Lois Greiman (3 page)

“W
hat happened to him?” The maid’s voice was soft and breathy, imbued with an earthy cockney accent.

“What happened?” Someone chuckled. Or maybe it was the grating sound of iron-shod wheels against gravel. “’Tis a dangerous world, Cherie. Perhaps a wild animal got to him.”

Keelan let lucidness filter slowly through him, cataloguing the aches and pains as he did so. He was lying on his back. He knew as much, for every piece of misplaced fodder prodded him like the devil’s pitchfork. But that was the least of his worries, for it felt as if his very heart was exposed, beating through the tattered remains of his chest and throbbing with shattering intensity in the inflamed agony of his ribs. His lips were stiff with crusted blood, and the left side of his face felt strangely lifeless and mis
shapen. Truth to tell, his entire body thrummed with pain. But wait. No. His right ear seemed surprisingly unscathed. Glory be, it barely hurt at all. And he wasn’t freezing. Cold yes. Freezing no. In fact, there was a spot on his right side just above his hip that was relatively warm. Perhaps that was because he was bleeding again. He tried to glance down. Only one eye opened. Still, it was enough to see that it was not blood that warmed him, but the bicolored lambkin.

Memories of his own unnatural acts stormed in. In the sober light of day they seemed all the more insane.

“Hold still.”

Keelan glanced up. The maid with the honeyed voice was kneeling beside him. Her face was sprinkled with delicate freckles and was as bonny as the month of May.

“Who are ye?” he asked. The words croaked rustily from his throat, but she shushed him. The lamb remained where it was, curled against his side like a slumbering puppy.

“Quiet now. You’ve been hurt.”

Someone laughed, but Keelan doubted if it was he, since his ribs remained intact, such as they were.

“Perhaps it was wolves.” Roland, the bastard, stood but a few feet away.

“Wolves?” The girl scrunched her sunny face. Her hand, where it lay against his arm, was as soft and tentative as a sigh. “Naw.” She blinked, looking worried. “This late in the year?”

“As I said, the world’s a dangerous place.” Roland smirked. “Isn’t that right, boy?”

It took Keelan a moment to realize he was being spoken to, for the girl was very near. Like a tiny wild rose in a scratchy field of brambles, she had captured his attention.

“I said, there are dangers aplenty, aren’t there, Highlander?”

“Aye.” Keelan’s voice was little more than a croak. “There are indeed.”

“Tell me,” Roland continued. His tone was conversational but for a smattering of humor. Oh aye, he was enjoying this new sport. “Were you attacked by a beast?” There was a veiled threat in his voice, but there was no need. Keelan knew the rules of this game, had learned them in his youth, when bullies roamed aplenty.

“Aye,” he said, resting his head on the mound of fodder behind him. He’d been left to rest after the lamb’s resurrection, but sleep had done him little good. “Three of them.”

“Wolves, you think?” asked the girl and shuddered.

“’Twas dark,” said Keelan. “I could na be
certain what manner of beastie they be.”

“You needn’t worry, Cherie,” said Roland, “so long as you’re with me.”

Her eyes were wide, heavily lashed, and the color of fine Irish whisky. Or mayhap cheap Irish whisky. Truth be told, Keelan was fond of both and could dearly use some just about then. “So he was like this when you found him?” she asked.

Roland tsked. “’Tis a terrible thing,” said he, but his words lacked conviction. He would not survive long on the stage. Or by the power of his wits alone. “You’re fortunate I came along, aren’t you, Scotsman?”

Keelan’s head hurt like the very devil, throbbing to the beat of his heart. “I’ve always been lucky,” he rasped.

Roland chuckled.

“Lucky?” The girl’s voice was wispy, her eyes bright, as though she might weep for the injuries done him. “You poor, dear thing. You must have fought like a lion.” Her hand trembled a little against his side. She blinked, shifted her gaze, wrinkled her fair brow. “But the lamb…Wherever did the lamb come from? Why did the beasts not devour it?”

Silence fell over the place. Keelan turned his one good eye toward Roland, who glanced un
comfortably toward the tiny creature. Had Keelan not ached in every fiber of his bludgeoned body, he would have enjoyed the moment.

“’Tis me master’s,” Keelan said through swollen lips. “I was but hoping to return it to the fold when I was set upon.”

