Highlander of Mine (16 page)
R
ory couldn’t stay away, even if Fleur was more than likely sleeping. He’d made a plan, decided his fate. Mayhap her fate too. While asking Timothy and Collin why the light still flickered inside Mrs. Cameron’s house, he was surprised to see Duncan suddenly emerge from the dark. He was puffing and appeared pale, mayhap in pain.
“Is it Lady Fleur? Has she been taken again?” Rory asked before the huge man could speak.
Duncan shook his head. He clamped a mighty paw on Rory’s shoulder.
“Nay, the lady is fine. I’m glad to see ye, Captain.” He turned to Timothy, his hand still on Rory, making him itch to remove it. “’Tis my ma. She’s so sick. Would ye go and fetch Mrs. McVicar please? My ma needs her.”
Timothy nodded and scampered away with wide brown eyes.
Rory turned to Duncan, forcing the man to remove himself from his touch.
“Again, thankful to see ye, Captain, for I needed Timothy to go, and I hated to think about Collin out here alone.”
“I can defend ye, Lieutenant MacKay,” Collin said. He was small for his age, but puffed his chest when he’d spoken, making him appear almost eight and ten, instead of his five and ten.
Duncan actually cracked a small grin at the lad. “Aye, I ken ye can. Ye would do me great honor defendin’ me and the lady and my ma.”
“What’s wrong with yer mother?” Rory finally asked.
Duncan’s face contorted, twisted into deep agony for a second. He glanced at Collin, but then finally huffed and answered. “My ma,” he bitterly chuckled, “she still hasn’ told me what exactly her sickness is. Stubborn woman—”
“Mother like son?” Rory asked, surprised to find himself lightly bantering with Duncan.
Duncan slightly smiled and nodded. “Suppose so. But,” he paused and cleared his throat, pain growing apparent in his choked expression. “She—she has tumors. She’s just had a second one burst.”
Lord, that was grave, Rory thought. Forcing himself to do the humane thing, he patted Duncan’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry.”
Duncan nodded grimly.
“Oh, Lieutenant MacKay, I’m sorry too, sir,” Collin whispered reverently.
Duncan winced and tried to turn it into a grin.
Rory thought fast. Lady Fleur had taken to Mrs. Cameron, although God ken why. The woman let her sons sleep in a barn for Christ’s sake. Aye, when he’d be with the lady, he’d teach her to show compassion to people of Mrs. Cameron’s caliber, mayhap give a little care, like a cold cloth on a forehead, but little more. Rory could just imagine her showering the elderly woman with attention and assiduousness at this critical time.
Lord, this put a wrench in his plans. He’d designed them while Fleur had ridden with him back to Durness. Certainly, she needed some time to recuperate, and he’d give it to her. Let her visit with Helen for a while more. But then it was time the lady accompany him to Tongue to meet his brother and live in the castle. It was time for her to be his.
And it was time to be rid of the blubbering big man beside him now. It vexed Rory to no end that Duncan was so close to the lady. More than likely they’d spent time together without him, he knew. What could they have possibly talked about? What did they have in common? He was a simple-minded idiot, while she was the moon and stars—an endless possibility of heaven. If Duncan so much as touched Fleur, he’d kill him.
But, Rory devised, now was the time to show the lady he was a deserving man of her, that he too cared, that he was the right choice for her.
He turned to Duncan a little more, intimating concern. “When Timothy comes back, I’ll go fetch a few of the troops and head to Tongue and return with my brother’s personal doctor.”
Duncan blinked and swallowed. He had to clear his voice twice before he could say, “Thank ye, Captain. That is most kind.”
Rory nodded. “I, ah, I’ve established a rotating crew of troops to keep watch of yer mother’s house while Lady Fleur resides within. I’m guessin’ she’s with yer mother now?”
“Aye. Carin’ for her.”
“Aye. So I’ll keep the crew watchin’ while the doctor heals yer mother back to health.”
Duncan’s face fell into an obvious frown. It wasn’t a begrudging kind of expression. It was pure helplessness. And for a moment Rory felt for him. His own mother was still alive, but she’d run off to France when he was six. He’d never really known her. However, he had loved his elderly father. When he’d too escaped to France, to run from Cromwell, Rory had gone with him. It had been a short six months together, but it had been a time Rory would never take back, getting to know his strong father, learning what type of leader he’d been. Then when Cromwell made false promises, imprisoned his father, and executed him...well, it had done much to Rory’s soul. It hadn’t necessarily darkened him, but rather made him realize all the more the gifts in this life, like Lady Fleur.
