A Kiss for a Highlander (18 page)

Martha refrained from sharing her opinion, which was that, even in his semiconscious state, Fraser probably recognised competence and was fearful when deprived of it. Instead, she set about explaining that Rosie would be leaving the next day and asked Cora to organise a room for Tom for the night. Rab went away at the same time as his wife, explaining that he wanted to make sure that their visitor’s horse was safely stabled.

Left alone with Fraser, Martha felt suddenly, achingly tired. The events of the last days and weeks crowded in on her in a rush, and tears of exhaustion stung her eyelids.

“Sleep,” she murmured. “That’s all I need. Just five minutes.”

Removing her shoes and taking care not to disturb him, she slipped under the coverlet next to Fraser. Within minutes, she felt the welcome embrace of sleep claim her.

Through the inky darkness of unconsciousness, Fraser opened his eyes. His whole body ached and his left side was on fire. He lay still, trying to make sense of his surroundings and to understand the debilitating feebleness of his limbs. The swirling fog gradually receded, and the events at Culloden came back to him clearly. Was he really here—in his own bed—or was this another cruel trick of his weakened mind?

Gradually, the realisation that not only was he in truth back at Castle Lachlan, but that he was not alone in his bed intruded on his thoughts. Turning his head, her scent informed him that either he was in the grip of slumber or Martha was lying next to him. Fraser could just make out her shape in the gloom of a dimly lit afternoon. She lay curled on her side, fully clothed, facing away from him. Although the movement caused exquisite agony to tear through him, he slowly edged toward her and closed the gap so that he could fit his body into the curve of hers. Pressing his face to the silken skin at the nape of her neck, he inhaled her familiar fragrance. She was as sweet and warm as honey. Comforted by her nearness, he sank at last into a sleep that included no nightmares. This time, he dreamed only of Martha.

The next morning, after a restless night, Fraser thrashed from side to side in the bed, his face red and his skin burning. He muttered incoherently and groaned every now and then as though consumed by pure agony.

“He has a fever.” Martha studied his face. This had been her worst fear. He was a strong man, but his injuries were devastating. He would need every ounce of his strength to fight this.

“He should be bled. We need the leeches, my lady.” Cora compressed her lips in a stubborn expression.

“Let us do it my way first,” Martha said firmly. Although bleeding was commonly used, her mother had not held with it as a means of reducing fever, and Martha did not agree with it either. “If he shows no signs of improvement by nightfall, you may use the leeches with my blessing.”

To Cora’s consternation, she pulled back the bedclothes and stripped Fraser of all his clothing except for a fine linen shirt. Throwing wide the casement windows, she extinguished the fire in the room. Finally, she set about bathing his long, sinewy limbs with cool water.

“What we need to do is induce him to start sweating. That will break the fever and release him from its grip,” she explained to Cora. “There are herbs that will bring on sweats. If you bring me angelica, elderberry and rosemary, I can make an infusion from them. The difficulty will be to get him to drink it while he is in this state.”

Martha spent the remainder of the day alternately sponging Fraser’s body or bathing his face with cool water or painstakingly feeding him small amounts of the herbal infusion from a spoon. As evening fell, she could see no discernible difference in his condition, and Cora was beginning to mutter more loudly about the leeches.

Fraser gripped her hand, and the heat from his fingers startled her. He muttered something incomprehensible, and Martha wanted only to soothe and reassure him that she was there. “Get well, my love.” She leaned over and pressed her mouth to his burning lips. “I love you, my Scotsman.”

His eyes fluttered open and he stared up at her. For a moment there was no recognition in his eyes, then comprehension dawned. “Oh ’tis you, Englishwoman.” The tender look she knew so well was gone. His lips—the lips she loved, the lips that had anointed every part of her body—twisted into a cruel sneer. “Another kiss of hate, is it? But it has been repaid in full, has it not? I’d heard it said that vengeance was worth the wait. Now I know ’tis true. To hear you say that you love me, that this Scotsman is your master, that was worth biding my time for.” His eyes rolled up, showing the whites, and he turned his head on the pillows.

Could that really be it? Had her worst fears just been realised? She had heard that venom in Fraser’s voice once before…when they first met. Shock numbed her emotions at hearing it again. Without warning, feeling came flooding back, tearing into her heart and causing her to gasp at the intensity of the pain she felt.

