The Love of Her Life (Highlander Heroes Book 6) Read online

  Eleanor rolled her eyes at her but remained otherwise motionless, did not flinch at all as Katie pushed the bone needle through her skin. As she sewed, aware of Henry’s drawn face, managing enough flinching for both himself and Eleanor, Katie sent him about a chore. “Fetch the honey, Henry, and the smallest green pouch.”

  She continued running thread and needle back and forth across the three inch gash. Only the middle of it truly needed any stitching, but since she was already about the chore, she closed the entire wound.

  “Eleanor,” Katie said as she worked, having some sense that the woman purposefully did not watch the process, “I’ve just managed to secure some firewood and kindling from a neighbor—believe it or don’t, you’re not even my first patient today—but I was wondering about our food situation. Am I allowed to trap and fish around and about as needed, and forage for what roots and seeds I need, or are there—”

  “Ye sup up at the hall.”

  Katie heard a frown in her reply but did not remove her attention from her work.

  “But certainly, we shouldn’t expect to sup there every night.”

  A shrug moved the arm Katie was holding. “Ye can, none would gainsay ye. Others do.”

  “Still, there’s other meals, breakfast and whatnot. And I would feel...less a burden if I could prepare our meals myself. Also, the roots and that are for medicinal purposes, but I wouldn’t want to overstep any bounds, if, well, if there were any.”

  “You’ve a job here, so you have some worth,” Eleanor said, with her usual gruffness. “Take the meals in the hall. And no one is going to give you grief for procuring the wares you need to minister well, so dig up your plants and roots as you need. The fishing, I dinna ken. Best ask the mistress or the steward.”

  Though she’d asked the question, it had been more for conversation that Katie was surprised to find herself satisfied with the answers. “Very well. Thank you.”

  She finished shortly thereafter, using her teeth to trim the end of the thread, giving a critical eye to her stitches, pleased that the wound openly bled no more. “Of course, you cannot return to training for several days,” she said and was forced to insist, when Elanor gave her a look suggesting she’d do as she pleased, “or you’ll find yourself in this very chair again right quick.”

  “Aye.” The consent came grudgingly. She watched as Katie mixed the honey with the dried and ground plants and applied this liberally to the sewn mark. “What do I owe you?”

  Oh, how she hated to ask that question, Katie understood.

  “You owe me nothing, Eleanor.” She gathered all her supplies and finally met the woman’s hard glare.

  “I will no’ be in your debt.”

  “You will not. Now we’re even, for you putting up with us during the drive to Swordmair.”

  Pushing her lips out, Eleanor held Katie’s gaze as she said pointedly, “He’s no trouble at all.”

  But Katie was, Katie understood she was supposed to glean from her statement. She smiled at Eleanor, determined that this woman was not going to spoil her new and bright situation at Swordmair.

  Henry, having heard Eleanor’s vague praise, pushed his advantage. “Elle, do you want to come with me to the loch? I’m going to catch frogs. Fergus said the loch is filled to the brim with them.”

  Katie’s grin stayed. His mother would have—had on occasion—done that very thing with him. He hadn’t any idea that she’d participated in the icky fun only for his amusement, his benefit; likely he imagined that other people, other women, might also like to catch frogs in ponds.

  Katie lifted her brow, daring Eleanor to refuse the smitten boy, giving no thought that somehow she trusted the woman to keep her son safe, in some way also understanding that Eleanor actually might like Henry.

  Eleanor stood from the table. “Nae, lad. I dinna like frogs, too slimy. But ye can come up with me to the meadow. I’ve got work to do with my horse.”

  “He doesn’t ride—” Katie was quick to interject, even as she was almost as pleased as Henry for this invitation.

  “He’ll no’ ride alone, maybe no’ at all. Gotta learn sometime though.”

  “Very well. Stay up at the castle then, Henry. I’ll be up shortly to see the laird.”

  Eleanor amazed her by turning a funny smirk on her. “The old man got you looking at his knees?”

  Katie laughed before she might have caught herself. “He does.”