She would be his.
Unfortunately, he had to work this out so she would come to him. Rory knew that much. Thus, he would playact the concerned captain of Duncan’s, the caring laird’s brother. After all, these were his brother’s people, hence his own. And in a way he did care about them. Mayhap not as much as Fleur, but...It occurred to him yet again she would be so good for him. Lady Fleur cared for these people as if she were one of them, and was that not the best way into the people’s hearts? If he was going to lead, then her way was the right way.
When Fleur finally relented and came to him, became his, he would repay her with his heart, for she would give him the people’s. Aye, this would all work out. He just needed to remain patient. Besides, Cromwell’s New Order Army was close, and they would ensure not just that his plan would work, but also he might not need to be patient for long.
Duncan suddenly straightened and looked out to the village. “What did ye do with the prisoner, Greggor?”
Of course the man would think of such things at a time like this. He was always concerned with all the details of maintaining a strong military, which was helpful when under tutelage, but annoying as hell. Rory slid a smile into place. “Believe it or not, Jamie and his wee gang, the Lady’s lads, are watchin’ over him in the one prison Durness has.”
Duncan actually smiled at that. “I hope the lads don’ hurt the prisoner too much.”
Rory softly chuckled.
“Jamie, he’s awful fond of the lady,” Duncan said.
“Aye.”
“Aye,” Collin added, reminding Rory he was even there. “We all are, Lieutenant. She’s a real sweet one. Being so bonny doesn’ hurt either.”
“Aren’ ye supposed to be patrolling the parameter, Collin?” Rory arched a brow at the lad.
Collin sucked in a breath, started to jog away, but then returned and patted Duncan. “Thanks to the captain, we’ll get yer ma back to health. And I promise to protect ye and the lady durin’.”
Duncan clapped the lad on the back. “Much appreciated, Collin. And...I’m deeply honored.”
Collin swallowed, glanced at Rory, then started to lope to the back of the house.
Rory wanted to shout in fury then. He knew not why. He was incensed beyond words. Well, he hated to admit how much he wished Collin would look at him the way he did at Duncan. He coveted the way Collin talked to Duncan, so respectful, deferential.
Well, Rory would work on the young troops respecting him. That’s all he could do.
Once more, he gave Duncan his attention. “Let me ken what more I can do for ye, what my brother might do for ye and yer family, aye?”
Duncan nodded. “I—I want to be with my ma, for” —he cleared his voice and looked up at the overcast night, making everything seem too black and dark—“for my ma thinks she’s dyin’.” His voice cracked under the strain of what he’d just conveyed.
Rory nodded, wondering if it could be true. Women seemed to know better than men about such things, and Mrs. Cameron was a healer herself. Mayhap she was dying. Well, then Fleur might come to him for comfort from her grief. He might not need to be patient for much longer, indeed. Further, if Mrs. Cameron died, his secondary plan, the plan that had been raging on his soul, could come to fruition.
It had to be a sign. He hadn’t thought his secondary plan would be his future. He’d thought he’d be dutiful. But now...if he proceeded with the secondary plan he could wipe out the crime in MacKay county, eliminate the threat of Duncan, and Fleur would be his. He—oh, Lord—he could claim more than Fleur too.
He hated to think of himself as an opportunist who would take advantage of death, especially the death of Mrs. Cameron. She was a nice enough woman, though weak and strange. But with her death, he could gain everything he’d ever dreamed of. And more.
Rory turned to Duncan, trying to dampen his grin. “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that doesn’ happen, Duncan, that yer ma returns to health. We’ll take time off from trainin’. For now, focus on takin’ care of yer mother.”
Duncan swallowed again and looked away, tears forming in the man’s eyes. “Ye—ye’re” —he broke off and cleared his throat again—“Ye’re a good man, Rory. Thank ye so much.”
Rory even patted Duncan’s shoulder once more, not necessarily for effect either. The best way for Fleur to come to him, rather than to Duncan, was to show humility. Great humility. And as Rory squeezed Duncan, he knew that Fleur was again making him a better leader, a better man. He felt that soon enough, as Fleur herself had said, he wouldn’t surrender his dreams. He’d make them a reality.
F
inally, Helen relented and confessed she had breast cancer. She’d been almost forced to tell, because Duncan had insisted he stay in the room when Mrs. McVicar arrived. Startled with the realization of
where
the tumor had burst, his eyes rimmed with red, the planes of his face so tense, he slowly approached the door before Mrs. McVicar examined his mother. But before leaving, he asked if there was anything he could do for her, his ma.
