Lyon's Gift (21 page)

She turned to David once more, narrowing her eyes at
him. “That brute you would have me wed,” she informed him
pettishly, “is a verra poor host, I should tell you. Why he tossed
my grandmother out in the meadow yesterday morn!”

She stared at David expectantly, as though
anticipating he should do something about her complaint. “Have you
naught to say about that?” she demanded when he did not respond,
and tried not to laugh at the harassed expression he wore.

“
Lyon?” David said warily, turning
to face Lyon again, clearly taken aback by her behavior.

Meghan lifted her chin as she too turned to face
Lyon Montgomerie, tilting a victorious look at him.

She was either a very shrewd actress, Lyon decided,
or she was deadly in earnest.

He could no longer bloody well tell, and he
frowned.

Christ, but the damned beast was dressed in a bloody
wimple! And he didn’t care to look so closely at what she’d formed
it of, because the cloth looked entirely too familiar, and he
hadn’t as yet had the opportunity to procure more.

David turned to glare at the bleating lamb. “Let me
get this aright,” he said, addressing Meghan once more. “This lamb,
you claim, is your grandmother?”

Meghan nodded, lifting her chin—the bloody wicked
wench! “Of course!” she persisted.

Lyon tried not to laugh at the blatant challenge
flashing in her green eyes as she met David’s gaze once more.

“
I see,” David remarked calmly,
turning again to Lyon. He lifted his brows. “Lyon, you would wed
this woman?”

Lyon was uncertain how to respond: while he did not
wish to impugn her before David, neither did he enjoy being made
the bloody fool.

“
Where might we sit to eat?” she
persisted, seeming entirely too pleased over the havoc she’d
wreaked. “Or did you plan on starvin’ us as well?”

“
Meghan,” Lyon said softly in
warning, through now playing games.

“
You said you would make us both
welcome!” she reminded him pertly. “And so far you’ve not! Are you
a liar as well as a thief?”

Lyon eyed the bleating lamb in growing frustration.
He cast a glance at David, who was staring now, quite displeased,
and for the first time in his life, his face burned with
chagrin.

“
Meghan,” he warned, clenching his
jaw.

If she was serious, he determined, then she was
truly mad... and if she was not, then she was undermining him
before his friend and his liege. Feeling obliged to take the
situation in hand, to save his food if not his face, he stood and
lifted the noisy beast from his table, placing it at his feet.

“
My pardon if it offends you,
Meghan, but your grandmother is not welcome at my
table.”

“
How dare you!” she exclaimed, and
sank to her knees at once, unfazed by his growing ire. Lyon peered
down in trepidation to find that she was crawling beneath the table
to reach the wee lamb, shoving at David’s knee. “Get out of my
way!” she demanded.

Bloody hell, but she
was
mad!

She was a goddamned beautiful lunatic!

“
What the devil is she doing,
Lyon?”

“
There, there! Poor Fia!” she
cried out, and then peered up accusingly at Lyon from under the
table. “How dare you!” she declared once more, crawling out from
under the table at last. “You will not win me like that!” she
swore, and having said that, she stood, brushed herself off, and
quite rudely reached between him and David, seizing a loaf of bread
from the table. “If Fia is not welcome, then I am not welcome!” she
proclaimed, and reached down to snatch up the lamb into her arms,
as well. “Hmmph!” she said, and gave them her back. And without a
by your leave she left them, hurrying toward the stairs, with her
grandmother and his food in tow.

David stared after her, bemused. “What the hell was
that?”

Lyon sat staring after her as well.
Crazy-as-the-devil wench. “Naught more than stubborn Scot pride, I
think,” he answered, and his brows drew together as he watched her
stomp her way up the stairs to his chamber. His face contorted. “I
hope.” And then, “Pardon the interruption... what were you
saying?”

“
Never mind!” David declared.
“I’ve changed my mind! I should think twice were I you, Lyon! That
woman might be beautiful, but she’s daft besides! You’d be better
suited to wed Alison MacLean!”

