Keeper of my Heart (2 page)

Màiri mounted Kenneth’s steed and waited while he lifted himself up behind her. She could not take her eyes from the MacAlister. He would survive. She knew it as well as she knew the danger he would present when he did. And yet she had no choice. Her gift would not allow her to leave him now that she had found him.

. . .

“Will he wake today?”

“I do na know.”

Màiri looked over her shoulder as Kenneth walked through the door, then pulled the covers up under the warrior’s chin and stood. She stretched her aching muscles and walked to the hearth to put more wood on the fire. She made sure the room never had a chill.

“It’s been more than a fortnight since he was injured, lass. Mayhaps he will never.”

“He will wake up when it is time. When his body tells him it can take the pain.”

Kenneth nodded. “Is that bed better?”

“Aye. At least his feet do na hang over the end. I am grateful.”

Only when Kenneth realized the MacAlister warrior would live, did he relent to Màiri’s pleadings to fashion a new bed. He’d made it two hands and more longer than most beds and it still barely accommodated the man’s huge frame.

Màiri fixed a fresh stonecrop poultice and placed it on his shoulder, then filled a bowl with warm broth. “Have you come to help me feed him?”

Kenneth didn’t answer but walked to the side of the bed and lifted the MacAlister’s head. She fed him twice a day, and Kenneth came each time to help her. Màiri was thankful. She feared the MacAlister would have been too much to handle on her own.

She brought the bowl and the hollowed-out reed she used to feed him and sat beside him on the bed. She sucked some of the liquid up into the reed and held her finger over the end, then pushed on his chin until he opened enough to get the reed into his mouth. She released her finger and let the nourishing broth slide down his throat. He didn’t fight her nearly as much as he had when she’d tried it the first time.

“He won’t stay this way forever, lass. What are you going to do when he opens his eyes?”

Màiri chose not to answer. She filled another reed with broth and watched him drink.

“You can’t let him see you. If he finds out who you are. . .” Kenneth’s voice rumbled with anger, the look in his eyes flashed with warning.

“He will na find out who I am, Kenneth. Even if he opens his eyes, he is na strong enough to get out of this bed. We will be gone long before he is well enough to come after me.”

“I think we should take him—”

“Take him where? To my father until he is well? I am sure my father would gladly let us escape with our lives this second time. Besides, the warrior is na strong enough to travel anywhere.”

Kenneth fisted his free hand at his side. “It is na safe to take you to the sisters yet, Màiri. Your father has men everywhere. We don’t have a chance of getting past them undetected. We need time.”

Màiri filled the reed again and put it to the MacAlister’s mouth. “I am running out of time, Kenneth. If Father sent for the MacAlister to. . .” She couldn’t finish. “If Father finds out he failed, he will be more desperate than ever to discover where I am.”

Màiri looked down at the sleeping warrior, curious to have him open his eyes just once. Knowing that when he did, she would be forced to leave, whether it was safe or not.

She put the reed to his lips again and released the liquid. With a violent jerk, he turned his head, spewing the broth from his mouth. Màiri grabbed a cloth and cradled his head against her breast while she wiped his face. “He is waking.”

The MacAlister turned his head again and released a low, agonizing moan, then thrashed his head from side to side.

“Let me have him,” Kenneth ordered. “He must not see you, lass. Leave.”

Màiri lowered the warrior to the bed, but before she could pull away, strong fingers grabbed her wrist and refused to let go. She pulled on her arm, prying his fingers from around her wrist but he was too strong.

“Go!”

“I canna.”

Kenneth leaned over the bed to help her and at the same instant he freed Màiri from the MacAlister’s grasp, the warrior’s eyes flew open, his gaze riveting on Màiri’s face.

His eyes were the deepest blue she had ever seen, set beneath thick, dark brows that made him seem dangerous and foreboding. She stared at the empty look in his eyes for only a moment, then turned away from him before he could remember her face and raced across the room toward the door.

Just as she reached for the latch, his low, keening moan echoed in her ears. A sound that held a thousand cries of torment. He bolted upright in bed, the wound on his shoulder oozing fresh blood through its bandage, the look in his eyes filled with fear and confusion.

Màiri waited for her gift to sense a danger. Her searching returned to her empty.

His outstretched hands reached out for something, only to grasp thin air. His gaze followed some faint noise, only to remain unfocused. Kenneth stood at his side but he did not seem to notice him. Màiri stood across the room at his other side but he did not look at her either. Instead, he stared straight ahead, the confused look in his eyes more intense than she could ignore.

Kenneth watched him for several long seconds then waved a hand in front of the MacAlister’s face. He did not look at it. Kenneth waved his hand high, then low. He still did not look at it. The stoic expression on the warrior’s face brimmed with pain and disbelief and horror.

