Bride of Dunloch (Highland Loyalties) (6 page)

“Jane,” she said with gravity, “you have come to a very troubled place, a very
stormy
place. If you are to weather this storm then you must bend. And to bend, you must open your eyes and see the whole truth. For there is much about Scotland and its people you do not know.”

Chapter 4

With what little time she had before the evening meal, Jane busied herself by preparing for her return to the wounded Scot. She had brought a few herbs and medicines with her from Sussex, but there were a great deal of items she still needed—thyme, for instance. In her experience, an infusion of thyme worked best to bring down a fever by causing the body to sweat. And she needed honey—if she could find it; sugar if she could not.

She spent her time loitering about the kitchens, pilfering bits and pieces of necessities where she could—clean linens, a pair of thin woollen quilts and, to her satisfaction, a small but full pot of honey from the pantry which she managed to slip under her skirts and spirit away before any of the servants caught her.

By the time night fell she was ready. A pack of her stolen goods, fashioned from one of the two quilts and wrapped with twine so that she could carry it on her back, was hidden away in her wardrobe.

Her nerves were on edge. It was not that she had never done anything like this before; many times had she ventured out into the wilderness of her father’s Sussex estates, at night and alone, for no more than the exhilaration of being disobedient and free. In that respect, she was very much the opposite of her sister—where Amelia would stamp her foot and throw a fit if those around her did not bend to her will, Jane would meekly accept being told she could not have or do something. As soon as she was out of sight of prying eyes, however, she would simply find a way to achieve what it was she wanted without anyone knowing. And, she argued to herself, she only disobeyed when she knew there was no sound reason she’d been told no in the first place. Or when there was a greater good at stake. And her mission tonight certainly was for a greater good—even if the wounded man was a MacGillivray.

The reason her nerves were on edge
this
night was because she would be venturing out, at night and alone, in an unknown and foreboding land teeming with barbarian Scots. She breathed deeply to steady herself. There were no second thoughts, no doubt in her mind about whether or not she should be doing this—it was not her place to question by what design God had placed her and the wounded man together. Her place was simply to do what she could to help, regardless of whether or not her own fears demanded that she leave well enough alone.

After suffering her husband’s attentions for only the second of many more times to come, she donned her plainest wool dress, laced up a sturdy pair of shoes, and pulled her pack from the wardrobe. Then from under the bed she pulled out a large, iron pot which sported a convenient handle that she had stolen from the kitchen hearth. Though it was heavy, she was determined to carry it since she would need something in which to boil water. Adding to the weight of her burden, she’d placed several further items she would need inside: a stone cup, a pair of tongs, a ladle and a porcelain bowl. As a last measure, she fished a dying piece of charcoal from the fire and tucked it away in a porcelain box with a lid so that she would have something with which to start a fire once she arrived. The porcelain box she then placed inside her chamber pot—another necessary vessel in which to gather and prepare water ... despite its intended design.

Loaded with her goods, Jane crept through the darkened castle. With more stealth than she would have thought herself capable, she slipped through the entrance at the rear gate house and past the sentries that stood guard atop the wall walk. Concealed by the darkness she ventured into the open landscape in the direction she thought the river would be.

Luck was both for and against her. There was no moon that night—it lay hidden behind a dense layer of cloud. The absence of moonlight made her form impossible for the sentries to detect from atop the wall walk, but it also made it difficult for her to see anything herself as she progressed. The vague outline of the horizon, jagged and darker even than the ground, indicated that the forest was ahead. The way was slow-going, and after a short while her arms began to ache from the weight of her load. Several times she stumbled over divots and uneven patches of ground, spilling the contents of her heavily laden cooking pot. Eventually, though, the sound of the brook ahead of her encouraged her to continue on her current course, and once she’d found the stream, the way was easier.

After what seemed like an eternity the outline of the ruined hut slowly came into focus, and she quickened her pace in order to begin her ministrations to the wounded Scot inside. Standing in front of the woven-reed door, she steadied herself in preparation to meet what was likely by now a corpse. A moment’s panic seized her, rising in her throat, at the thought of the MacGillivray ghost lurking on the other side of the crumbling walls, waiting to take his revenge on the first English thing that happened upon him.

“Silly girl,” she muttered to herself with a firm shake of her head. If he
was
dead, it would only mean the end of her responsibility to him.

Upon entering the darkened hut, a series of muted sounds confirmed for her that the man was indeed alive, though just barely. She could hear the restless movement of his head and his laboured breathing through the near blackness ahead of her.

“I am here,” she said to the man, though in his state of feverish delirium, she doubted whether he heard her.

Fumbling blindly in the darkness, she set her things down on the rotting rushes strewn about the ground, and then gathered her cooking pot and returned outside to fetch water from the stream and to collect kindling for her fire. When she thought she had enough, she returned inside, dumped her collection in the long-unused fireplace, and pulled the porcelain box from her chamber pot. Removing the small lid from the box, she was relieved to see the piece of charcoal within was still glowing soundly. When her eyes had adjusted enough to the darkness, she set the charcoal to her pile of kindling, and soon had a small but effective fire established. Darting quickly back outside once more, she fetched an armload of large stones which she would set directly in the flames so there would be something with which to boil the water.

Once she had the stones set, she allowed herself a moment to survey her situation. The dim light of the fire illuminated the form of the dying Scot for her eyes. He had grown much worse, she saw, though it was a fact which brought no great surprise. Even distorted by the flickering orange light, the grey pallor which his skin had taken on was visible, and a sickly sheen of perspiration coated the flesh of his muscular torso, exposed to the night air. In the places where clothing covered his body, the fabric was saturated with it.

