Boyett-Compo Charlotte - Wind Tales 01 (5 page)

thick morsel of rabbit for a moment, then shrugged again. “There never was any love lost between

Duncan and Kaelan, I've heard. And besides, the Hesars aren't known for their forgiving natures, as you

might well remember."

“But to make him live like this,” she protested. “It's cruel, Nick."

Nick Cree sighed. “We don't know the whole of it, Gilly.” He held out his empty bowl for a refill. “I'm of

a mind that no one outside the Hesar clan, themselves, know the whole of it."

“The Sinclairs do,” Gillian argued.

“Aye,” Nick agreed. “They would, I suppose."

“Do you remember her?"

Nick nodded. “Only too well,” he grumbled. A picture of a stunning blonde vixen flitted across his mind,

but he deliberately erased it. “Too many men remember that one, I think."

A groan from the bed brought sister and brother their feet: Nick with an immediate frown of concern. He

went to the bed and leaned over, his gaze assessing the consciousness of their patient. “He's coming

‘round,” Gillian heard him say.

Taking up a cup of water, Gillian brought it to the bed. She sat down on the coverlet and slid her hand

under the man's hot neck. Placing the rim of the cup against his parched lips, she let a trickle of water

seep into his mouth. “Drink, dearling,” she said quietly.

Nick watched the man's face carefully. There was a drawing together of thick dark brows as confusion

replaced unconsciousness. The eyes remained shut, but the lips parted to allow the cool water to enter.

“He's still burning up,” Gillian pronounced. She was bracing the man's head against her breast, her arm

around his thin shoulder.

“He needs a poultice,” Nick explained. “Camphor for his chest.” A deep frown etched Cree's face.

“He's mightily congested. I sure as hell don't like that wheezing."

“I'll have a look about the kitchen when you come back with the wood,” Gillian told him.

Nick sighed, sharply. “How many times are you going to remind me about the gods-be-damned wood,

Gilly?” he complained.

She looked up at her brother. “How many times do I need to remind you before you realize none of us

will survive without it, Nicholas?"

Neither Nick nor Gillian saw the man's eyes flutter open. As they glared at one another, they missed the

look of stunned surprise that passed over the febrile face.

“I haven't eaten all I want, yet,” Nick snapped.

“Then be about it, man!” Gillian shot back. “The wood in the grate won't last all evening!"

Dark brown eyes shifted from the creamy underside of a smooth chin to a belligerent square-jawed face

that was flushed with the room's heat. Perplexity made those dark orbs narrow.

“I know that, woman!” Nick responded in kind. He cast a murderous glare at the remaining wood

snapping and crackling in the fireplace.

“Well?” Gillian challenged. She continued to stare at her brother until he snatched up his coat and

stomped heavily to the door.

“I don't care to venture out in this muck,” Nick grumbled as he jerked the door open and plowed out

into the hall. “It's gods-be-damned cold out there."

“And bring back some more snow!” Gillian called out. “The water in the barrel ain't fit to drink!” She

grinned at the nasty expletive that came back to her as Nick's heavy footsteps pounded down the stairs.

She glanced down at her patient then blinked.

He was staring up at her, his soul lurking just behind the dark umber of his eyes. There was an odd

expression on his thin face and breathless wonder in the weak voice which spoke.

“Who are you?” came the hoarse request.

“Gillian, Your Grace,” she whispered automatically although she had been captured-and was being held

spellbound-by the shifting motes of gold moving through his irises. “Have you forgotten already?"

“My Gillian,” he sighed and long dark lashes slipped slowly downward to hide the fevered intensity of his

gaze. His breathing grew deep as he returned to the netherworld in which he'd spent most of the day.

She sat there—holding his head braced against her chest—and stared at him. Was it really him? She

wondered as her gaze slid slowly over the taut features that were now composed in sleep. Although his

face was flushed from the fever and his cheeks sunken from lack of proper nourishment, he was just as

handsome as the first day she had seen him over nine years before.

“Kaelan,” she said and trailed her fingers down his lean cheek and under his too-warm chin.

