The Outcast Highlander (12 page)

“I can’t stay here.” He shuddered, and she put her hand on him again. He stilled.

“Please don’t move.” Kensey slid her hand up and down over the rippled flesh of his arm. “You can stay, and you must. You must sleep so you can heal.” She took the mug of warmed liquid and slipped one hand behind his head, pulling his lips toward the cup. His mouth opened, and she poured the mixture into his mouth as he swallowed, either accepting or trying to clear his mouth so he could breathe. She couldn’t tell which. “This will help you to sleep again.”

When she released his head, he tried to shake it again. “Please, do not keep me here.”

“You are too weak to move, Sinclair.” The act of saying his name brought a stillness to his body that surprised her. “Please, just rest.”

She held onto his arm to ground him, and then moved her hand to his forearm, and eventually to his hand. Her physical touch seemed to calm him, as was common with the infirm. They liked to know that someone was there with them, and Kensey believed they could tell, even in their stupor or their sleep, that someone was there, caring for them. She hoped that this strange man could feel her care, even with his eyes closed and his awareness dulled in sleep. Just to hold his hand, she thought, brought her the same sense of safety that she seemed to feel whenever he touched her. Even in sleep, somehow, he could awaken feelings in her that she didn’t understand. While she wanted him to sleep and rest, she also wanted him to wake, and to be alone with him, so she could finally have some of her questions answered.

Chapter Ten

“Is he awake now?” Robert asked as Kensey moved her knight. The two siblings sat at a table in the solar, playing a new game that Kensey had brought with her from France. It was a strategic game that Kensey liked to play with the boy, to develop his approach and thought. The tiny, carved pieces were a gift from a Persian noble that her grandfather had met in his youth, in the Holy Land. When he taught Kensey to play, she fell in love with the game, and its little round carved pieces. So when she left France, her grandfather gifted her the shatranj set, contained in an ornate box made of exotic wood. Robert had taken to it as easily as she herself had, and it seemed to pass the time as they continued to wait for the strange man to wake.

“I have you,” she said.

“Is he awake?”

“I’ve just ended the game, Robert.” Kensey narrowed her eyes on her brother. Robert sat at the table with her, but his attention was on the injured man, who lay in the bed on the other side of the room. He had been this way for days, now. Waiting for the man to wake. It seemed that everyone was waiting for him to wake. Kensey had met Brigid and Alana again, the day before, when the baby they’d been caring for had come out of the worst. Brigid seemed almost frightened in his presence, which made Kensey wonder if he truly was a brigand as her father had warned. And even Alana, who was a practiced healer, stayed clear of them. Like everyone else, she had approached him lying in the bed, and her face went pale. She muttered something Kensey could not understand, and made her apologies. Except for mealtimes, where Alana was perfectly cordial, Kensey had not seen her again. Only Broccin, the eldest brother, never came to visit, and was never spoken of. Kensey was almost afraid to ask after him, given the family’s extreme silence.

Malcolm, of them all, seemed to be concerned with Kensey being alone, and often joined her in Duncan’s room to read to her, or play a game of chance or attempt to learn shatranj, or relieve her so that she could sleep in the room next door. But the rest of the family did not visit again after the initial commotion.

For the last three days, while the man slept, Duncan had left her largely alone with him. He stopped in, many times, asking if he was awake. She would ask after news of her mother, of which there had been none, and they reached an impasse. Neither would bring up Fiona in the presence of others, and Kensey hadn’t been alone with Duncan since she arrived.

She and Robert took their meals with the family in the great hall, but spent most of their time in the solar, caring for her ward. When Robert grew restless, a young lad named Peter who worked in the castle would take him outside and show him around. They played in the hills, but stayed close. Everyone was on edge, waiting for news of the English at Assynt. But since they sent no messenger and no messenger came from Kensey’s home, there was no news.

“No wonder I’ve won two games in a row; your attention is divided. You concern yourself too much with whether or not he is awake.”

“I just want to know,” Robert admitted, moving all his pieces back into their places for the beginning of another game.

“When he wakes, you’ll know it.” She moved a sarbaz along the square tiles toward Robert’s waiting line of defense.

“It’s my turn to go first,” wailed Robert. “You went first last time.”