  SHE HAD TO SUPPOSE that every time she walked up to the castle, she might well worry that she stood a chance of running into Alec. With this in mind, she decided that if so, she would behave cordially but coolly, the brief and perplexing part of their relationship now done. He was the laird’s son, and she would treat him accordingly, polite but not overly friendly. She nodded as she walked, pleased with her sound plan.

  There was some benefit, then, to his usually fierce mien, in that it didn’t often invite dialogue, let alone friendly conversation. And really, how often would she find herself having to step foot inside the keep? Like as not, if she managed the laird’s knees well today, she wouldn’t often be called for her healing. And she’d already determined, despite Elanor’s assurance, that she and Henry would not take all their meals in the hall. Mayhap once in a while, for Henry’s benefit, but she didn’t want to make a habit of it.

  Truthfully, she was excited to get about her work and meet people in the village. She’d been so heartened by their general affability last night, she couldn’t wait to pursue more with them.

  She spied Aymer atop the wall when she walked through the gate and gave a wave to him, and was happy to find the laird in the courtyard, as she’ hadn’t been sure how she might have found him inside the keep, had only thought she might find the mistress in the kitchen and seek out her husband’s direction.

  He was speaking to the tall and handsome man, about the age of the laird, who’d sat at the family table last night. The man and the laird were perusing a ledger in the man’s hands, before shifting their gazes to the roofs over the stables.

  She waited until either they were done, or she was noticed.

  The latter occurred first, the laird turning—pivoting awkwardly upon an apparently sore knee—and finding her standing near.

  “Aye, lass. Verra kind of ye to come up so early.” He addressed the man once more. “Find me later, Edric. Alec says the ol’ Norrie cottage is in disrepair.”

  “Aye, chief,” said the man, inclining his head briefly, politely at Katie.

  “C’mon then, lass, we’ll go on up to my bride’s solar.” He led the way, walking stiffly toward the keep. “I’ve been warned to refrain from undressing unless I’m up in the family rooms,” he said over his shoulder as he passed through the door.

  The hall was empty, save for a young lad cleaning out the furthest hearth of ashes.

  Climbing the stairs was a painstaking task for the laird and Katie found herself wincing behind him with each step, but then hopeful that she might be able to offer him some relief.

  “I’ll get to a certain point, I’m thinking,” he said, “either I go up or down these stairs, I’ll be forced to remain there all the day.”

  “You won’t get there yet,” Katie felt confident assuring him. “We’re going to take away much of that pain.”

  Pulling himself along with a heavy hand upon the carved railing, his voice was cheery through his pant when he said, “You do that Katie lass, and anything you want is yours. I’ll make it happen.”

  Upon the second floor, he strode down the darkened hall and pushed open the second door, indicating that Katie should precede him. She stepped inside the most charming room she had ever seen. The entire frame, walls and floor and ceiling, had been white-washed. The lone thin window was hung with creamy, lace edged linen and the furniture was neither crude nor too fussy, but showed turned legs and upholstered seats, the round table set between two arm chairs covered with yet another lace doily.

  It was like stepping into another place or anoth
er home, so vastly different from all the dark wood and exposed timber in the rest of the keep.

  “It’s so beautiful,” she said, her voice tinted with both awe and envy.

  “My bride, she brought her English ways up here with her, and what do I care if it makes her happy?”

  Katie absolutely adored that he called her his bride, though they must have been wed by now more than thirty years. “The mistress is English?” She certainly neither sounded nor looked so.

  “Used to be,” the laird said, plopping down with a great puffed breath into one of the two chairs.

  Katie set down her larger, all-purpose treatment bag on the table. “Can you simply disavow your heritage?” She asked with a grin.

  “Half-English, to be precise,” the laird explained, emitting a grimace as he lifted one leg up onto the small, tufted ottoman at his feet. When it was set there securely, he winked at Katie. “I cured her of that.”

  Katie went to her knees upon the timber at his feet and teased him, “She is a very lucky woman then, aye?”

