Tempt Me With Kisses (34 page)

As he loved her, he would trust her.

He took her hands in his and spoke haltingly, trying to find the words he needed. “I do know what it is to be afraid, Fiona. I have been afraid every day of my life. Afraid I was not good enough. Afraid no one could ever love me, not even my parents. Afraid I was going to lose my home.

“And then you came, and for the first time, the fear lifted. More than that, I was truly proud of myself, not for my rank or my family, but for
me
.”

Her soft eyes filled with sympathy, and hope. “I…”

He put his finger gently to her lips. “Let me finish, Fiona, or I may never be able to bring myself to say this again.”

She nodded, then moved her mouth a little, giving his fingertip a kiss.

He took hold of her hands again, determined to say what was in his heart as best he could. “To think that I was wrong about you, that you had lied to me and I had been a fool not to see it … that was the worst pain of all. Or so I thought, until you told me you would leave me.
That
would be the worst, Fiona. Please, do not go. Do not leave me alone.”

She took his face gently between her palms and kissed him. Tenderly. Lovingly. “I will stay, but only if you can truly trust me.”

“I can.”

Then he gathered her into his arms and sealed his vow with a kiss. She was Fiona the Fair, the princess of his heart who had rescued him from his prison of isolation and despair, and he would never let her go.

He had come so close to losing her! He had nearly pushed away the one person who had ever made him feel that he was enough, just as he was. The thought made him weak.

He shivered as she ran her fingers through his curls to pull him even closer. His heartbeat thundered like galloping steeds as their kiss deepened, and her tongue sinuously entered his mouth.

She drew back and regarded him with a mixture of concern and dread as she put her hand to his forehead. “You’re so warm. And you’re sweating.”

What was wrong with that, he vaguely wondered. “It’s warm in here.”

“And you’re so pale.”

She shoved up the torn sleeve on his wounded arm, to reveal the filthy, ink-covered rag he had wrapped around it when he first came into the solar. Dried blood was caked upon it.

She untied the rough bandage and then recoiled, for the wound was a horror of blood and bruise.

And infection.

She stared at the wound, aghast, then pulled him to a chair. “Sit down.”

He thankfully obeyed, for he felt weak and sick. “It’s just the sight of it,” he mumbled more to himself than to her as an explanation for the nausea that was fast overtaking him.

“I must fetch a physician, or an apothecary,” Fiona said as she ran to the door.

“Fiona!” he uselessly called after her, for she was already gone.

He wanted to tell her that there was no such person in Llanstephan.

Chapter 16

“W
hat do you mean, there is no physician?” Fiona demanded incredulously, staring at Jon-Bron and his brothers as they stood before her in the barracks.

Necessity had driven any fears about what these men must think of her out of mind. All that mattered was Caradoc. His condition was serious, and time was of the essence. So was the proper care, and she did not know enough about healing to give it.

The men, far from looking at her with anger or hostility, looked as upset as she.

“Llanstephan is too small a place,” Emlyn-Bron explained, buckling his belt around his leather tunic.

“Where is the nearest one?” she desperately demanded of Jon-Bron. “We must send someone to fetch him at once.”

“Shrewsbury,” he answered, his eyes burning with dread. “That’s a good ways—”

“I don’t care if it’s the end of the earth,” she cried. “Send your best rider on the fastest mount to Shrewsbury at once. Tell him that he is to bring a physician, or if he cannot find one, an apothecary, but a physician would be best.”

“He may not—”

“Tell him!”
she commanded as sternly and imperiously as Caradoc. Then her gaze faltered, and her voice trembled as her fear returned. “Otherwise, Caradoc may…”

She could not bring herself to say more.

Jon-Bron nodded, turned and nearly collided with Cordelia, who marched up to the grim group, her red-rimmed eyes blazing and her chin lifted. As Caradoc had seemed an Olympian god that first day, she looked like a Valkyrie.

“Is it true?” she demanded. “Is Caradoc sick from the wound he got yesterday fighting your lover?”