Fraser didn’t want her. Cruelly, he had been using her body for revenge. He had exploited her inexperience and her maidenly longing for him only as a means of repaying her for that kiss and for her words of hatred. He had made her love him only so that he could mock that love and throw it back at her as he had just done. In his fever he had spoken the truth at last.

Aware of Cora’s eyes on her face, curiosity burning through the little woman’s every pore, Martha straightened her spine. Pride forced her to hide her hurt. Mechanically, she smoothed the sheet to cover Fraser. Her hands busied themselves as she mopped his heated brow once more and redressed his wounds.

“Blessed Lord!” Cora pointed a shaking finger. Beads of sweat had finally broken out on Fraser’s brow.

Martha returned, many hours later, to her own room after she was sure that Fraser was finally sleeping peacefully and the fever was gone. Alone at last, she allowed herself to dwell on the words he had spoken.

“You fool,” she murmured, as part of her insisted on trying to reason away what she had heard. Because she so desperately wanted it not to be true, her mind snatched wildly at excuses for his words. Perhaps he had mistaken her for someone else? But no, he had called her “Englishwoman”. Did his words hide another meaning? She could almost have laughed aloud at that. There could be only one interpretation of what he had said.

Martha reached for the tinderbox, only to find that her hand was trembling so pitifully she could not light her candle. In spite of everything she had told herself, she realised now that she had permitted a glimmer of hope to peep through. The tenderness she had seen in Fraser’s eyes had fooled her into believing they might have a future. That she could have let herself, however briefly, cherish such an absurd dream added to her humiliation. She knew she was unlovable. How had she managed to persuade herself otherwise?

Resolution gave her the strength to do what was necessary. With a hand that was steadier, she lit her candle and gathered her belongings together. It was when she groped blindly for her bag and began to throw these items into it that she finally allowed the tears to fall.

“No, you tell him.”

“I’ll not tell him. I prefer to keep my skin attached to my back, thank you.”

The whispers just outside his bedchamber door were starting to annoy him.

“For the love of God,
somebody
tell me!” Fraser roared. “Is she sick, is that what it is? Is that why she’s not been near me these last two days or more?”

He had been asking for her. Over and over, but she had not come to him. The excuses had reached a level that was pitiful, and this morning, he had threatened to leave his bed and drag her from hers if someone did not provide him with a satisfactory answer to the simple question “Where is Martha Wantage?”

Several pairs of nervous eyes regarded him from the doorway. It was Cora who spoke up at last. “She is gone, my laird.”

“Gone? What the devil do you mean, woman? How can she just be
gone
?” He sat up straighter, wincing at the pain in his side.

“You should’nae—”

“Answer me, damn you!”

“She left three days since. It was just after the fever was high upon you.”

“No.” He shook his head. He knew Martha better than that. Didn’t he? “She would not leave me. And certainly not while I was still in danger. Not unless something very bad happened when I was in the grip of the fever. Did she get bad news from Derbyshire?” He glared around him. There was an anxious shuffling of feet. “What was it?”

Rab and Cora exchanged glances again. Once more Cora took on the role of bearer of bad tidings. “Well, she did seem woeful upset at something you said to her, my laird.”

“What did I say?” Fraser’s voice was dangerously quiet now.

“Something about the kiss of hate and how it was repaid in full at last.”

“Go on.” His eyes were fixed on her face.

“You said that she had finally admitted she loved a Scotsman and that you were her master. Oh, and that vengeance had been worth the wait. When you said those words to her, my lady looked as if her world had come to an end. She made sure you were comfortable and left me detailed instructions about how to care for you. She said on no account was I to use the leeches even if the fever came back. Then she went.”

“Went? How did she go?”

“She took the horse she came here on.” Cora twisted her hands together nervously.

“So she rode out all alone. Into the wilds of the Great Glen. With wild beasts and Cumberland’s men on the prowl. And not one of you tried to stop her?” Suddenly, his servants found it even more difficult to meet his eyes. “Did she say where she was going?”

Cora shook her head. “My lady thanked us for taking good care of her while she was here and said she would’nae be back. She did say that she would’nae be going to Derbyshire either.”

“Aye.” Fraser’s face was a picture of fury as he threw aside the bed covers. “Because she knew fine well that’s the first place I would go looking for her!”