Lyon wasn’t willing to concede. “I respectfully
disagree,” he said. “And I’ve already made clear my reasons why.
Aside from that, Alison MacLean is entirely too—”

“
Sane!” David interjected. “What
the devil has come over you, Lyon?”

Meghan Brodie.

Meghan Brodie had come over him.

A stubborn-as-the-devil miss with flashing green
eyes and a temper as fierce as the Highlands that had bred her.

He frowned. “How the hell should I know?”

The slam of his chamber door reverberated throughout
the hall. Lyon could hear her stomping across his room, bearing the
weight of the lamb within her arms.

“
As a friend, not your liege...”
David began.

The floorboards creaked ominously. Lyon peered up,
making a mental note to fix them soon. He could hear her muffled
ravings and her subsequent tantrum, designed specifically for his
ears, he was well aware.

She continued to stomp, punctuating her every rant
with another stomp, bringing an unwilling smile to his lips...
until he heard the first crack...

David continued ominously. “... I beg you, think
with your head and not—”

It happened so fast, Lyon hadn’t time to react.
“Meghan!” he shouted.

The floorboards gave even as he surged from his
chair.

She came crashing down through the ceiling.

David leapt up and out of the way barely in
time.

The little lamb gave an unholy shriek as it followed
her down.

Meghan landed with a crash, smashing trenchers and
cracking her forehead upon David’s tankard.

The lamb landed upon the floor with a sickening
thud.

Meghan murmured, “I—I decided to j-join you a-after
a-all.” And she closed her eyes as her head landed in a plate full
of mutton.

For an instant, Lyon was too stunned to move.

The hall fell into a stupor.

David stood beside him, staggered.

She lay before him much too still.

He turned to David. “Find me a physician!” he
snapped, dispensing with formalities for Meghan’s sake, and reached
out to scoop her at once into his arms, his heart pounding with
fear.

CHAPTER 17

“
Lyon bore her up the
stairs, barking orders to his men: one to bring water, another to
bring rags.

She was bleeding somewhere on her beautiful
face, but it was too soiled with food and blood for him to tell
precisely where she was injured.

He kicked open his door with an urgency born
of fear.

She began to murmur unintelligibly within
his arms. “Fia,” she whimpered.

His heart twisted a little. He carried her
to his bed and laid her gently down upon it. What was he going to
say to her? How could he tell her? “Shhh,” he urged her.

She opened her eyes, and stared up at him
with a dazed expression upon her face. “W-where is Fia?” she
persisted.

“
Sleeping,” he lied, and
winced as a vision of the animal’s twisted form flashed through his
head.

She closed her eyes. “Not dead...”

“
Shhh...”

“
Sleeping,” she murmured.
“Dinna mean to wake her,” she whispered, drifting off once yet
again.

David came into the room as she lost
consciousness, his concern evident in his eyes. “They say there is
only a midwife to be found,” he said. “ ‘Tis the best we could do.
I sent one of your men to fetch her. How does she fare, Lyon?”

“
She spoke,” Lyon said
gravely, peering up at his longtime friend. “She asked after the
lamb.”

David shook his head. “Poor creature,” he
said low. “I ordered the carcass lifted.”

Lyon nodded, and then muttered an oath
beneath his breath. “Where is the water to wash her, damn it! I can
see naught for all the blood!”

David placed a hand upon his shoulder.

“
I should have fixed those
floorboards!” Lyon said in self-reproach. “I should have bloody
well fixed them!”

“
You could not have
foreseen this.”

“
Nay! I saw their
condition days ago,” Lyon confessed. “I should have fixed them!” He
shook his head in self-disgust. “I should have fixed
them!”

“
And I should never have
interfered in MacKinnon’s affairs,” David countered, much too
calmly for Lyon’s state of mind. He could scarcely think, yet alone
reason, and David would speak to him of politic matters?

David’s voice was drowned in a torrent of
his own thoughts. Where was she cut? Was she hurt elsewhere
besides? And what was he going to tell her about her poor lamb?