The girl’s lips parted. Her eyes widened. “You mean to say you fought off the beasties…” She paused. “For naught but a mere small lamb?”

The words tripped off her rose-petal lips like magic. As if he were a revered hero of old. A valiant knight instead of a battered fool far out of his own time and place. Still, he tried to give her a demure glance, but it was no simple feat with only one functioning eye. “You make me sound verra brave, lass,” he countered shyly, “when in truth—”

“No.” She touched his lips. The feel of her fingertips against his skin seemed to draw out the pain. Or maybe it was naught but the look of worry in her dewy eyes. Either way, she was a balm to body and soul. “Don’t speak. I shall fetch some salves and tonics.” She rose to her feet. Her skirt swished, skimming his bare skin. “And milk for your precious lamb.”

He tried to object, but his lips were too broken, his mind too slow. In a moment she was gone, and he was left alone…with Roland.

The bastard moved closer, like a cold wind blowing from a frigid shore, sweeping aside the curtain of hope and showing the darkness behind.

“Pretty little piece, isn’t she?” he crooned. The threat would have been obvious to a deaf man. Keelan wasn’t deaf. Almost blind, true enough, but his right ear was in damned fine condition.

“Is she?” Keelan asked. “I could na tell, what with me eye having been beat shut by…the beasties.”

Roland said nothing for a moment, then chuckled and stepped closer. He was smoking again. Fresh waves of remembered pain coursed through Keelan at the scent. “I see you are wiser than you look, Scotsman. Of course…” He twirled the cheroot. “You look just short of dead.”

“Aye, well…” Keelan shifted slightly, nudging the lamb gently with his hip. It tottled to its little trotters. Near the door, a hound rose with a growl. “Looks can be deceiving.”

Perhaps Roland intended some sort of nasty rejoinder, but just then the lamb bleated. The bastard stepped back, eyeing it cautiously, and Keelan almost smiled. But he
was
smarter than he looked, and now seemed a likely time to prove it. Thus he kept his expression solemn.

“What kind of game are you playing, Highlander?”

Keelan shifted, trying to find comfort, only to discover there was no such place. “If ’tis a game, it be a terrible painful one.”

Rounding Keelan’s outstretched feet, Roland approached him from the opposite side and squatted, holding the tip of his glowing cigar close to the other’s tattered skin. “It would be wise of you to remember that…lad.”

Every wound throbbed with unrelenting zeal. “I am na likely to forget.”

“That is good to hear for—” But in that moment the maid hurried noisily back in. The second hound rose, pulling its tether tight, watching with head lowered, eyes gleaming.

“What is good?” she asked.

Roland rose to his feet, eyes shining much like the hound’s. “The Celt here said he won’t be needing your ministrations after all, Cherie.”

“Won’t be needing me?” She approached with quick steps, sturdy, scuffed shoes rapping intermittently against straw and hard-packed dirt. “What nonsense is this then? He is simply being brave again.” Squatting beside him, she set a carved wooden tray next to a pile of chaff. It was laden with bottles and bags and one hollowed basin that boasted steaming contents. The scent
of figwort wafted cozily into the air. She was staring at him with soft, troubled eyes. “’Twould be best to get you to the house, but I dare not without the master’s permission.” She paused, shook her head, then brightened rapidly. “But never mind that, I fear the pain of moving you would be too great if we do not make you more comfortable first.” Her lovely brow creased. “Thus I will treat you here.”

“Ye needn’t bother,” Keelan said. “’Tis certain I will mend on me own.”

She shook her head. “You must be famished.”

He managed a brave smile though his stomach was knotted up like a sailor’s finest. “’Tis the lamb which worries me most,” he demurred. “I fear it lost its mum and will na last much longer without sustenance.”

“Of course,” she said and stood abruptly. “Mr. Roland, might I ask you to feed the poor thing whilst I—”

But the bastard was already backing away, eyes narrowed, expression tense as he sprinted his gaze to the lamb and back. “I’ve more important tasks than to play nursemaid to a bit of mutton,” he said, and giving the lamb one last fleeting glance, disappeared like a fleeing banshee, slamming the door behind him.

T
he girl made a small mewl of surprise as the door banged shut. “Well now, where do you suppose he’s hurrying off to?”

Keelan shifted, trying to ease a newfound ache. “To torture butterflies mayhap?”