“I won, therefore it’s my turn to begin by default.”

“That’s not fair.”

“If you’d win, my darling, you would get to go first.”

“If he would wake up, we could stop playing.”

“If you do not wish to play, you may read to me.”

“No, I want to win.”

“That’s what I thought.” After Robert took his turn, she moved her ruakh.

“Now you’ll beat me just out of spite.” Robert squealed as she took one of his brown sarbaz from the table, having killed it in a lateral move.

“Perhaps you should pay attention this time. It is supposed to teach you to think in strategies, after all. Not to react to my movements. Grandfather said, when he taught me to play, that you should always be thinking many plays ahead, rather than thinking of the play you make.”

There was a sputtering noise followed by heavy breathing from the bed, and Robert jumped up from his chair. “He’s awake!”

“Don’t excite him, Robert.” Kensey placed a hand on his arm before he could bolt across the room. “Just stay back here and let me take care of him.” She scurried around the side of the bed just as she saw two blinking goldenrod eyes.

“I see you’re finally awake.” Kensey took the wet cloth from the nightstand that had long ago been cleared of the bloody clothes and water, and mopped his forehead carefully.

For days, she had imagined what this moment might be like. Him looking into her eyes, full of gratitude. She blushed at the thought, admitting to herself that she did wish for his health if only to look into his eyes again and feel the warmth of his gaze. But the way he looked at her, as he acclimated to his surroundings, this was not what she had expected. Instead of the warmth of an appreciative countenance, his eyes stared her down coldly.

He stammered, looking around him again. With a deeply furrowed brow, he exhaled. “Mother of God, lass. Why did you bring me here?”

***

As Broccin’s eyes adjusted to the light, he thought he was either hallucinating or in heaven. An angel stood in front of him and he was bandaged, rested, and warm. Even his stomach felt full. Then he looked around the room, and recognized the trappings. The fireplace. The giant bed. The shield of arms over the door. He was not in the angel’s home, nor in heaven. He was in Castle St. Claire.

Broc didn’t remember much since the boar, but he did remember asking not be left here. He remembered the beautiful angel face of Kensey MacLeod hovering over him and pouring warm drink down his throat that soothed some of his pain.

Although a good bit of the pain remained. He stretched his back and a shot of sharp agony ripped down his side.

“Och, lass. I asked you not to bring me here.” Broc couldn’t help the downward cast to his face, even though he could tell by the wide-eyed anticipation that Kensey wasn’t expecting anything but sunshine and gratitude. He hated to let her down.

“It was the only place to bring you.” She fisted her hands and placed them on her hips. In that low-waisted green gown with the blue strip of her skirts visible down the center, she did look like a faerie princess, which he’d thought her before.

But she wasn’t to be placated by appreciative gazes. She continued in a tight voice. “Not to mention that from the bothan, where we found the boar, you were heading in this direction. Malcolm said the only place you could have been coming was here, to Castle St. Claire. So it’s not outside the realm of possibility that one would assume you meant to come this way.”

He turned his head away from her, and reached up one hand to smooth out his dark hair. “I wanted to be in sight of my home when I died.”

“Well, I wasn’t about to leave you in the wilderness with no help.” She threw up her hands and the long, cascading sleeves of dress fell away from her slender arms and exposed bruises on her forearms. Broc started out of bed, but the pain stopped him.

“Who gave you those?” He raised a finger to his own forearm and she looked down, blushed, and shook her head.

She pulled at the heavy fabric until it recovered all of her skin, even swallowing her hands. “It’s none of your concern.”

“Who gave you those bruises?” His voice was deep, thick, rumbling.

“You did, if you must know.” She couldn’t meet his eyes and the color in her cheeks slid all the way down her neck and disappeared under her dress. “I made the mistake of trying to change your bandage alone. You’re stronger than you seem.”

Broc pounded the bed with a frustrated groan. The last person on earth he’d wanted to hurt, and what had he done? He’d not only hurt her, not only bruised her perfect skin, but he’d made her feel like her help was unwelcome.

He lowered his voice almost to a whisper. “I told you I was beyond help. I asked you to leave me.”

“Perhaps I should have left you.” She turned to the fireplace and crossed her arms, nearly knocking over the boy who’d been trying to peek around her.

