Highland Healer (3 page)

“Get the men together,” he ordered. “Send out scouting parties now and again at first light. Find the ones who watched, assess their strengths, and report back.” His underling started to object, but Colbridge shouted over him, “We have no time to waste picking over the bodies of peat cutters and crofters. Go!”

His sense of satisfaction returned as he watched the man hurry to obey. A lightning strike and all would be over here in the north for the year. He would spend the winter at his keep in the south. It would be done.

Chapter Two

Toran came awake to the sound of men moving around outside the tent. Damn, whatever the healer had done to him had put him to sleep. He needed to stay awake if he was going to get out of here.

He listened intently, barely breathing, until the footsteps moved away. Just the guards changing, then?

Nay. He breathed a sigh of relief as he heard horses moving away from camp. A patrol going out. For one bad moment, he’d feared that they’d come for him. It was still black as pitch but it must be getting on toward morning. Their leader would not leave him here indefinitely.

He glanced around the tent. The interior was barely visible, but he could tell that the healer’s chair was empty. Nor did she stand by the doorway. Where had she gone? Did she have somewhere else to sleep?

No matter. This was just the opportunity he needed. He sat up carefully, determined not to make any noise that would draw a guard. He stretched his bound hands over his head to wake up his arm and shoulder muscles, then began to twist and pull at the leather binding his hands together. If he could loosen the bonds, get even one had free, he’d have the use of his hands and arms and have a fighting chance. Though whether he could get free of a camp full of armed men, he had no idea. But if he could get these bonds off while it was still dark, he might manage to escape into the forest and make his way back to the Aerie. Or meet his people coming to look for him.

He worked for what seemed like hours, ignoring the pain and the dampness. The tough old leather was tearing the skin of his wrists and the abrasions bled. But if his blood softened the leather, it might stretch faster. He kept tugging, stopping every once in a while to rest his wrists and worry at the leather with his teeth. It was slow going. Painful. And bloody. But it was the best chance he had unless the healer came back with whatever she’d used to cut away his shirt.

Twice he was forced to stop and lie back as footsteps neared the tent he was in, but they passed on. He kept at it until warm wetness started to run down his arm. Even with the added slip of his own blood and saliva, he could not pull a hand through the loops. His wrists were raw and the bindings were still too tight. He had to stop before he did so much damage that he’d be unable to use his hands at all.

Resigned, he rested. Surely the healer would be back to check on her patient. Perhaps this time she’d bring a blade. He could wait for her to arrive.

****

Dawn had brightened the mists an hour earlier, and Aileana heard men on horseback leaving the camp soon after. Rather than get up, she claimed the luxury of dozing a while longer, taking advantage of the relative quiet that followed their departure.

At rest in her solitary blankets, she recalled Toran’s efforts to resist her questions, something no one before had been able to do. That worried her. Worse, she’d been a fool, dozing off instead of keeping watch over him. There was no question in her mind that even bound, he was fully capable of injuring or killing her before she could say a word to him or could scream for the guards. But he had not harmed her.

Instead, he’d focused on learning more about his enemy, as any warrior would do. She’d held herself still, but had fought back tears as he’d peered out of the tent for the first time and seen what he was up against. No escape. She used to dream of it, of finding a crofter who would shelter her, or disappearing into woods too thick for Coldbridge’s men to pursue her, anything that would lead to returning to what remained of her village. However, after the first summer passed and winter threatened, she became resigned to her fate. As Toran would.

He appealed to her in a way that was new to her, pleasurable yet also a little frightening. As a healer, and a daughter and granddaughter of healers, she knew what happened between a man and a woman, but she’d never experienced it herself. She turned and punched the bag of rags that served as her pillow, trying to achieve some comfort. And, if she were to be honest, trying to distract herself from the memory of his handsome face, his strong body that so pleased her eye, his... Oh, damn. This was hopeless. She might as well get up.