Fiona clenched her jaw at the word she used to describe Iain, then annoyance slipped from her mind. “Yes. The wound is infected.”

“Fetch Bronwyn,” Cordelia ordered Emlyn-Bron.

“Bronwyn?” Fiona questioned.

“She knows much of medicine.” Cordelia’s lips turned up in a condescending smile. “She is not only famous for her skills in bed.”

Fiona didn’t care what the woman did or where, so long as she helped Caradoc. “I am sending Jon-Bron for a physician, too. I have seen infected wounds before, and this one is very serious. No matter how skilled Bronwyn may be in anything—”

“It will be a waste of the money Caradoc sold himself for to bring a physician here. Bronwyn will—”

“No,” Fiona said, shaking her head and firmly resolved. “I will have the best for Caradoc, and spend whatever it takes of the money I gave him. I will not have him die for want of coin.”

Cordelia’s pale face blanched. “Die?” she mouthed.

“I hope not, but I will not risk it. Go now, Jon-Bron, as fast—”

“
I
am the best rider in Llanstephan with the fastest horse,” Cordelia interrupted, her eyes bright with sudden determination as the color returned to her cheeks. “I will fetch the physician.”

Fiona suddenly realized she was staring at a mirror image. Not of looks, for Cordelia was by far the more beautiful, but in spirit. And pride. And stubbornness. The same in strength, unwilling to yield.

The very qualities that had enabled her to leave Iain and come here were those Cordelia had marshaled against her all along.

These were the qualities that would bring a physician to her beloved as fast as humanly possible.

Yet even with the image of Caradoc pale to the lips in her frantic mind, she could not put them both at risk. It was dangerous for a woman to travel alone, and if something were to happen before Cordelia reached Shrewsbury… “You cannot. It is too risky for—”

“I’ll go with her,” Jon-Bron offered. “I’m not so good a rider and my horse is not so fast, but I can keep up if she stays on the road.”

“I’ll stay on the road,” Cordelia vowed.

Fiona looked from one to the other, and made her decision. “Go, then.”

As Cordelia turned on her heel, Fiona put out her hand to hold her back a moment. “Tell the physician that I will pay whatever he asks if he comes immediately.”

“I will,” Cordelia answered. “I will bring him back if I have to threaten him with death.”

“And he’ll believe you, too.”

At Fiona’s vote of confidence, Cordelia made a little smile that was so like Caradoc’s, a sob caught in Fiona’s throat. “He’s strong, that brother of mine, like a rock that nothing can break, and heaven knows, I’ve tried.”

Fiona embraced her swiftly, then stepped back. “I hope you’re right. Now go with God, and hurry.”

A short time later, Fiona nervously watched Bronwyn examine Caradoc’s wound. Then the dark-haired, full figured beauty straightened and fixed her eye on the lord of Llanstephan.

“You didn’t even wash it, did you?” she charged.

Caradoc shook his head. Lying there so pale, sweating and weak, he seemed to put the lie to what Cordelia had said about his strength. “I had other things on my mind.”

Bronwyn gave him a sour frown. “Men,” she said with disgust. “Lackwits, the lot of you, when it comes to such things. Well, you’ll remember next time, after you have to drink the potion of chickweed I shall make you. Aye, and you’ll have a poultice of it, too, and it will stink.”

She turned to Fiona. “I’ll make up the potion and poultice directly.”

“Thank you.”

“And you sleep, nit,” she ordered her overlord, who did look like a sick little boy propped up in their bed, chastened and remorseful. “I’m going to have a little word with your good lady.”

She took Fiona by the arm and steered her outside into the hall.

“It’s not good, this,” she said, and the relief Fiona had felt disintegrated. “It could get beyond my skill.”

Weak with fear and fatigue, Fiona leaned against the wall. This was all her fault and if Caradoc did not recover … if he died…

“I’ve seen worse, though. The potion may work, and Emlyn tells me you sent to Shrewsbury for a physician?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Good, is that,” Bronwyn said with a brisk nod of her head that made Fiona feel a little better. “He’s strong, is our Caradoc.”