“What’s that?”

He glanced up. Her perfect brows were arched high above her velveteen eyes. Was she in love with the bastard? The idea sent a jagged shard of pain spurring through Keelan’s system, though he knew better than to care.

“I am certain Master Chetfield has more important duties for him to see to than to tend to the likes of me and one wee small lambkin,” Keelan said.

“Aye, the master keeps him quite…” She paused, scrunched her pretty face. “When did you meet Lord Chetfield?”

Fook. He was going to have to be more careful what he said. True, the girl looked as sinister as a song thrush, but now was not the time for foolish mistakes. He’d planned too long, learned too much. Now was the time to become sinfully wealthy. “In truth, I’ve na had the honor,” he said.

“Then how do you know of him?” she asked, but he shifted, closed his eyes, and moaned softly.

She had dropped sympathetically to her knees before next he glanced up.

“My apologies.” Her small, fairy-soft hand lay gently on an unscathed portion of his abdomen, surprisingly near one of his favorite anatomical parts. “Here I am yammering on while you’re one step short of heaven’s door.”

“Nay. Na a’tall, lass. Dunna feel ye have to—” he began, and interrupted himself with yet another low moan.

“What shall I see to first?” she asked, voice atremble.

“The lambkin,” he gritted. Mayhap it was a ploy in part to gain her admiration. He himself could no longer separate artifice from fact, but certainly he could ill-afford to let the little creature perish. Not this late into such a perilous game. “If ye could help me with the poor wee lamb, I would be forever in yer debt.”

“But your chest.” Her gaze skimmed him. “And your arms. And your…” Her voice broke as her attention settled on his face. The catch in her words did complicated things to his battered system, firing up a strange ache in the deepest part of him. The only part, seemingly, that didn’t already hurt.

“There now, lass,” he said, shushing the confusing mix of unwanted feelings. “Ye needn’t worry. I come from a long line of tetchy Scots and will be right as rain in no time a’tall. But I must see to me master’s lamb.”

He gave her a grin. She drew back, looking terrified by the effects. It did not bode well. Mayhap he’d best find himself a looking glass before next he dared a smile.

“I’ve brought some milk for the poor babe,” she said, and lifted a wine bottle from the tray. “Perhaps I can convince him to drink a bit. I’ve seen it done with the miller’s colt.”

“’Tis kind of ye, lass,” Keelan said, and shifted to launch into a sitting position. Pain shot through him like a thousand loosed arrows, striking with unerring accuracy.

She hissed in unison with his agony and pressed him carefully back onto the fodder. “What are you thinking, luv? You mustn’t move.”

Luv
. The word tasted like nectar from her lips.
“But the lamb—” he croaked, and wondered if she would be increasingly impressed if he added passing out to the morning’s performance.

“Don’t you be worrying about the lamb, now.” She tsked. “You must rest.”

“Ye are kindness itself, lass, but—” Keelan said, and bracing against the coming pain, forced himself into an upright position. He didn’t have to fake dizziness. Indeed, the world went momentarily black, then was shot with sparkling stars that burst in his head like black powder. He felt himself slipping sideways.

“Careful!” Her hands were surprisingly strong against his arm. Her breath was warm upon his cheek. Clarity swam slowly back in, surprising him almost as much as the sharp feelings of arousal. Her bonny brown curls caressed his chest like a tender flirtation. Her lashes framed her whisky, troubled eyes, and her bosoms…Sweet Mary, her bosoms, bunched together like a bouquet of posies! “You must be more careful with yourself.”

He gave her a brave smile, though in truth, the most courageous part of his performance involved keeping his gaze from slipping into the depths of her simple décolletage. She was beautifully crafted, lovingly endowed. “Ye are wondrous kind,” he said, “but truly I can tend to meself.”

“There’ll be none of that talk now,” she said. “I’ll be caring for you, whether you like it or nay.”

He did like it—the way her hands felt against his skin, the way her voice fell on his ears. The resurrected lamb, on the other hand, was butting him painfully with its pointy little nose.

She glanced down at the tiny creature. “It does look hungry. But are you certain you’re up to the task?”

