I’ll go get them and you can see for yourself.”

What the devil was the old man up to—besides flirting with a pretty widow?

Two minutes later, Magnus gaped as Rannulf introduced Dr. Geneva MacKay. What the hell was a tall, striking young woman doing holding a stethoscope to Magnus’s bare chest? Her hair brushed his chin and the scents of violets and carbolic acid tickled his nose.

“I see you’ve improved greatly in just the last hour.” She straightened and smiled down at Magnus, her white teeth straight and even between plump, rosy lips. Her dark copper curls were pulled back into an unappealing knot at the back of her head, and her eyes, a warm hazel blend of greens and brown glinted with intelligence and humor.

Part of Magnus that had no business stirring at all stood to attention. He sat up against the pillows, draping his forearms over his lap to hide his reaction. “You’re the quack?” This had to be a poor joke—perhaps Rodney or Catherine had put Rannulf up to it. His cousins had been trying to convince Magnus to marry for years.

“I am, in fact. The card-carrying quack. There’s a photographic copy of my license in my bag, in case you’d care to check.” She spoke quickly, with the refined accents of the upper class as she peeled a bandage from his shoulder. “You wouldn’t be the first patient to require proof. Now let me see your hip. I had to reset the bone after they carried you in here.”

“I most certainly will not.” He clutched the covers more tightly, not about to let a woman, younger than he from the looks of her, see his naked backside under these circumstances. “Rannulf can check it.”

“Who do you think reset the bone six hours ago?” She glanced toward Rannulf and the nurse, who was perhaps in her forties, and trying a bit too obviously not to look at Magnus’s uncle. “I think our chaperones there will be sufficient to protect your virtue. Now move.”

“I think
they’re
the ones who need chaperones.” He looked away as she peeled back the blanket. Her fingers were cool when she prodded the area above his hipbone. “Ow!”

“It’s knitting remarkably quickly, but it hasn’t finished yet. At the rate you’re healing, I’d say you can probably get out of bed sometime tomorrow, and be back on your feet fully the day after.”

“I’ve always been a fast healer,” he muttered into his pillow, trying not to panic. How much had she noticed? How much would her silence cost him?

“Relax.” She laid one hand, not as smooth and soft as her voice, against his bare shoulder. “I’ll keep your secret, Lord Findlay. You’ve nothing to worry about from me or Alice.”

“She’s got magick of her own,” Rannulf rumbled. “Can’t you feel it, son?”

Like called to like. Magnus’s magick was simply what he was, not something he practiced but he did have a kind of knack for sensing other powers around him. Edda, the old healer and her daughter Cat both had a bit. Now that he concentrated, he could sense some in the doctor.

“A natural healer? Convenient for a physician, I’d think.” Again, his words were muffled by the pillow beneath his face.

“A bit, and yes, it helps. It’s mainly heightened senses and reflexes that run in my family,” she said. “Even that isn’t something we talk about either. I’d appreciate your silence in return for my own.”

He owed her that and more. “Aye.” He yelped again when she prodded another wound.

“Healing nicely, but don’t overdo it. Even with the magick, it’ll take some time until you’re at full strength again.” She stepped back from the bed and spoke to one of the others. “I’ve other patients waiting below. Send someone for me if he takes a bad turn during the night. If not, I’ll check back first thing tomorrow morning.”

Magnus’s stomach rumbled. “Can you send someone up with some food? I could eat an entire cow, it seems.”

Rannulf, the traitor, looked to the lass.

She nodded. “If his stomach will keep it down, by all means, feed him. Start small and light, to make sure.”

“Sensible, for a quack.” Not that Magnus had much of any experience with mainland doctors. He nodded to her as her hand hovered over the doorknob. “Thank you, Dr. MacKay. I’m told I owe you my life, and I’m inclined to believe it.”

An odd expression flitted across her fair face. “I’m only doing my job, my lord. Now, try to get some sleep.”

As weak as he was, Magnus knew he’d sleep as soon as he’d eaten and taken care of other needs—ones becoming more and more urgent. “Goodnight, Doctor. Nurse.” Hopefully they’d leave before he embarrassed himself.

Rannulf ushered the women out and handed Magnus a bedpan. “Sorry, lad. No walking to the loo for you tonight.” He dealt with it afterward with no more embarrassment than when he’d changed Magnus’s nappies. “I’ll send someone up with a meal.”

Magnus suffered through being fed with a spoon by one of the maids. He managed to get a bowl of soup and a piece of warm bread into his belly before nodding off. He couldn’t remember ever being this weak—either from his injuries themselves, or more likely, being away from Torkholm.

It really was a miracle he’d survived.

Aye, and that miracle had red hair and an acerbic tongue. In his dreams a bit later, she also had a pair of wings—and a pitchfork. When he woke, sweating and aroused, Magnus blamed the residual laudanum.