  He latched onto this, smacking his hand upon the arm of the chair. “That’s what I’ve been telling her. Everyday. For thirty years.”

  “So very kind of you to remind her so regularly.”

  Laird MacBriar chuckled easily, his rounded belly jiggling with his laugh. “Now you get it, lass.”

  “Let’s look at those knees then, sir.”

  OUTSIDE THE DOOR, ALEC shamelessly eavesdropped. He might have entered, announced his presence. His father wouldn’t have minded, mayhap Katie not either. But she would stiffen in his presence, guard her words and withhold smiles, he was sure.

  He’d known—had seen some evidence of it—that away from him, in more agreeable company, she was very natural and charming and easy to make smile, even made her own fun here and there. She’d been a marvel inside the hall at supper last night. First, so bewitchingly shy when his father had singled her out to introduce her to all of Swordmair’s people, and then, so adorable upon the dance floor. It had been Malcolm’s urging of course—she’d not ever of her own volition go willingly, Alec was sure. But she’d been game, moving at first nervously, self-consciously, until the general merriment simply could not be ignored, that she was soon bobbing around as gaily as the rest of them.

  But this—her ability to blend well, if slowly, with others, but not with him—suggested that he might consider either leaving her alone altogether, as he’d said he would but was already struggling with, or that he might spend more time in her company, that she became just as cozy with him as she so easily might with everybody else. Aye, excepting Eleanor, of course.

  Listening as intently as he was, by the time he realized someone was coming toward him, he’d effectively been caught. He turned, relieved to find only his mother, who was walking on her toes with some effort to be quiet, obviously having surmised what her son was about.

  At his side, while Alec tried to appear casual, she whispered, “Careful what ye listen for, love, might not always like what ye hear through doors.”

  And yet she pressed her ear to the thick timber, jerking back quickly when she recognized the voices within. Sending a merry grin to Alec, who couldn’t remember the last time he had actually blushed, she whispered, “Aw now lad, just stop scowling at her at every turn and she’ll smile at ye.”

  Alec clenched his jaw and strode away just as his mother pushed open the door.

  “GOOD MORN TO YE, KATIE Oliver,” called out her neighbor, Agnes.

  Katie smiled and returned the greeting as she closed the blue door behind her. Agnes’s hand was bandage-free now, a week gone from cutting it. “Flower picking?” She asked, as Agnes was approaching her own door, carrying a sloppy bunch of late summer wildflowers in muted colors of pale pink and dusky mauve.

  Agnes nodded, squishing up her nose. “My oldest, Mary, was a great help over the last week. I’ve naught to give her but my thanks and these silly things.”

  “How sweet,” Katie said, smitten with the very idea. “I bet she won’t think they’re silly.”

  Agnes shrugged and waved and entered her home.

  With that, Katie headed up to the castle, folding her arms across her chest against the biting wind, cataloguing her plans for the day. She’d been at Swordmair for almost a week now, having learned fairly quickly that she simply hadn’t enough hours in her day of late. It would get better, she knew, but over the past many days, she’d had the setting up of the cottage to contend with, and the general ministering to the people of Swordmair, who’d not had a proper healer in nigh on a year. She begrudged it not at all, gratified by the warm welcome and the instant trust they placed in her, but she was struggling, truthfully, to keep up with her personal chores and her own household. As it was, they had indeed supped each night in the hall, as she had yet to provide one item of food in her own home.

  Henry was barely at her side the last few days, which she normally would have found unnerving. However, between her delight that he’d made friends, her own busyness, and her certainty that he was safe all around Swordmair, she was more pleased than not for his current lifestyle, which saw him—like the lads he made friends with—getting his chores done first thing in the morning that he might get out of doors while the weather allowed. He’d left several hours ago, when the young lads, Ronald and Martin, had called. She’d barely had time to call after him to be safe and home for supper, so quick did he dash away.