“And who is the lad?” Broccin tried to place him by his coloring and assumed he’d been brought with Kensey. Perhaps this was her brother.

But before she could answer him, footsteps clamored on the stairs, and deep voices mumbled in the hallway.

From near the fireplace, she muttered, “I did what I could to make sure you’d live. And this is the thanks I get?”

“If only you knew what you’d done,” Broccin whispered. Suddenly, through the door, came Duncan, Malcolm, Quinlan, and Alec. The four men stood, legs spread, arms either clasped or hands splayed on their waists, staring at the man in bed.

“Hello. Brother.” Duncan said tightly, after a few seconds of silence. Malcolm, Quinlan, and Alec stood silently, surrounding Duncan. Kensey turned slowly, recognition dawning on her face.

Suddenly, his allies looked to be one less. He knew he should have told her when he first came across her on the Highlands, but he couldn’t bare the thought of that look from her again. The one she’d always given him, as though he troubled her. As though his presence vexed her. As though she were beneath him.

With guarded tones, he greeted Duncan in return. “Hello, Duncan.”

“Why are you here?”

“I asked the lass not to move me when she found me on the moor.” Broccin looked away from the anger on Duncan’s face. “I didn't ask to come back here.”

“Well, you’re here now and that’s all there is to be done with it.” The other three men still kept their silence.

“No. I will be leaving again as soon as I’m well enough to travel.”

“There will be no need for that this time,” Duncan said.

“And why is that?”

“Because he is dead now, Broc.”

Broccin bowed his head and closed his eyes. His tone, once insistent and almost angry, shifted into sadness as he thought of his father. “That’s why I came back. To see his grave. Why did no one send for me?”

“We tried,” Duncan said. “After you rescued Kensey, we tried to contact you. You bolted each time we opened the gates and would come no nearer to any one of us than a stag to a bow.”

A tear came to the corner of Broccin’s eye and he crushed it with the back of his palm before it could slide down his cheek. “He was my father, too, Duncan.”

“Aye, he was that.”

“Not that I would have grieved, but I wanted to at least see it for myself.”

“I am sorry.”

The tense silence that followed made both Kensey and Robert squirm. But the five men remained still, all. Malcolm finally spoke, an edge to his voice.

“I suppose you will be wanting to claim the title now.”

“I don’t want that, Malcolm.” Broccin closed his eyes and lowered his head to his chest, shutting out the nostalgia and the newness alike.

“Well, you have to take it.” Duncan’s voice was soft and Broc looked up to find his brother leaning on the end of the bed. “As the oldest, it is yours. You cannot deny the title, nor the duties. Is that not right, Quinlan?”

Quinlan looked back and forth between Duncan and Broccin, then nodded gravely. “Duncan is right, the title must pass to you. Even the royal council, if it were able to be convened, would agree.”

“We abided by Magnus’ rules when he was alive because he would have flayed the whole clan alive if we hadn’t.” Duncan nodded to Kensey. “But like Kensey’s father, I had the Earldom stripped when I wouldn’t take up arms against my countrymen. Reginald de Cheyne is now the Earl of Caithness.”

“Lucky for you, you’re to be wed to his daughter, so we’ll have the Earldom back, too, once Reginald joins Magnus in the grave.” Malcolm smiled a bit too widely at that and Duncan shook his head.

“I see no reason to abide by any of Magnus’s edicts. Broc should marry whom he sees fit. And soon. Before the war reaches us.”

Quinlan snorted. “It’s reached us. Or at least as far north as Assynt.”

The room quieted at that and Kensey took a seat in the chair near the fireplace. She still hadn’t spoken since she discovered who he was. This would undoubtedly put a damper in her plans to marry Duncan, the laird. Although if she did love him as she said, perhaps she wouldn’t care that he lost the title.

Oh, who was he fooling? He didn’t want the title anyway. Blast the stupid title.

“But you are the laird, Duncan,” Broccin said. “And you’ve had the leadership since Magnus passed. Just let me go away again and you can have them all to yourself. Pretend I was never here.” He looked to Kensey and felt the familiar knife in his heart. “Take a woman, make an heir, settle into your life as the leader of Clan Sinclair and let me go.”