Christ, she was bleeding too much!

“
I should not have taken
his son,” David continued, his voice grating upon Lyon’s nerves. He
couldn’t think. “Because of me Lagan MacKinnon lies dead. I should
not have interfered in the MacKinnon’s affairs, and because I did,
your task is made all the more difficult.”

At the moment, Lyon didn’t bloody well
care!

“
And my goal lies all the
more distant,” David added as well.

“
I cannot think of this
just now!” Lyon said, and thrust his hands into his hair, maddened
by the wait, feeling helpless but to stare.

“
What good does it do me
to regret?” David persisted.

“
None,” Lyon answered
impatiently, understanding David’s meaning at once.

These were all things he knew, of course.
And yet...

“
Precisely,” David said.
“What is done is done.”

Lyon grit his jaw stubbornly. “Now is not
the time for lectures, David. Help me with these sheets,” he
demanded, spying the shredded linen she had used for Fia’s scarf.
“They are taking too long!”

Seizing the cloth in his hand, he ripped it
in half, handing the bigger piece to David. He tore a smaller piece
for himself and began to clean the blood from her face—gently, lest
he hurt her more. He found the wound near her temple, within her
hair, and pressed the cloth to it in an attempt to staunch the
flow.

David continued to tear the linen. “’Tis not
as though you purposely left the floor to rot.”

Lyon gently pushed the blood-soaked hair
from her face.

“
She truly is lovely,”
David remarked.

“
Aye,” Lyon agreed,
watching her face closely for some sign of lucidity. At the moment,
beauty didn’t concern him, only that she would be well.

His men arrived bearing water and rags.

“
About bloody time!” Lyon
snapped as he was handed a rag already soaked with water. He
ordered them all from the room, and began to clean her face once
more. “Send the midwife in the instant she arrives!” he commanded
them before they went.

“
It appears to be the
single cut,” David said, watching. “Allow me to hold the rag. You
inspect the rest of her to be certain there is no other
wound.”

It was precisely what he intended to do.

Lyon released the blood-soaked rag into
David’s hands, and did as suggested.

David lowered his voice. “And what shall you
tell her about... the lamb?”

“
I’ve no idea,” Lyon
admitted, and proceeded to remove her soiled clothing.

She stirred, moaning softly as he undressed
her, and he peered at her face expectantly. She didn’t reopen her
eyes, and he stared at her, contemplating what he would say when
she awoke. At worst she believed the lamb to be her grandmother. At
best it was a beloved pet. Either way she was going to be
aggrieved.

At the moment, however, he was too concerned
for her to feel anything more than sorry for the animal.

He removed her sleeve, drew it down, and his
heart wrenched to find that her arm had been twisted in the fall.
It was swollen about the elbow, already turning an ungodly shade of
crimson-blue.

“
Mother of Christ!” David
exclaimed. “I think she may lose the use of that arm!”

Lyon cast him a black glance.

The hell she would, he vowed, and at once
set about untangling her from her gown.

Leith had insisted he bring her home.

He’d kissed her once more, a gentle peck
upon the lips before bidding her farewell, and Alison had yet to
walk inside. She stood in the shadows of her father’s home,
watching him go, her fingers pressed to her lips in something akin
to awe.

Leith Mac Brodie wanted to wed with her.

Her?

She still could not believe it, though he
had sworn it with his heart in his eyes. She had never thought a
man would ever look at her so.

She didn’t know how long she stood there,
but he was long departed when a voice startled her from her
reverie.

“
Alison?”

Alison saw the man coming from the
woodlands, and she turned and walked quickly toward her father’s
hall, ready to shriek for help, and horrified at her own stupidity
for waiting so long like an idiot to watch Leith go. It had been a
stupid thing to do.

“
Alison MacLean!” the man
called out.

Alison lifted up her skirts to flee, but he
shouted out, “Wait, I mean you no harm. I bring news of
Meghan!”