The Intended (10 page)

“Open up, Malcolm,” she encouraged in a sweet
voice, stroking his cheek gently. “Open your mouth, my battered,
overgrown marmoset.”

Giving up with the spoon, Jaime dipped her
fingers into the bowl and traced his parched lips with her
moistened fingers. But a sharp sense of the intimacy in this act
swept through her, making her withdraw her hand at once. Suddenly
uncomfortable with their closeness, Jaime sat bolt upright. The
light woolen blanket had slipped down in her efforts to raise him,
exposing his raw, bruised body to the waist. Cursing herself for
her foolishness, she had to force herself not to think about his
nakedness—not to remember the dreams she had once harbored of being
his.

Jaime tilted her head back and closed her
eyes. The past was gone, and she tried to put aside the hurt and
the lost dreams. He belonged to another woman now—their marriage
would not be undone. He would never be hers.

She opened her eyes, letting her gaze sweep
over his body again. The most important thing of all, she reminded
herself, was that he needed her care if he was to survive. Setting
her mind and her will and her strength to winning that battle, she
turned her attention again to making him drink from the bowl.

The dewy scent of roses wafted into the
chamber on the morning breeze.

In the first lightning grayness of dawn,
Malcolm’s eyes focused on the blanketed figure huddled on a chair
beside his bed. One pale, white arm extended from the woolen
cocoon, and her upturned palm rested lightly against his knee.
Wincing as he shifted his leg, Malcolm watched through slitted eyes
as Jaime stirred, without waking, and drew her hand back into the
folds of her wrap.

Though he quickly pushed the thought from his
mind, he realized that she had grown into a woman of tremendous
beauty. He had always known she would. Her black hair, loose and in
a state of disarray, lay in soft waves upon her shoulders. Her high
forehead, the sculpted nose, the pronounced cheekbones and the
full, sensuous lips all worked together to create, even in repose,
the picture of a Madonna. They were the same features of the
vibrant, young lass he’d known years before, but they now had a
womanliness that was impossible to ignore. He hadn’t seen her like
this—at least not since she had grown. With the exception of her
strange appearance at his wedding—an appearance that had only
lasted moments—he hadn’t set eyes on her since she’d been quite
young. He still remembered the day when she was to leave for
France. She had come to him, managing somehow to find him alone and
asking him shyly to kiss her farewell. He recalled how he had
leaned down and had placed an affectionate kiss on her brow. But
the look of disappointment on her face had been so clear, the hurt
so obvious, that he had told her the next time they met, she’d be
of a marriageable age. Remembering now how that little announcement
had done very little to pacify the lass, Malcolm’s eyes drifted
uncontrollably to Jaime’s lips. She had grown, indeed.

I must be daft, he thought to himself,
flexing his left shoulder. Some time during the night, he must have
rolled onto his right side, and he gazed intently on her as she
shifted. She had undoubtedly spent the night in that position, the
Highlander decided. He felt no fever, and his mind was clear for
the first time in days. The light blanket that covered his naked
body hardly moved as he slowly moved his foot from beneath it. The
fresh air felt good on his skin. She must have been quite worried
to stay the night in that chair. Another thought struck him. Or
lonely perhaps, he corrected. He’d heard the talk—her lover was
going to be away for awhile. Perhaps she just couldn’t sleep
without the weight of the repugnant English body upon her.

The sound of a cock crowing far off elicited
a low moan from her, and she stirred slightly. Malcolm sent her
flying backward—chair, blanket, and all—with a quick thrust of his
foot.

The sensation of falling that one feels when
dreaming is rarely accompanied by the real meeting of flesh and a
floor’s paving stones, but Jaime’s head struck the floor with a
thud and a flurry of blankets and clothes.

It took her a moment to clear the material
from her face. Sprawled out on the floor, she flinched with pain as
she looked up at the ceiling and lifted herself onto her elbows. It
was morning, she realized with a start. And this was the second
night she had fallen asleep in this chamber. Cursing under her
breath, she rubbed the tender spot on the back of her head. Jaime
threw the blanket to one side and raised herself to a sitting
position. Looking crossly at the chair, she decided she must have
leaned too far back in her sleep and toppled it by accident. Jaime
struggled to her feet and thought of Mary and the tongue-lashing
her cousin was sure to be giving her when she got back to their
bedchamber. Mary had been quite angry with her yesterday
morning—but now, two nights in the row! Jaime sighed and rolled her
eyes, her conversation with Mary running through her head as she
set the chair upright.