Despite the night just past, he was definitely
up
. Which was rather surprising, for while he enjoyed a bonny lass as much as the next wandering rogue, he found himself most attracted to those who could engage his intellect as well as his more bestial parts. Still, it had been a long while since he had enjoyed the full pleasures of a woman’s charms. Several months certainly. He shifted, fully aware he had lost the horsehair sporran so effective in hiding his appreciation of the fairer sex. Pain ripped through him.

“Don’t move, luv,” she murmured.

“
Ange,” he corrected, remembering his mother’s name for him.

She blinked. “I barely speak the King’s English. French…” She shook her head, causing her bonny locks to brush her shoulders.

“Some call me Angel, but in truth, lass, the
name be better suited to yer unearthly beauty.”

“Please,” she said, “you must lie still or you’ll break open your wounds.” Her voice was as soft as a dream, her face pixie perfect.

Keelan pulled himself from her eyes. This was hardly the time to be distracted by a comely lass, regardless of how sweet her temperament or alluring her bosom, for Chetfield was not the rich but innocuous fool he had hoped him to be. “And yer name be Cherie?”

She shook her head and scowled a bit as she retrieved the wine bottle. The opening was fitted with a little dome of cloth bound tight with a strip of leather to the glass lip. “’Tis simply what Mr. Roland calls me from time to time.”

“And Mr. Roland be…a friend of yers?”

“A friend?” she said, and wiped the bottle on her apron. “Sure. I suppose he is that. A nice enough bloke. Like a brother to me in a manner of speaking.”

Keelan’s seared skin suggested otherwise, but he nodded amicably. “Hand me the bottle, will ye, lass?”

She did so with a scowl of protest.

“Then what do the others call ye?” he asked.

She gave a little shrug. Her gown was a delicate green. Gathered gently across her bosom, it slipped half an inch to kindly display one bonny
shoulder. It was snowy white with just a smattering of intriguing freckles. How far, Keelan wondered, did those delightful little spots continue? “Me kin call me Charity,” she said.

Their gazes met, hers warm and soft, his gritty and one-eyed. Fie. She’d probably be even prettier with the aid of binocular vision.

She cleared her throat and dropped her gaze to the bottle.

“’Tis our nanny goat’s finest,” she explained softly.

Pulling himself from her gaze, he refused to fall into her cleavage as he lifted the wine bottle. Even that small feat sent tendrils of pain slicing through his back and arms, but milk dripped from the tip of the cloth, apparently just as intended. “Clever lass,” he said, indicating the makeshift nipple.

“Clever? Me?” she said, and laughed a little. “Nay. ’Tis simply a trick I’ve seen done before, as I’ve said. And since Glory was all but bursting with milk…” She shrugged again. Another freckle appeared, but Keelan carefully turned his gaze toward the lamb, offering the nipple as he did so. Smelling the milk, the lambkin butted impatiently at his arm. He managed to remain lucid.

“Mayhap it would be wiser to simply bring ol’
Glory in here and have her do the task herself,” Keelan suggested, but the girl shook her head.

“She’ll have none of it. We tried to give her one of Horny’s twins, seein’ as how she’s so well endowed, but she’d have nothing to do with him, cute little beggar though he was.”

“Horny?” Keelan asked, offering the nipple again.

“Aye,” she said, gently guiding the lamb toward the milk source. “On account of her one misshapen horn.”

“Ahh,” Keelan said, and stifled a chuckle as much for her charming naïveté as for the sake of his own battered ribs. “Perhaps if you hold the wee one’s head steady, we might manage this better.”

She did so, straddling the animal and cradling its face so that it was all but hidden beneath her generous hem. Lucky little blighter.

Keelan nudged the nipple into its mouth. The lamb promptly spit it out. He tried again with the same results, but finally, when his arms were atremble with fatigue, the lambkin took hold and suckled. There were a few tentative slurps before the tiny tail began to wriggle merrily.

“Look at that, will you?” Charity whispered, and Keelan had to admit that even with pain slicing him like rusty knives, there was some earthy
magic in seeing the tiny creature’s happy wiggle. “You saved her from hunger just as sure as you saved her from the beasts.” There was admiration in her voice…and maybe more, but Keelan was hardly a fool for sentimentality. ’Twas just that kind of rubbish that could find a lad on the wrong end of an angry husband’s sword. Besides, he was hardly in a position to fall for this lass, though resisting temptation had never been his forte. Chicanery, on the other hand…

“Methinks
ye
saved her with this clever bottle,” he said, and winced as Lambkin slurped the bottle dry and bumped his arm.