She watched with sympathy as he writhed weakly where he lay, overwhelmed by the disorientation of his fever. An occasional moan, soft as a whisper, would escape his parched lips. The set of his features tugged at her chest in a strange way—far different from that of the menacing Scot she had first encountered, his face was now truly pitiful. Her heart went out to the sorry, helpless creature she saw before her, and an innate urge to cradle his head to her breast stirred in her belly. She longed to offer him empty promises that everything would be alright, that she would somehow find a way to save him—if only to make his transition from life to death more peaceful.

Such useless urges she forced from her mind. If there was even a chance it would be alright—which, of course, it would not—then she had work to do.

She pulled her items of medicine and healing from her pack and arranged them neatly on the flat stones that comprised the hearth of the fireplace. When they were organized and ready for her use, she fished one of the heated stones from the fire with the tongs and submerged it carefully into the cooking pot to boil the water. While she waited, she stripped a full twig of thyme, and shaking the needles into the stone cup she crushed them with the handle of the ladle she’d brought. Their juices gave off a sharp, fragrant aroma that mixed pleasantly with the scent of the burning wood.

Once the water was steaming, she ladled a small amount into the cup to allow the needles to steep.
 
As the infusion strengthened, Jane pulled the clean linens she had managed to scrounge from the kitchens out of her pack and wet them in the cooking pot. She dipped the fabric carefully to avoid scalding her hands with the water, and gingerly began dabbing at the wound across the man’s flank. Even in his barely conscious state, the poor Scot batted feebly at her hand with what little strength he had left.

“Now, now,” she shushed him, pausing to dab at his brow. “The wound must be cleaned.”

The man continued to protest, shoving ineffectually at her hands. But he was too weak, and Jane easily pressed on. Once the wound was free of dried blood, congealed fluids and dirt, she poured a generous measure of honey onto a clean strip of linen, and pressed it tightly to the gash. To wrap him with cloth so that her salve would remain in place, she tugged at his arm to encourage him into a sitting position—a task which yielded little result.

“Sir, I cannot pass the bandage beneath you if you do not raise yourself,” she begged.

The man seemed briefly to understand, and struggled to sit up. But he could not raise himself enough, and she was able only to pass the bandage beneath him once before he collapsed again. With a sigh, Jane knotted the bandage in place; it would have to do as it was. The honey would clean the wound, drawing away the toxins that had taken hold and begun to fester within. That was, of course, if the man wasn’t already too far gone.

The infusion was still a while away from being ready, so she busied herself with tidying what she could within the hut. She gathered the rushes and pitched them outside the door, leaving the dirt floor bare. She then unwrapped her pack and laid the second blanket which she’d stowed inside next to the man and close to the fire. With difficulty, she nudged and pulled him onto it—carefully so that he would not disturb the salve of honey. When she could only get him half-way onto it, she gave up trying. It was not important.

Furrowing her brow, she eyed his clothing critically. Everything would need to be washed. But it was best to leave him dressed until he was well enough to move—if he would ever be, that was. And though she’d already managed to get him out of his shirt, she might as well wait to see if he was going to live. If by some miracle he did, then she’d do all of his articles of clothing together in one go to save herself the extra labour. They would need mending as well, but that too was a task which could be saved until she knew whether or not he would make it through the night.

With nothing else to do, she checked her infusion of thyme once more—at last, it was ready. Picking up the cup with both hands, she knelt down beside the feverish man.

“Here,” she said, cradling one hand behind his head. “Drink this. It will help cool your body of the fever.”

She raised the man’s head carefully to help him drink. He took a few sips at first, but soon clamped his lips shut, refusing to drink any more.

“No, you must drink it all,” she insisted. “Come now, sir. That’s it.”

With her encouragement, the Scot parted his lips once more, and at a frustratingly slow pace he managed to finish the infusion. When he was done, Jane lowered his head and immediately set about making a larger batch. He would need a good, hearty dose every few hours if it were to make any difference.

Though she did not know the exact hour, she knew it must be very late. Despite this, she was not at all tired. A sense of purpose had revived her energy and spurred in her a heady determination, foolish though it was to allow such hope to take hold. Not only would her efforts likely be futile, but he was a savage, warring Scot. A MacGillivray. One of the beasts who had attacked Lord Reginald’s lands—now
her
lands.

But gazing at his face, which looked no older than five and twenty, she rather thought he did not look much like the savage brutes she’d been imagining before leaving Sussex.

Conflict warred within her. She
should
be a good and loyal wife, and turn this injured MacGillivray man—who happened to be at death’s door anyway—over to her husband. Her head told her so. Her heart, though ... her heart told her something very different. It told her that she could not let this helpless young man die. It told her ...
what
?

She stroked the dark hair that was pasted to his brow off his forehead and began to clean the dried blood and dirt from his face. A head wound, it appeared, accounted for much of it, but the wound there did not look infected like the more critical one he’d sustained on his side; it had already begun to heal, in fact.

As she dabbed his face, she sang. She did it not for his sake, but for her own. She sang the only song that came to her mind, one which her mother used to sing when she was small. The words left her lips no louder than a soft murmur.

If I were an eagle and I had wings to fly

I would fly to my love's castle and there I would lie

On a bed of green ivy I would lay myself down

And with my two fond wings I would my love surround

The words of the song had never meant much to her as a child. But now, so soon past her own wedding day to a man she did not love,
could
not love, the words triggered a budding sorrow deep in her heart. She would never know the love of which the song told. Tears escaped her lids as she sang and dabbed tenderly at the man’s forehead.