“Are you hurt?”

“Just a bang in the back of my head.” She
probed the spot with her fingers. “‘Tis tender to the touch. But it
should go away in no time.”

“Too bad!” Malcolm announced.

As if jarred from sleep, Jaime's head snapped
around and her eyes rounded as they fixed on Malcolm. “You are
awake,” she whispered.

“Aye. I’m sorry to say that I am.” He rolled
onto his back and put a hand up to his aching head, but then
dropped it at once, realizing that the two of them were holding
their heads in mirror images of each other.

She pulled herself to her feet and moved
quickly to his side. His eyes were clear and he looked far better
than he had the night before. Even the swelling in his face
appeared to be subsiding. But still, the paleness of his skin—where
it wasn’t ghastly shades of purple and yellowish green from the
beatings and the sea battle—and the dark lines beneath his eyes all
bespoke his pain. She tried to place a hand on his brow, but he
pushed it away roughly, before she could check his fever.

“Get away from me, wench, before I wrap my
fingers around your throat.”

“Try, if you can,” Jaime challenged, pushing
his hand away and planting her palm firmly on his brow. “Aye, no
fever. But quite weak.”

Drawing the blanket down, she looked
carefully at his wounds, gave a satisfied nod, then covered his
chest again. He hadn’t bled from the chest wound in almost a full
day, and only a small gash by his hip was oozing at all. Moving
away from him, she started to fetch what she needed to clean the
wound once more.

“Where are all your beloved English masters?”
Malcolm asked, letting his eyes appraise her retreating figure.
Then, as she turned, his gaze roamed the room. “Don’t tell me that
these dolts are stupid enough to leave me here without a
guard?”

Jaime came back to the side of the bed and
placed her supplies next to him. “You’ve been too weak to so much
as lift a finger,” she answered. “You don’t think they fear your
escaping?”

The sight of all her implements flying to the
floor brought Jaime's eyes darting back to his.

“You insufferable, ill-tempered, Highland
pig.” she bent down and started to gather the remnants. “And to
think that last night...”

Malcolm lifted the blanket off his body and
tried to lower his legs over the other side of the bed. But even
the struggle of pushing himself up, weak as the effort was, the
Highlander found to be too much. And as his strength drained out of
him, a thousand pains cut sharply through his shoulder and chest. A
wave of nausea and dizziness swept over him, and his head
threatened to burst as he teetered for an instant on the flashing
yellow edge of unconsciousness.

“Nay, you bullheaded fool,” Jaime cried,
jumping to her feet and drawing him back down. “You’ve caused me
too much trouble as it is. I don’t need your carcass sprawled on
the floor, now do I?”

“I don’t need any help,” Malcolm growled as
he let her lower him back down on the sheets. “Least of all,
yours.”

Jaime’s one arm encircled his shoulders, his
face lay against her cheek, his lips almost touching the soft wool
of her dress. The smell of lavender touched his senses. The
softness of her skin brushed against his battered temple. Abruptly,
Malcolm jerked his head away and turned his face from her.

“Behave yourself, Malcolm,” she said sternly,
ignoring his ill-humor as she lay his head back on the bed. “There
is no purpose served in you getting out of this bed before your
wounds are healed. You are far too weak and a long way from being
ready.”

“Don’t talk to me as if I am your bairn, you
foul backstabbing wench,” he snapped, his eyes flashing as he
wrapped his fingers as tightly as he could around her wrist. “Do
you think I don’t understand this game? You want me to live for
your dirty, English lover. You and I both know that my corpse won’t
bring him much of a prize.”

“Think that as you will, you savage boor,”
she retorted, easily wrenching her hand free. If he wanted to think
her a wench, so be it. “But you
will
get better while you
are under my care—no matter what you think my motives might
be.”