Chapter Eighteen

Blue-grey fingers of mist trailed through the damp bracken, reminding Fraser of the smoke that had spread over the field at Culloden when he had drifted in and out of consciousness. A combination of sweat and light rain made his garments cling to his body like a second skin. The sea air smelled of England. He had thought never to return to this land, but now he welcomed the sight of Northumberland as if it were a long-lost friend. He murmured to his horse, urging it onward. The ride had been hard on man and beast alike. Fraser had been unwilling to pause for rest, stopping only when one or both of them were in danger of collapse. Now a new sense of urgency seized him, and as he leaned low over his mount, the horse surged forward. The wind blowing straight off the North Sea and over the cliffs was brutally cold, adding to the ache from his still-fresh wounds and the days of nonstop riding. Wild gusts tugged at Fraser’s hair, and his cloak flew out behind him like a pennant. His eyes scanned the horizon until at last the vast shape they sought came into view. Even from this distance, Bamburgh Castle was unmistakable.

What if he was wrong? But he could not allow himself to think that. Not yet. The thought had intruded over and over during the lonely ride, usually when he was most tired, but each time he had determinedly pushed it away. If she was not here, he would keep going until he did find her. Losing her was not an option.

He cursed the fact that he hadn’t told her what was in his heart. Not because he wasn’t sure he loved her. No, he had never been more sure of anything in his life. But he had felt he had no right to tell her, not with a bloody battle looming and the future so uncertain. What would he have been asking of her? He had been on the verge of calling for the priest a dozen times in the days before Culloden and asking him to make Martha his bride. Each time he had stopped short. If he died at Culloden, what sort of legacy would his widow have? Martha was strong, it was true, but there had been no way of knowing in what sort of disarray a defeat would leave the clans. He could not ask that of her. Even worse would have been his capture by the English. He could not ask to tarnish her good name by allying herself to a man who might be incarcerated in an English prison for the rest of his life.

“I should have told her,” he muttered as the horse’s hooves rang out on the cobbles of the convent yard.

“She is here?” Fraser’s eyes were hard with anxiety. The little nun who had come to greet him nodded and indicated for him to follow her. He felt a sliver of the tension that had held his heart in an iron grip begin to loosen. Now for the hard part.

Martha was seated on a stone bench in the kitchen garden. A group of children were clustered around her feet as she told them a story, and she was smiling at something one of them had said. She would never be a beauty, his Martha, but when she smiled like that his heart did a dance of pure pleasure. It was something he had never experienced until he met her. Not in ten years of marriage, when he had believed himself happy. Now he knew he had mistaken contentment for happiness. Martha looked up and saw him. The smile froze in place on her lips.

“How did you find me?” she asked, when the children had gone.

“Did you think I would not?”

“I didn’t think about it because I didn’t believe you would try. So let me ask you another question, perhaps the most important one. Why did you want to find me?” She turned to face him, holding his gaze bravely. Looking him in the eye was something she had not been able to do when they first met, he remembered. Martha had come a long way since then. “Is it because I am carrying your child?”

“That was certainly part of my reason,” he said, his voice grave.

“When did you know?”

“The night before Culloden I knew it for sure. I know your body as well as you do yourself, my love—” her eyelids fluttered briefly at the endearment, “—and I’d noticed the changes in you, but the hours before battle did not seem to be the time to talk of a new life. When Cora told me you’d not be returning to Derbyshire, that was when I knew it was true beyond doubt. I knew ye’d believe to do so would bring shame to your family.”

“The nuns have agreed to let me stay here. In return for teaching the children of the orphanage, they will allow me to keep my own child with me. I told you I would care for your child, Fraser.” She turned her head away.

“I don’t want that.” He tried to get into her eye line so that he could read her expression, but she would not look at him.

“You already have what you wanted. You took my dignity in revenge for that kiss.”

He grabbed hold of her by her upper arms and swung her round to face him. “Ye think I’m so low as to do that to you?”

“You admitted it,” she whispered. “You told me yourself it was so.”

“I was half-mad with the fever. The words I spoke were a memory of what was once true, Martha.” He ran a hand through the copper of his hair. “Yes, in that cellar, when you kissed me and said you hated me, I’ll admit I had thoughts of revenge.
Then
. Not later. And not now. It must have been some remembrance of that while the fever was upon me that made me utter those words. Do you really believe I’m capable of that? Of using what we have between us against you? My God, Martha. You have me on my knees with lust every time I’m near you. I’ve no thought beyond that.”

“Oh.” She cast him a sidelong glance. A slight, reminiscent smile lifted one corner of her mouth. “But you look at me sometimes as though…oh, I can’t explain it! As though the very thought of me angers you.”