Fleur’s heart ached for him as he left. Those wide shoulders took most of the doorframe’s width, yet how they looked defeated. She longed to embrace him once more, but Helen had asked her to stay while Mrs. McVicar tended to her. Holding her hand, Fleur glanced down at Helen as Mrs. McVicar gently and slowly tried to remove Helen’s shift. She’d covered herself in a brown woolen blanket, and Fleur hadn’t seen—well, anything. But once the blanket was removed, Fleur tried everything not to appear shocked at the watermelon-sized black-red stain over Helen’s left breast.
“How is the laudanum working, Mrs. Cameron,” Mrs. McVicar asked quietly.
“Quite well. I’m not feelin’ a thing right now. But when it wears off...Lord, I just hate that.”
“Aye.” Mrs. McVicar nodded, almost looking as if it were an absentminded answer, but Fleur had a feeling the pleasant woman soaked in every utterance.
Having a biology undergraduate degree always came in useful for Fleur. She knew the basic mechanics of the human body quite well. And it didn’t hurt that Rachel, her best friend, was a physical anthropologist who raved about her work, like Fleur did to her. Yes, Fleur knew the human body better than most, even within her own time. But glancing down at the explosion on Helen’s shift, nothing could have prepared her for that.
“Helen,” she whispered before she could stop herself.
Helen looked up, appearing as nonplussed as if Fleur had asked what time in the night it might be.
“Are you sure you’re not in pain?” Fleur asked, trying very hard to make her voice stable and strong.
Helen shook her head, but her lids fluttered closed of their own accord. Still, she spoke. “Not feelin’ much, my dear. But I am so tired. I wouldn’ mind a cup of that coca tea.”
“Mrs. Cameron,” Mrs. McVicar said sternly. “Ye need yer rest. Only take it if there’s an emergency.”
Helen’s eyes sprang open. “I had a princess in my house, Mrs. McVicar. I couldn’ just sleep all day, like the laudanum makes me want to do.”
“Oh, Helen.” Fleur choked as tears pricked her eyes for the thousandth time that night. She squeezed Helen’s hand even more.
“I—I—” Helen tried to articulate something more, but her eyes shuttered closed again.
“I wish you would have told me. I would have taken better care of you,” Fleur could barely utter.
Helen shook her head, her eyes refusing to open. “Nay, I needed the time to get to ken ye, ken if ye were good enough for my son.”
At that Fleur squeezed her own eyes shut, feeling hot tears surf down her face.
“I’m going to have to rip yer shift, Mrs. Cameron. I hope ye don’t mind,” Mrs. McVicar said, reminding both Fleur and Helen of her presence.
Helen nodded, and swiftly Mrs. McVicar tore into the thin muslin.
There it was. A map of the human body during a violent war called cancer. One of Helen’s breasts was inflamed, but what lay slightly above the nipple was blackened and oozing something not quite blood-like because it was far too dark. Fleur repressed the urge to clutch her own breast and hide away.
She leaned down and rested her head close to Helen’s. Genetically, there might be only two genes responsible for breast cancer, BRCA1 and BRCA2. Fleur knew the reasons for cancer, when a man and woman, both carriers of either breast cancer genes, have a match and make a child, then that child’s chances of having breast cancer rise dramatically. What utterly baffled geneticists, and Fleur too, was there were always the carriers that didn’t ever have cancer. The odds were stacked against them, and some women, when realizing their probabilities, went ahead with a full mastectomy. Fleur didn’t blame them. That made sense. It was rational to protect oneself from such a horrible disease.
But why were there carriers who didn’t get cancer?
Why was life such a crapshoot?
Mrs. McVicar sniffed very loudly, and Fleur finally opened her eyes to see what she was doing. She was smelling Helen.
Smiling up at Fleur, Mrs. McVicar said, “She doesn’ smell bad.”
Fleur tried to grin back, but wasn’t sure she pulled off the feat.
“We have to ensure she remain without infection.”
Fleur straightened and nodded. “What can I do to ensure that?”
“I think it best to let the wound remain open, release all the black bile.”
Instantly, Fleur flashed back to her first biology class in Texas and the history of medicine. She remembered being taught that once doctors and healers in the Western world believed there were four humors that composed the human body and all ailments—blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and of course the dreaded black bile. Although, what oozed out of Helen wasn’t technically bile, which is a mechanism of the liver and gallbladder. What Helen secreted was a waste product of the body’s white blood cells trying their damnedest to fight off the cancer. Still, this was no time—hell, it was definitely not the time—to correct the seventeenth-century midwife what was what.