“Your motives require no deep thinking to
figure, lass. They are as clear as the path to hell.”

“Only in your disgusting mind,” Jaime
snapped. “Only a blind man—nay, only you—would spurn what I’ve done
for you. I should have let you rot in that prison. I should have
closed my eyes and turned away...and pictured you dead. Aye. Dead.
As I have pictured you every day since I saw you last.”

Malcolm raised his head to answer, but she
shoved him back down roughly, making him gasp in pain and clutch at
the wound in his chest. She averted her eyes from his face as she
held him down, trying to keep out the memory of Malcolm’s wedding
day, trying to hold back the flood of hurt he’d caused her. His
sharp words had drawn blood from wounds that she’d hoped were
healed, wounds she now knew had barely scabbed over.

Damn this man, she thought. She was here to
help bring him back to health, not to allow him to wreck her and
leave her in misery. Taking in a deep breath, Jaime checked her
temper and turned her attention back to his wounds.

“Now look at what you’ve done, you stubborn
ape,” Jaime whispered, watching a thin, broken line of blood begin
to soak through the dressing on his chest. He opened his mouth to
respond, she clasped a hand gently over it. “I’ll gag you if I
must, Malcolm MacLeod. And, believe me, silence would be by far
preferable to any more of your discontented carping.”

She raised her hand ever so slowly from his
lips and looked into his dark and sullen eyes. Quite to her
surprise the Highlander remained silent, his eyes taking in her
every move as she backed away from the bed. Vaguely unsettled by
his stare, Jaime averted her eyes.

“I have to change these dressings,” she said
quickly.

“Where is the physician?” Malcolm asked
shortly. “The Welshman who sewed me up?”

“He left for Cambridge three days ago,” Jaime
answered as she started to spread the clean dressings beside him.
“Master Graves takes the uncommon view that a wound loosely
bandaged heals faster.”

Malcolm grunted at the idea, and tried to
turn slightly away from her.

“I’d be grateful if you wouldn’t fight me
with this.”

“Doesn’t the man have an apprentice?” he
responded, allowing her to untie the strip that circled his
chest.

Jaime brightened a bit. Malcolm seemed to
have submitted to her unspoken request for truce. “He has a man
Davie, but he had to accompany Graves.”

“Three days he’s been gone?” Malcolm’s head
sank back wearily. “Have I slept away three full days?”

“Slept? Ha! Unconscious, you were!” Jaime
answered, pulling the bloodied linen away from his skin. Keeping
her eyes on her job, she tried to ignore the weight of his stare on
her. “And as helpless with fever as a bairn.”

“Have you been here all the while?”

The slight note of gentleness in his voice
made Jaime raise her head and look into his eyes. As if caught, he
quickly turned his face away with a darkening frown. A silence
filled the space between them, but Jaime knew it would be
short-lived. She could almost see his mind churning in a search for
words to insult her.

“Do you think I haven’t better things to be
doing?” she lied, breaking the peace. “I’ve only looked in once or
twice.”

“Then why do I recall no one else tending me?
Why were you sleeping in that chair just now?”

Jaime colored, muttering weakly, “I already
said you’ve been out of your head with fever.” She could feel
Malcolm’s gaze upon her for a long moment.

“‘Tis surprising, lass, how poor a liar you
are.”

“I think your fever must be coming on
again.”

“But why are you so desperate,” he said,
ignoring her words, “to present me, whole, to your lover upon his
return? Why go so far to keep me alive? It seems to me, you’re too
damned eager to please him.”

She continued with her task, dabbing gently
at his wound. In spite of the beads of blood seeping through,
Malcolm seemed to be healing well. Far too well.

“There are other ways of pleasing him, you
know, ways much more appealing to a man who has been away from a
woman.” Malcolm’s fingers moved and softly caressed her exposed
forearm. The immediate shiver that traveled up the skin of her arm
didn’t go unnoticed by him. “But I suppose by now you must be an
expert.”

Her hand jabbed hard into his wound, harder
than she’d intended. Seeing Malcolm grimace with pain, Jaime backed
away slightly.

“Wench!” he swore as the wave subsided.