He would be thirty-two, now, she thought, this prince of the Hesar clan, and yet he looked much older.

No doubt the life he had been forced to live had aged him so. Anger rose up in Gillian's heart and she

drew him closer to her, holding him, protecting him against the vile world that had made him an outcast.

* * * *

Nick was grumbling fiercely as he dropped the load of firewood beside the hearth. “By the gods, but it's

turning colder out there!” He thrust his hands to the fire and rubbed them vigorously together. “And I'll

warrant there's been another three inches of snow fallen since we came inside.” Stamping the feeling back

into his numb toes, he turned his backside to the fire.

Gillian glanced at her brother. “He woke for a moment and asked who I was."

Nick chuckled. “You must have seemed like a dream to him, I suppose."

“The fever's broken,” she told him. “But there's still a lot of congestion in his lungs."

“Best see if you can find some medicines down below,” her brother advised. “The fever may be leaving

him, but he could yet die."

“He won't,” Gillian stated and Nick nodded. If his little sister said the man wouldn't die, he wouldn't.

“I spied the sign whilst I was out,” Nick said. When Gillian turned a questioning brow to him, he nudged

his chin toward the man on the bed. “The estate sign,” he explained. “It had been torn off the post."

“Holy Dale,” Gillian said softly. She had always thought the name beautiful despite the ugliness that had

become attached to it.

“Some fool had changed it to Unholy Dale,” Nick snorted. He faced the fire again and held out his

hands. “And I don't think it was the young prince, there, what done it."

“Probably not,” Gillian agreed. “Do you want more stew, Nicky?"

“Aye,” her brother said, sitting down on the hearth. “Just as soon as I thaw myself out."

“Watch him, then,” she said, handing her brother another bowl of stew. “I'll see what I can find

downstairs."

Nick wrapped his hands around the steaming bowl of stew as he sat watching their patient. He smiled at

the big dog who was still draped across his master's legs.

“You don't go far from him, do you, girl?” Nick asked.

Brownie lifted her massive head and shook the golden-brown fur as though she were answering. She

turned her face toward her master, studied him for a moment, then lowered her head to her paws once

more, her cinnamony eyes flicked from side to side, reconnoitering the chamber, then closed.

Nick chuckled to himself. A good friend to have, he thought as he spooned a large helping of the stew

into his mouth. Probably your only friend, eh, Prince Kaelan? he thought. As he ate, he thought back to

the autumn equinox nine years earlier when he and his family had Journeyed to Virago and been

presented at the court of the Hesars.

It had not been a particularly happy occasion, for none of the Crees had wanted to leave their native

Chale for the wilds of the stormy north country. But their father, Duke Dakin Cree, had been posted as

Chale's ambassador to the windswept cliffs of that cold land and his family had reluctantly accompanied

him.

On the very day of his presentation at court, the long-widowed Duke of Warthenham had met the

Countess Elga Junstrom and, after only one month in Virago, had taken her to wife. Their father's

marriage to the gold-digging Countess had added more fuel to the fires of contempt in which the five

Cree siblings held Virago and the barren coldness that was Tempest Keep. The cold weather was

another deterrent.

That had been when Prince Landis, Prince Kaelan's father, was Jarl. The elder Hesar was a stern man

who never smiled and who seemed to bear the Crees a particular dislike. Barely civil to the Duke, openly

contemptuous of the ‘brats’ the Ambassador had brought with him from Chale, Landis had made life at

the Keep most unpleasant. Perhaps having to hand over his favorite mistress into the keeping of a minor

Chale nobleman had been reason enough to find disfavor with the Duke, but the Prince's dislike of the

Cree children puzzled even the most jaded among the court's hangers-on.

Why? Nick thought as he set aside his bowl. Why had the old man hated them so? He supposed no one

would ever know, for Landis was long since in his grave and Duncan, Kaelan's older brother, was now

Jarl at Tempest Keep.