It was his turn then to look out over the darkening landscape as he searched for the right words. “Yes, I’ll admit I’ve looked at you that way. But out of frustration, not anger. Because the days of war are not the time for deep thoughts or promises. I was stranded in an enemy’s land and then on my way to fight a battle where I might lose the life that my people have held dear for centuries. It was a fine bloody time to find out I couldn’t live without a certain skinny, crabbit Englishwoman.”

He wasn’t looking at her, but heard her sharp, indrawn breath. “It’s the truth, Martha. Child or no child, I’d have come for you this day because there is something in you that cries out to something in me. My soul craves you every bit as much and exactly the same way as my body does. And my body, as you well know, craves you a great deal.” She didn’t respond. “Say something. Tell me in return what’s in your own heart.”

She gave a little laugh that broke in the middle and became a sob. “I love you, Fraser Lachlan, you big Scots fool. How can you hold me in your arms every night the way you do and
not
already know that?”

He caught her up in his arms, crushing her to him so fiercely that she cried out. Then she couldn’t speak at all because she was being kissed with an urgency that drove every thought except those of Fraser from her mind. The nun who had been watching the scene from a corner of the shady garden gave a sigh of satisfaction and tiptoed quietly away. It was some time before either of them spoke again.

“It will be desperately hard on the highlanders over the coming months and years, and I will have a high price on my head. Perhaps the highest of them all. You are tying yourself to a wanted man, Martha.” Fraser smoothed Martha’s hair back from her forehead as her head rested on his shoulder. They were seated on the bench where she had been reading to the children.

“What can we do? I came so close to losing you at Culloden, we won’t—our child and I—part with you again.”

“I fought for the prince as I promised I would. His was the right, and his claim was true. But good men and dear friends have died in his name.” She reached up a hand to touch his cheek, knowing his thoughts were of Jack. “Even if the prince had the means to fight on, I’d not be with him any longer. To see more men die for a cause long gone would be to dishonour those we lost at Drumossie. So what can I do?” He took her hand and pressed a kiss into its palm. “I can talk to friend Edwin and swear allegiance to the king. It will hurt me to do it, but if ’tis what is needed to bring peace to the clan, then I will swallow my pride. As one of the few surviving chieftains of the Great Glen, I am the man Cumberland needs, even though he will posture and pretend he does not. If he has my cooperation, it will go a long way toward repairing relationships. At first I suspect he will be looking for examples to make of the chieftains, but sooner or later, he will have to meet with us. It will cost me dear in coins as well, if I want to talk. The king likes gold, he’ll not let this opportunity for a hefty fine to pass by. If it comes to it, and we must go to France, then we’ll leave together, hand in hand, you and I. But—” he tilted her chin up so that he could press his lips to hers, “—I’m not going to the gallows or the colonies, nor will my head adorn Tower Bridge. Not now when I’ve got you beside me.”

“You would do that? You would bow your knee to the king or leave Scotland…for me?”

“Ah, d’ye still not get it, Englishwoman? I would do
anything
for you.”

“Even make a Scotswoman of me?”

“That,” he said, sliding from the bench and onto one knee before her, “was going to be my next question.”

All of the remaining servants were gathered in the great hall of Castle Lachlan when the laird returned. Fraser paused in the doorway, looking about him with a slight frown in his eyes. It appeared he was alone, and the hearts of those observing him fell at the thought that his mission must have been in vain. Then he stepped into the room, and the slender figure that had been hidden by the voluminous folds of his cloak could be seen. She put back the hood of her own cloak with a shy smile, and her curls tumbled free about her shoulders.

“Miss Wantage.” Cora hurried forward to greet her.

“No.” Fraser paused, holding up her hand to show everyone the ring on her finger. “I present to you all…your lady. My lady. Martha Lachlan.”

Then he kissed her. In front of everyone. It was so sudden and unexpected that Martha gave a soft gasp into his mouth. The kiss was slow and loving, and his hands drew her close into a lover’s embrace. Martha was drowning in their mingled breaths, intoxicated by the taste of him and the pressure of his hard chest pressing her breasts flat to the front of her dress. She was lost, drunk on the sensual pleasures of his mouth, his exploring tongue, his knowing fingers and his hard-muscled frame. She melted against him. The cheers and shouts around them faded to nothing in comparison to what she felt in his arms. When Fraser released her and she saw the blaze of love in his eyes, her own eyes filled with tears of joy.

She was home at last.