“That’s what Cordelia said, too.”

“Well, there then!” Bronwyn cried, as if that confirmed it and thus Caradoc must recover.

A knowing, friendly smile grew on her face. “But I am thinking that you, of all women, should know how strong he is.”

Fiona did know, and she began to feel a little better still. Not only did talk of his strength help; so did the woman’s bantering manner. If she could joke, Caradoc could not be so very ill.

Footsteps sounded on the steps, and in the next moment, Lord Rhys appeared. He halted and ran a favorably appraising gaze over Bronwyn, who didn’t seem at all bothered by it.

But then, Fiona supposed, she was probably used to it.

“My lord, this is Bronwyn,” she said by way of introduction. “She has come to tend to the wound in Caradoc’s arm, which I fear has become infected.”

“So I heard,” he replied, his attention still on Bronwyn more than her.

“Well, then, I’ll leave you to see to your husband, my lady,” Bronwyn said, flicking a lock of her thick dark hair over her shoulder as she passed Lord Rhys.

“My lord, if you don’t mind,” Fiona said, “I think my husband should rest.”

Rhys stopped watching Bronwyn as she disappeared down the steps and turned his wayward attention to her. “I did not think it was very serious.”

“It may be. I have sent for a physician.”

“Good. I would take it very amiss indeed if he died.”

He spoke as if he thought she wished that.

She clenched her jaw and struggled not to betray her annoyance. “As would I.”

“I set a great deal of store in Caradoc. He is everything a lord seeks in the people with whom he is allied.”

Anger rose within her. To think Rhys believed she, of all people, did not appreciate Caradoc’s merits! “I know that, and that is why I sought him out, despite what you heard yesterday. That is why I offered him my money, to save his home and him from disgrace. A pity it is, my lord, that you should value him so much, yet you could not bring yourself to come to his aid.”

Rhys colored, and his brows lowered as if he wasn’t used to being criticized. She didn’t care if he was or not, after what he had said to her and the way he had treated her husband.

“Do you think he would have taken money from me to pay his taxes if I had offered? You should know him better than that by now.”

“If he was desperate enough to marry a Scottish merchant’s daughter he barely knew to keep his home, don’t you think he might have? But of course, thinking him too proud saved you the trouble, and the coin.”

“Of course I value him. Why do you think I cared so much who he married?” Rhys demanded, crossing his arms. “Why else did I take the trouble to come and see you for myself? Because he, the best of men, is worthy of the best of women.”

His eyes narrowed and she steeled herself for the onslaught, which was not long in coming. “So let me ask you, my lady, was it true, what you said about that villainous Scot? He seduced you and you left him to come to Caradoc?”

She faced him squarely. The truth was out, and Caradoc had forgiven her. Therefore, she didn’t care very much at all what this man thought. “Yes, my lord.”

“And Caradoc did not know?”

“No. I didn’t want him to know I had been a fool.”

“Yet you admit that you were wrong to deceive him?”

“Yes, my lord, and he has forgiven me the deception.”

Rhys did not mask his surprise.

“It is the truth, my lord, and when he is better, he can tell you for himself.”

“Perhaps I should ask him now.”

Her feet planted, her hands balled into fists at her sides, Fiona faced the most powerful man in Wales with a fierce righteousness that would have given anyone pause. “I think not. He needs to rest and I will not allow you to interrogate him on a matter that we have settled.”

Rhys blinked and looked at her for a long moment, as if expecting her to change her mind.

When she did not, he yielded. “Very well, my lady, I shall not intrude either into your husband’s bedchamber or upon your hospitality. I take my leave of you. Tell Caradoc I hope he recovers quickly.”

“I shall, my lord. Farewell.”

He turned to go, then glanced back to survey her head to toe one more time. “So this is the kind of women Scotland breeds. I think I shall have to be careful of your sons.”