Things had changed drastically for the Cree family when Landis and his youngest son, Anson, had both

succumbed to the lung fever eight winters past. The twenty-six year old Duncan had not shared his

father's contempt for the Duke and his offspring, though he was not as warm to them as he was to some

others assigned as emissaries to the Court of the Storm. He had shown the Crees a better time of it than

his father had and had even made good matches for the two eldest Cree daughters: Adele and Adair. He

also found a most enchanting wife for the eldest son, Ruan.

The marriages had elevated the Cree siblings to a much higher rank within the court and had, fortunately,

brought much happiness to those involved.

But unhappiness for me and Gillian, Nick remembered with a bitter frown.

Duncan had found a bride for the sixteen year old youngest son of Dakin Cree. Ruan's wife, Brigid, had

a younger sister of marriageable age and it was to Nicholas, that Prince Duncan engaged her.

Without Nick's knowledge or consent. When Nick discovered himself engaged to a girl he thought

flighty and perhaps more than a little stupid, the young man balked and refused to allow the marriage to

take place.

“I'll join a monastery before I'll shackle myself to that empty-headed chit!” he'd ranted at his father.

“You just might have to!” the Duke had shouted back. “How can I tell His Grace you find this betrothal

not to your liking? He's done well with your sisters and brother! He has only your best interests in mind!"

“My brother and sisters,” Nick had seethed with disdain, “can be led like cattle to the market. I can

not!” He had flung out his hand. “I WILL not!"

“Nor will I!” a thirteen year old Gillian had vowed before being sent from the room by her irate father.

“Prince Duncan can make my tenure here impossible!” the Duke had tried to reason with his son, but

Nick had been adamant, vowing that when he took a woman to wife many years down the road, he hoped-she would be from Chale and a sight better endowed than the

scrawny bitch that was Ruan's sister-in-law.

But Duncan had merely laughed at the Duke's dismay when Dakin had worked up sufficient courage to

confront the man about his son's engagement, surprising many of those within listening range.

“Do not concern yourself, my friend,” Prince Duncan had said. “If he doesn't wish to marry Alinor, I

shan't make him."

“Ask anything else of me, Your Grace,” Dakin had promised, “and I shall do it. Nicholas’ behavior has

sorely embarrassed us and we would atone for it!"

Had the elder Cree realized he was being used, that just such a brash promise as the one he'd just made

had been what Duncan had been after in the first place, Dakin would have torn out his tongue by the

roots. But the harm had already been done. Duncan now had a potent hold over the Duke.

Nick doubted Duncan had even given thought to Gillian at that time. The gangling thirteen year old child

with the long reddish—gold tresses and wide green eyes looked more elfin than womanly and certainly

had not-at that time, anyway—caused lust in the heart of Rolf de Viennes. It was not until Gilly's

twentieth birthday that Rolf laid claim to her hand and Dakin Cree, despite a virulent hatred of the de

Viennes clan, could do nothing about it.

“You swore obedience to my desires,” Duncan had reminded the Duke not long after the betrothal was

announced-again without prior knowledge of the Cree family. “Are you an honorable man or are you not,

milord?"

The betrothal had stood and Nick had joined with Adele and her husband to spirit their unfortunate

sister away. For Adele was married to Rolf's cousin, Gunter, and Gunter hated Rolf almost as much as

Gillian did.

“Get her as far away from that beast as you can, Nick,” Gunter had warned. “If she were my sister, I'd

rather see her in Galraith Convent than married to that vile lecher!"

Nick stood up from the hearth and stretched, wincing at the pulled muscles in his arms. Chopping wood

was not something he was accustomed to doing and he knew he'd be stiff and sore from his labors come

morning. He looked down at his hands and frowned. Already, there were blisters forming on his tender

flesh.

“They'll heal."

Nick's head snapped up and he found himself being observed. A tentative smile formed on his face and

he took a step toward the bed. “I'm happy to see you awake, Your Grace,” he said. Dipping his head in

respect, he introduced himself: “I am Nicholas Cree.” He took another step, encouraged by the calm

look on the other man's face. “I know you don't remember me, but..."

“You are Gunter's friend,” came the hoarse reply.