“Here now, don’t you be doing that,” Charity scolded, and lifting the lamb, set it aside. After doing the same with the bottle, she retrieved the basin and placed it carefully by his scraped elbow. “’Fraid I can’t take credit for the bottle, ’cuz like me uncle Brawley was fond of saying,
Our little Charity, she may not be the brightest star in the heavens.
”

“But?”

She dipped a cloth into the water, then wrung it out and touched it to his brow. “What?”

“Brawley’s statement must surely have been followed by a
but
.”

She tilted her head, washing carefully. “No. Why?”

Because otherwise Uncle Brawley was an ass, he thought, but she interrupted his musings.

“I loved him something fierce,” she said. “He used to give me horseback rides on his shoulders. Him so tall and me just a little nipper.”

Keelan scowled, for suddenly the image was so clear in his mind, he could all but reach out and touch her sable curls as she bounced along. Her chubby cheeks were dimpled and her hands splayed across the man’s dark head as she giggled with glee. But the picture unfurled with languid clarity until he saw that he himself was the child’s mount while Charity stood some feet away, eyes gleaming with laughter as he galloped past—past the roses that climbed the thatched cottage behind him, past the sheep that ceased their grazing to watch.

“Mr. Angel!”

He felt her hand snag his arm and was yanked back to reality.

“Mr. Angel, ye looked pale as a turnip for a minute there. I thought you might faint dead away. Are you well?”

Of course he wasn’t well. The pain was making him delusional. There could be no other explanation, but he gave her a smile to prove his normalcy. “Mayhap I can forgive yer uncle, then, since he made ye laugh,” he intoned.

She tilted her head, studying him. “How did you know I laughed?”

The child’s eyes were shining like diamonds as she bent over her bearer’s head, bare toes curled, and giggles echoing like music in the fragrant garden.

“Mr. Angel?” she said, touching his arm and snatching him back once again.

Holy God, he had to quit doing that. He wasn’t a witch. Couldn’t see the future, no matter—

“Perhaps I’d best fetch Lord Chetfield,” Charity said, half rising, but he grabbed her arm.

“Nay!” he rasped, nearly passing out for his trouble. “Nay,” he repeated, but softer, finding his senses. “Stay. Please. Tell me of yer childhood.”

She settled uncertainly back onto the fodder. The miraculous little lambkin wandered toward him, then dropped to her knobby knees and curled up once again at Keelan’s side.

“They must have spoiled ye something fierce,” he said.

She had dipped the rag back into the water, but stopped her swishing as her mesmerizing gaze shot to his. “And how’d you know that?”

“Because ye are sure the bonniest lass I’ve yet to lay me eyes upon.”

She canted her head at him, silent for a mo
ment. “Me mum was fond of saying that flirting with a Scotsman was like teasing a caged bear. It may be safe, but it weren’t never wise.”

“I never flirt, lass,” he said, resting his head on the straw behind him. “Unless I can see the maid out of both of me eyes.”

She stared at him for a moment, then laughed out loud, and suddenly the world stopped, for it was the exact sound of the little girl’s giggle. The sound of unfettered joy. The sound of goodness. A gentle testimony that the world was not overcome by evil, but dotted here and there with islands of kindness and light. And quite unexpectedly, Keelan longed to be different. Better. Stronger.

“There are some who might be feeling sorry for themselves if they was you,” she said.

“I’ll have plenty of time for that once ye’ve returned to heaven,” he said.

“Still not flirting?” she asked, setting the cloth aside and reaching for a dark glass jar. The contents smelled of lavender and something he couldn’t quite identify. Dipping her fingers inside, she gently smeared the unctuous lotion into the swelling above his eye.

“Vervain,” he said, immediately feeling the effects.

“You know herbage?” she asked, surprise brightening her luminous face.

Lady Colline, the Irish Hound’s bride, had been an attentive tutor, despite her husband’s rather carnivorous nature. “Na more than yer average bullock.”

“Your chest and arms are sore inflamed.” She plied the cloth again, smoothing it around the open wounds. It was amazingly soothing. Relaxing, even. He sighed. She rinsed the cloth and returned to her ministrations, cleansing carefully, fingers gently probing a gash on his arm. He turned his head to catch her worried gaze.