  She saw very little of Alec, or even Malcolm or Eleanor, for that matter. When she did spy Alec, he seemed always to be about some chore, as if he didn’t idle well, needed constantly to be moving and working and busy. She’d come across him repairing the thatch of the Norrie cottage himself, had walked past without drawing his notice while he’d been busy up on that roof. Next she saw him in the distance, helping two young lads bring in their sheep from the pasture; he’d been but a silhouette on the horizon, the setting sun at his back when she’d walked up to the keep at supper. Another time, she’d spied him inside the smithy’s shed. He’d been talking with the blacksmith but had noticed her crossing the bailey, had neither called good day nor sought her out, had simply watched her with that dark and searching glare of his, that on this occasion Katie had thought that his chiseled handsomeness and even his unforgettable body were wasted on one so surly. She noticed that he was usually the first person to depart the hall after dinner. Watching him—though she wished she did not feel the confounding desire to!—she took note that when his trencher was empty, he stayed only long enough to finish the ale in his tankard. When that was done, he gave a few words to first his father and then his mother and took his leave, always going outside, into the night, and not above stairs, to where surely his own chambers were housed. The last time she’d seen him, aside from those suppers of course, was yesterday morn. He’d been riding through the gate as she neared it, followed by a dozen soldiers; his mien had been fierce and while he’d stiffly inclined his head at seeing her—a greeting, she supposed—his expression had remained dark and brutal.

  She was honest enough with herself to admit that she was torn with their present circumstance. Aye, she’d begged him leave her be. And now he did, pursued her not in the least, lazily or otherwise, that Katie found herself again and again seeking him out, if only with her eyes, and aye, sometimes wishing he’d kiss her anyway. It was his eyes, she knew, sensing there was so much hidden behind what he allowed people to see, so much depth and turbulence. Part of her, mayhap the healer in her, wanted to peel away the layers, remove that intense façade and discover what lie beneath.

  Swordmair’s courtyard was quiet today, as she crossed from the gate to the keep and entered through the hall.

  “There she is!” Shouted the laird across the room when he spied her. He sat at the head table with Malcolm, their conversation at first glance seeming to be serious. But no more. The laird lightly backhanded Malcolm on his upper arm, drawing his attention. “She says no more wine, less ale, and makes me drink
the most godawful tea you’d ever want to ken, and I dinna care—do it ten times a day if she says I must. Naught but a twinge in my knees just now and it if wouldn’t have scared my bonny bride, I’d be bouncing up and down the steps all day.”

  Malcolm smiled at this and then at Katie when she stood before the table.

  She wiggled a small pouch she’d prepared for him. “More tea, sir. Keep up the good work,” she said, pleased that her diagnosis of the aging stiffness and her recipe of a mixture of nine different plants and seeds and roots had brought him some relief. “It’s all pulverized, but remind cook to knead it with honey before adding the steaming water. Oh, and same as last week, the rowan berries must be cooked.”

  The elder MacBriar leaned forward across the table. “Runs right through me, lass. Is that the way of it?”

  “Aye,” she acknowledged sadly, “hence cooking the rowan berries, lest it run even quicker.”

  Alexander MacBriar nodded vigorously and addressed Malcolm once more. “Lass kens everything, aye?”

  “Aye, she’s a clever one, is Katie.” He winked at her.

  As that had been her only purpose inside the keep, Katie bid them good day and departed, adjusting her shawl immediately as the wind greeted her so forcefully just outside the door.

  She was halfway across the bailey when shouts and cries reached her.

  Someone was calling Aymer’s name. She saw him race along the battlements to stand above the gate, his back to Katie, while someone spoke to him from outside the wall. Katie continued, moving toward the open gate that she spied Ronald and Martin, with their heads tipped upward.

  Her brow crinkling, Katie sped up, looking further, around the lads standing in the opening. Where was Henry?

  She began to hear Ronald’s words. “...And we made swords—just from sticks, not real ones—and we had to—”

  “Where is Henry?” She asked, not frantic, but close, the high-pitched nervous tone of the lad alarming her. She rushed outside the gate, grabbing Ronald by the arm. “Where is Henry?”