It would be wise to check on her patient before he awoke. There would be less temptation that way, on her side and his, assuming that a handsome laird such as he would have any interest in a simple lass from a small village such as she. All the more reason to control her wild imaginings, check on her patient, and see him taken out with the other prisoners. Then she could soon forget him. Breakfast would have to wait until she finished doing all that.

As expected, Toran still slept when Aileana slipped softly into the Healer’s tent and paused by the entrance. He lay on his side, facing the doorway. The deep blue eyes she’d admired yesterday were closed, his head pillowed on his bound hands. Her newfound resolve crumbled as she watched his chest move with his breath, and she wondered what it would be like to remove his bonds and feel his arms wrap protectively around her. Except to take her arm and hurry her along, no one ever touched her. Not even Ranald dared more than that.

Aileana shuddered to think what Ranald would make of her interest in her present patient if he knew. Ranald was the son of her father’s first wife. Despite being only a handful of years her senior, silver glittered in the dark hair at his temples, giving him an appearance of experience and wisdom. Since he had been fostered away after his mother died, Aileana rarely saw him while she was growing up in the village. She’d been shocked to find him attached to Colbridge’s army. His battles were fought before she encountered him, including the one that nearly cost him his leg. To keep himself alive and of value, he’d been using the simple treatment skills he’d learned from her mother during his rare visits to his father. She’d recognized him immediately, and they had protected each other since. She made it clear he was useful to her and he made it clear she was off limits. In fact, it had been Ranald who had started the tale that her Healing was tied to her maidenhood. He would be concerned about her interest in this patient, this Toran, Laird Lathan. Ranald would think her a silly girl, indeed, to risk everything that had kept her safe so far.

Aileana moved silently to Toran’s side and raised her hands over him, intending to monitor the beat of his heart and the depth of his breathing.

Instead, he rolled to sitting, jerked her off her feet and hauled her against his bare chest within the circle of his bound arms. “Look what I’ve caught,” he murmured. “The healer. What are ye doing here alone? Where are the guards?”

“Outside,” she gasped, answering his last question first, since it only required one word and she didn’t have breath for more at that moment. “I’ve come to...to see how you fare,” Aileana stammered, still breathing heavily from the surprise and the exertion of struggling within the circle of his impossible strength. She’d wished for his arms around her, and here she found herself. She wrenched her attention back to the very real man in front of her. She kept her voice low, not wanting the guard to overhear, rush in, and attack. Not yet, anyway. If need be, she could scream. “I did not mean to wake you, only to see if you were recovered.”

“And ye would know that merely by watching me sleep?”

Aileana could see he was wide awake now, and studying her intently as he held her. That regard gave her pause. How to answer him? She was a Healer, not a witch, but an ignorant Highlander might not know the difference, even if that ignorant Highlander was a laird. She’d heard they burned and drowned witches in the south. She had no intention of meeting either fate.

“By your breathing, and repose,” she finally answered. “If you were still in pain, you might have slept fitfully, or not at all. But I see that you are rested and well recovered.”

“Recovered?” One eyebrow lifted, as if he didn’t recall being wounded, and didn’t know what she meant. That gave her a bit of confidence that he wasn’t completely resistant to her will.

“I believe I am,” he continued, studying her face. He gave her a small smile. “I suppose ye want me to put ye down.” His regard never wavered, but his tone softened and his vise-like grip on her relaxed as he leaned forward and set her on her feet.

“Aye.” She’d replied with the only proper thing to say. Although, her body reveled in the sensation of his arms around her, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to be released. Had she lost her mind? She chided herself again for her foolish fantasies. It was one thing to imagine herself in the arms of the man as he slept, and quite another to consider it when he was wide-awake and looking at her in that…way. Oh, but he tempted her beyond reason, with his deep blue eyes drinking her in; his full lips, now slightly parted as if he contemplated kissing her senseless. Senseless she was to even be imagining it.

He lifted his arms, releasing her, but as she stepped back, he reached out and cupped her face with warm fingers. She gasped at the sudden sensations that gentle touch evoked, so different from the effortless strength he had used to lift and restrain her. The heat from his fingers on her face nearly burned her, yet chills skittered down her neck, across her shoulders, and she fought the urge to lift her fingers to his lips in turn.