As if sensing Fleur’s worry about what to do, Helen spoke reassuringly. “Mrs. McVicar is right to leave the wound open. We just need to keep it clean. Let it air out a bit, then seal it.”
“All right.” Fleur nodded and looked at Mrs. McVicar. “How do we seal it?”
“Burn it, darlin’.” Helen responded again. “Like the first burst tumor.” Sleepily she lifted the remaining particle of her shift and let Fleur see her scarred right breast.
Reality squeezed Fleur’s lungs shut, her eyes closed, and her brain stuttered with the comprehension that Helen couldn’t get chemotherapy. She couldn’t get radiation. Hell, Fleur doubted she could get surgery.
“Surgery,” Fleur all but screamed out. “Can we remove—?”
Helen clutched at Fleur’s hand, pulling on it until Fleur looked at her in the eyes. “’Tis too far along. My dear, my cancer has spread. ‘Tis sittin’ in my gut now, like a toad, makin’ it so I’m almost always nauseated, makin’ it so I throw up every day now. ‘Tis also in my lungs too. Can ye hear it?” Helen was silent for a pause, letting Fleur listen to the slightly sickly suckling noise Helen made with every breath. Then she gracefully covered her raw, red, and scarred right breast with the blanket. “I’ve always loved to be a healer. It gave me freedom from my husband. Sorry, Mrs. McVicar, if that’s disturbin’ to hear.”
“Nay.” Mrs. McVicar gently began to clean Helen’s chest with a basin of water and a white cloth. “I love my husband. I do. But bein’ a midwife is much the same. ‘Tis about the time when I’m thinkin ’I might slit his throat from ear to ear, then a lass is needin’ me for birthin’. I spend a few days away from home, and I can’t believe I ever thought of killin’ me beautiful husband.” She giggled.
Helen joined her.
Fleur tried to make some kind of noise similar to a chuckle, but the moment was heady with...it was far too real. Tangible. Helen was an actual woman, who was dying. And after nursing Na, watching her take her last breaths, she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to do it again.
“As I was sayin’, Fleur, I loved bein’ a healer, kenning the things I do. But when I first found the lump in my breast, I played the most devilish game with myself. I kept pretendin’ it wasn’ really there.”
“Ah, the things we tell ourselves, aye?” Mrs. McVicar asked ruefully.
“Aye,” Helen said, her eyes again closed. “It was Mrs. McVicar that kenned something was amiss with me, when I had to ask her for help to lift one of the people I was carin’ for.”
Mrs. McVicar straightened and worked at a knot along the base of her spine, also tilting her head. Her long dark braid with a few silver threads cascaded down to a hip. She grinned at Fleur with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. “Ye don’ think Duncan comes by his strength just because he’s so big and brawny, do ye? Nay, ‘tis because his mother was one of the strongest women in all of the Highlands, I’d wager. And when she actually asked for my help, I kenned something was very wrong.” Mrs. McVicar’s grin vanished as she looked down at her patient. She lifted the basin to her hip. It was filled with dark bloody water now.
“Let me get you more clean water.” Fleur tried to jump up, but Mrs. McVicar held her hand out.
“Nay, Mrs. Cameron needs ye to hold her hand now. She’s done this before. All alone. Now that the stubborn woman has finally told, she needs ye.” With that, Mrs. McVicar left with the red basin and red cloth, made all the more ominous from the waning candlelight.
Helen cracked her lids slightly and glanced up. “I do need ye. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, Helen. It’s my honor to be here. I just—I—I’ll do my best. You let me know if I can do anything for you, all right?”
Helen smiled, then released her grip of Fleur’s hand and reached up to pat her on the cheek. “I finally ken what having a daughter would be like.”
Fleur broke down. She’d wanted to be strong, but she couldn’t stop her tears at that point. Nor the words she spoke. “And I finally get to know what having a mom would be like. Oh, I had my Na, my grandmother. And she did a wonderful job raising me.”
Helen glanced up. “Aye, she did. Ye are so good, so kind and considerate. Ye have a strong heart, strong enough for Duncan.”
Fleur felt another wave of tears hit her.
“Ye are more like my daughter in-law, but I’ll always think of ye as my daughter.”
Fleur shook her head. “He hasn’t even—”
“Oh, he will, my beautiful lass. He will.”