The Saint (20 page)

“I don’t.”

He had that hard, stubborn look on his face that infuriated her. “How can you say that after what just happened?”

“Wanting is not the same thing as caring, Helen. Surely you know the difference?”

It horrified her to realize she didn’t. How would she? The only man she’d ever kissed was he—and William, but the chaste peck in the church didn’t seem to count.

No, she wouldn’t let him confuse her. She might be innocent, but she could tell when a man cared for her. And she’d seen his face at the wedding. The tic betrayed him. She thrust her chin up. “I don’t believe you.”

He shrugged. “I’ve never liked Munro. But marry him, if that’s what you wish.”

Her heart dropped. “You don’t mean that.” Her voice
sounded raw and dry. It wasn’t just competitiveness that had made him jealous … was it?

“He can protect you.”

What did that have to do with anything? Why did she need protection?

“But I don’t love him. I love you.”

Magnus stilled, trying to not let himself react to her words, but feeling them reverberate inside him like a drum.

She didn’t mean it. And even if she did, it wasn’t enough. He’d traveled down this road before. He wouldn’t do it again.

She’d made her decision four years ago. She didn’t love him enough then; nothing had changed. Whatever chance they might have had died the day she married Gordon.

He was furious at himself for losing control and kissing her. But he’d been out of his mind with jealousy, and when she’d taunted him with her body and her words, he’d lost control—which around her was becoming an appallingly frequent occurrence. The temptation to take what she offered …

He needed to get the hell out of here.

I love you
.

Damn it. He couldn’t stop hearing the words.

She didn’t mean it. Her brother was right. She loved everything around her. She didn’t love him. If she had, she would never have refused him, and she sure as hell wouldn’t have married another man.

“Did you figure this out before or after you married my best friend?”

She flinched, perhaps as he intended. He knew it was wrong, this lashing out. But something about her—something about this situation—made him want to hurt her as badly as he’d been hurt. As he still hurt.

“That was a mistake. I never should have married William. He knew it as well as I—”

He didn’t want to hear this. “It doesn’t matter.”

But the reminder of his friend hardened his resolve and reminded him of why he’d come here. Now that he’d assured himself she wasn’t in danger, he could put this all behind him. He could put
her
behind him.

One more day
. He could make it through one more day.

At least he thought he could. But then she closed the distance he’d put between them. She was so small and feminine. The overwhelming urge to take her in his arms again rose inside him. Her soft, alluring scent taunted him. He could still taste her on his mouth, the sweet honey of her lips ambrosia to a starving man.

He’d never lost control like that. Never. He’d wanted to ravish her senseless. Press her up against that tree, wrap her legs around his hips, and do what he’d been wanting to do to her for years. She wasn’t a girl any longer. Nor the virginal maid he’d thought to take for his bride.

“What must I do? Get down on my hands and knees to beg your forgiveness?”

Oh hell
. For that was where he was surely going. The image of her on her knees before him …

It wasn’t begging that he was thinking about, but her mouth wrapped around him. His hands sinking through the soft silk of her hair as she took him deep into her naughty mouth and milked him. Heaviness tugged in his groin, his cock thickened.

Damn it, he was losing all rationality. Her nearness was like a sensual drug. She had no idea what she did to him. How one look, one touch, one whiff could send him into a mindless, lust-induced stupor.

Suddenly, one more day seemed like forever.

“There is nothing to forgive.” Their eyes met and seeing her earnestness, a little of the hardness inside him softened. “You don’t even know me anymore, Helen. I’m not the same man I was four years ago.”

It was the truth. They couldn’t go back to the way things were, even if he wanted to.

“Neither am I. I’m stronger. I would never let my family persuade me to go against my heart. Won’t you give me—us—a chance?”

He was more tempted by her words than he wanted to admit. But guilt was a powerful antidote.
She’s not yours, damn it
.

The sound of footsteps behind him proved a welcome interruption. He turned, surprised to see MacGregor racing toward him through the trees.

His instincts flared, immediately sensing that something was wrong. He reached for his sword.

“What is it?” he asked as MacGregor came to a hard stop before him, the heaviness of his breath testament to how fast he’d run.

The look on his face made Magnus brace himself for the worst. But still it wasn’t enough.

“It’s the king,” he said. His gaze shot to Helen. “You’d better come, too, my lady. He’s ill. Terribly ill.”

Helen had never been more scared in her life. The realization that the King of Scotland’s life rested in her hands was terrifying, to say the least. A messenger had been dispatched to try to find Muriel, but the situation was too dire to wait. Robert the Bruce was dying.

She worked tirelessly through the day and night, doing everything in her power to halt the deathly plague that had overtaken him. Feverish, violently ill, and unable to keep anything down, the king came close to dying so many times she lost count.

Magnus was by her side the entire time. He told her of the king’s illness the winter before last, where he’d nearly died after a similar malady. He’d suffered a few recurring bouts since then of fatigue, weakness, and aches, but nothing like this violent vomiting and flux.

Magnus’s description matched a common malady that typically affected sailors and nobles. Farmers and peasants, however, rarely suffered from the sickness. Some suspected certain foods were the cause; poorer folk couldn’t afford as much meat and subsided on less expensive foods like fruits, vegetables, eggs, and pottages.

She’d asked Magnus to describe the king’s diet and found
that like most noblemen, he favored meat, cheese, fish, and bread.

But so far, her efforts to combat the illness with pottages and mashed-up vegetables and fruits had not worked. It wasn’t surprising, as the king couldn’t seem to keep anything in his stomach. But part of her wondered whether it was something else.