“Ye’re a bonny lass…” he whispered.

Her shiver of anticipation surprised her, and she firmly stifled it. Instead of giving in to the yearning to feel his warm skin under her fingers, she stepped back out of his reach.

“Don’t…you can’t…touch me,” she breathed, still fighting the power of her desire to hold the warmth of his face in her palm.

“But lass, I already did,” he said, looking her up and down and grinning, but making no move toward her.

A small, mirthless chuckle escaped Aileana. Aye, he had. It had all happened so fast, and she’d been so lost in her own sensations that she’d protested too late.

From the dubious safety of her position a step away from him, she studied him. He seemed well enough to go out with the other prisoners. He could not languish here in the Healer’s tent. She might soon have others to care for. Then she noticed the skin of his wrists around his bindings. Red, raw, oozing blood in a few places. He’d tried his bonds, but hadn’t succeeded in breaking them. Not yet.

“That must hurt,” she said, stepping forward to take his wrists in her hands.

He didn’t answer, merely shook his head, eyeing her.

“Not much,” he finally relented, shrugging his big shoulders. Should she leave the wounds alone, and let the pain deter him from straining further against his bonds? Or heal his wounds and hope he’d have better sense? No, of course he would not. He would continue to try to escape. As, she supposed, he thought he should.

Her hands moved almost of their own accord, and her healing energy flowed into the skin she touched. After only a moment he jerked away, long before she finished. “What are ye doin’?” he demanded.

She let him go. It was foolish, even dangerous, to try to continue. Wide-awake, he could sense something happening where she touched him. Her compulsion to heal would get her killed yet.

“Ye did something to take away the ache and make me sleep.” He rubbed his forehead, eyes closed, frowning, as he tried to remember. His words froze her in place, and she knew she must divert him, or he might just stop wondering
who
and begin to wonder
what
he was dealing with. His next statement frightened her even more. “And while ye did, ye asked who I am, and I told ye, though it pained me to do it.”

Remembering the Healing was one thing, but he should not be able to remember her laying the compulsion to speak upon him! “Your pain resulted from a blow by the flat of a blade to your thick skull,” she replied tersely, more worried than she dared show. She struggled not to cross her arms defensively across her chest.

There was danger in this man, many kinds of danger. How could he resist her will, while ensnaring hers so that she took chances like this? What was she thinking? The sooner she got away from him, the better. “It’s your good luck that your head’s still attached to your neck,” she continued in the same curt tone, still trying to divert him from his memory of the day before. If she could distract him, perhaps it would fade away, as it should have before he awoke, and she would be able to convince him it had been a dream.

He did seem distracted, Aileana thought as he frowned and fingered the torc at his throat.

He stood then and moved carefully around her, hobbled by the fetters, but giving her room enough so as not to feel threatened. He shuffled to the tent’s entry and peered out through the narrow slit. “How long have I been here?” he asked.

Aileana breathed a sigh of relief as he changed his focus from her to his situation. “You were injured yesterday in the battle with the local clan.”

“Yesterday,” he said, and sounded relieved, as if he feared he’d been here longer. “Yesterday, ye stood by as I looked outside. Why did ye not run from the tent or scream for the guards?”

“Because I deemed it better to allow you to satisfy your curiosity, so you would know you are outnumbered and cannot escape.”

“Ye must have a name. What are ye called? And why are ye here with this army?” He turned away from the entry to pin her in place with his gaze.

There was no help for it. She’d taken his identity; now he wanted hers.

“Aileana. Aileana Shaw. Or Healer.”

“Ach, from the low country, are ye?”

“Aye. Colbridge destroyed my village. My family died. A woman alone, I had nowhere else to go. So I’m the Healer.” She should have said “his healer” but she knew if she phrased it that way, any chance of Toran trusting her would disappear. She wanted him to trust her. But why?