Late on the second night—or early the third morning—the king became delirious. Helen mopped his brow, squeezed drops of whisky in his mouth, and tried to keep him calm, but she didn’t know what to do. She was losing him, and never had she felt so helpless.

She gazed at Magnus, who had taken a position opposite her at the king’s bedside. The stress of the situation had caught up to her, and tears of frustration and exhaustion gathered in her throat. “Where is Muriel? Why isn’t she here?”

Magnus detected the threat of hysteria lurking behind the despair. He took her hand in his as he used to do when they were young, and gave it an encouraging squeeze. It was so firm and strong. The king’s illness had toppled the wall Magnus had erected between them—at least temporarily.

“The king can’t wait for Muriel, Helen. He needs you. I know you’re tired. I know you’re exhausted. I am, too. But you can do this.”

There was something about his voice that calmed her fraying nerves. It was how he’d been the entire time throughout his own ordeal. It was as if the direness of the situation, the pressure, the stress, never reached him. He knew the king was dying, but his confidence in her never wavered.

God, had she really thought him too temperate? He was solid—a rock. An anchor in a stormy sea.

She nodded. “You’re right.”

With a burst of renewed energy and determination, she
asked him to describe the king’s previous illness for her again, wondering if she could have missed something.

He spoke of the king’s pallor and weakness, the sunken eyes, the violent nausea, and the lesions on his skin. All common characteristics of the sailors’ illness.

Helen could still see the scars on the king’s legs where those lesions had been. But so far, no new ones had appeared.

“Was there any swelling of his limbs?” she asked.

He shook his head. “There could have been; I don’t remember.”

Helen knew that was a common trait of the sailors’ illness.

“What is it?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Nothing.” Or nothing she could put her finger on. But the absence of the skin lesions and swelling bothered her.

Other maladies ran through her mind, but the one that made the most sense was the sailors’ illness. The only other time she’d seen something like this was when one of the villagers had accidentally been poisoned by handling monkshood.

Poison
. Here at Dunrobin? Even the suspicion could have horrible ramifications for her family, whose recent submission made them of suspect loyalty as it was. She quickly pushed the thought away.

“There must be something else you can do? Something you haven’t tried?”

She hesitated, and he immediately jumped on that hesitation. “What is it?”

She shook her head. “It’s too dangerous.” The finger-like plant foxglove was poisonous in certain quantities, causing violent vomiting not unlike what the king was experiencing now. Except that sometimes, Muriel said it could effect a cure of the same. The difficulty was in determining the quantity.

He held her gaze, steady. “I think we are past caution, Helen. If there is something you can do—anything you can do—try it.”

He was right. Dunrobin village was too small for an apothecary, but Muriel had always kept the castle well provisioned. “Keep giving him the whisky and try squeezing some of the juice from the lemon,” she said. Fortunately, the trading routes from the East had opened again with the truce, and the availability of foreign fruits had become more plentiful. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

She returned in less than a quarter of an hour with the tincture of foxglove, vinegar, and white wine. Her brothers, Gregor MacGregor, and other high-ranking members of the king’s retinue who were standing vigil in the Great Hall and wanted to know whether there was any improvement had delayed her a few additional minutes. Magnus had given strict instruction that the news of the king’s illness must be kept quiet—Bruce’s hold on the throne was still too precarious. There would be some who would try to take advantage. Undoubtedly he counted her family in that group.

When she saw the king’s stilled body, she feared the worst. “Is he …?”

Magnus shook his head. “He’s alive.”
Barely
, she heard the unspoken word. “But exhausted,” he finished.

The delirium had weakened him even further. Helen knew she had no other choice. Praying that she hadn’t used too much, she poured the medicine in a small pottery cup. Her hand shook as she held it to the king’s mouth. Magnus lifted the king’s head and she poured it between his chapped lips. His face was as gray as a death mask.

Some of the liquid dribbled out of the corner of his mouth, but most of it went down.

She and Magnus sat in silence, anxiously waiting for a sign. Helen was beset by self-doubt, wondering if she’d done the right thing. For a while nothing happened. Then the king woke and started to writhe. Her fear increased. He
started to lash out, calling her Elizabeth—his queen still imprisoned in England—and demanding to know why she hadn’t bought him marzipan for his last saint’s day. He loved marzipan. Was she still angry with him about the woman? She didn’t mean anything. None of them did.

Magnus held the king down, and their eyes met. He looked at her in question.

“Sometimes it makes people see things.” She explained the king’s vision of his imprisoned wife, ignoring the private conversation they’d overheard. But the king’s love of the lasses was well known.

Still, Helen held out hope. But a short while later the vomiting and flux started again. The king was more ill than ever. When at last the terrible barrage ended, his breath was so shallow as to barely come at all.

She looked at Magnus and shook her head. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she said. It hadn’t worked.

He walked around the bed and drew her into his arms. She collapsed against him, letting the warmth and solidness of his embrace wrap around her. “You tried,” he said softly. “You did everything you could.” She thought she felt his mouth on the top of her head, but she was so exhausted she’d probably imagined it.

He sat in the chair she’d just vacated and drew her down on his lap. She put her head on his shoulder the way she used to do when they were young. And just like then, his solid strength filled her with a sense of contentment and warmth. A sense of belonging. It was the last thing she remembered until she woke to gentle shaking.

She opened her eyes to bright sunlight and winced, immediately shutting them again. “Helen,” he said. “Look.”