“Do na be afraid,” Màiri said from the other side of the room.

His gaze moved to the sound of her voice while his hands moved aimlessly at his sides as if searching for a weapon.

“Leave, lass,” Kenneth hissed.

Màiri hesitated at the door, waiting for her gift to tell her to be afraid. All she felt was compassion and a need she could not explain.

“You are safe here. Lie back down,” she said, walking across the room.

“Go, lass,” Kenneth whispered softly, but she ignored him. Instead, she lowered the MacAlister’s head to the pillow, then wiped his face with a cool cloth. Before she could finish putting a fresh bandage on his shoulder, he had closed his eyes and fallen asleep.

“We must leave now, lass. Before it’s too late.”

Màiri shook her head. “I canna leave him.”

“You must. It’s too dangerous to stay now.”

“There is no danger. I would know if there were.”

Kenneth shook his head, wanting to argue with her, but knowing it would do no good.

Màiri placed her hand on Kenneth’s forearm and leveled him a serious look. “I am safe, Kenneth. He will never know me. He canna see.”

He was awake, but not brave enough to open his eyes. Memories of the suffocating darkness crowded his mind, causing him to break out in a cold sweat.

He couldn’t see.

Iain listened for any sign that the woman with the soft voice and gentle hands was anywhere near. There was movement to his right, the sound of someone stirring a kettle then adding more wood to the fire. He heard the crackle and popping of logs burning and smelled the rich odor of a stew simmering and warm bread just newly baked, but he could not see the flames rising from the hearth or the wooden spoon stirring in the kettle or the golden brown bread cooling on a rack.

By the saints! He was blind.

He struggled to keep the suffocating panic from choking him then turned his head and opened his eyes, praying he would see the glowing blaze from the hearth. He saw only darkness.

“Good day, milord,” the soft voice whispered, coming near the bed.

Iain instinctively reached to his side for his weapon. His hands grasped nothing but soft bedcovers. He was helpless. Would to God they had left him to die. Dying would have been better than living in a world of darkness for the rest of his life.

Her hand touched his forehead. It rested there long enough to send warm shivers down his body. A thousand questions came to mind, but his thoughts seemed so scattered he could not pull them together long enough to ask one.

“Glad I am you are awake. I thought you would sleep this day away too.”

Her voice had a consoling lilt to it, a reassurance that gave him the confidence not to sink back into his world of unconsciousness.

“Where am I?” he asked after drinking the cool water she pressed to his lips.

“Not far from where you were attacked.”

Her voice was soft, soothing to his ears. As comforting as her touch and her presence. “Is anyone else alive?”

“Nay.”

Iain fought the wave of fury. The four men with him were friends, loyal MacAlisters who’d forfeited their lives for no reason. Whoever had done this would pay for their deaths. Even if it took him to his dying breath, he would not rest until he discovered who had attacked them and why.

“Why did you help me?”

“It was not your time to die.”

Iain brought his hand to his forehead. His head ached as if a sword were imbedded in his skull. “God’s blood,” he whispered, fighting against the pain that threatened to take him back into his world of unconsciousness.

“Here.”

She put her hands beneath his back and helped him sit. When he held out his hands, she placed a crude cup in his grasp.

“Drink this.”

“What is it?”

She wrapped his fingers around the warm metal and helped him lift the cup to his lips. “It is warm ale with a mixture of feverfew in it. It will ease the ache in your head.”

Iain drank the liquid then lay back on the bed when she took the cup from his hands. “What are you called?”

“Mà… um, my name is Agatha.”

He breathed a harsh breath. The name did not fit someone with such a tender touch.

She pulled a cover up around his shoulders. “What shall I call you?”

“Iain. From clan MacAlister.”

“Rest now, Iain, from clan MacAlister. You are far from ready to stay awake any longer.”

Iain closed his eyes to the darkness as her touch soothed his aching body. She did not leave his side.

When he could no longer fight the excruciating pain, he fell asleep, holding onto the softness and gentleness of her touch. To think of his blindness would have been too horrifying.

. . .

“Is he awake?”

Màiri dropped another vegetable she’d been cleaning into the bowl and cast a glance toward the cottage door. “Aye. I left him sitting at the table to eat his meal.”

Kenneth finished skinning the game he’d killed for their supper and cut the meat in large strips. “Can he manage by himself?”

Màiri couldn’t suppress her smile. “He’s getting better.”

It had been more than a month since they’d rescued the MacAlister and in that time he had made remarkable progress adjusting to his blindness. But not without tremendous frustration and a regular display of his ferocious temper, most of which had been directed at Màiri.

“He seems to enjoy his food much better if no one is there to watch him eat.” Because his pride would not allow him to be fed, he quickly learned to eat on his own. Màiri found that if she placed the meat and the bread and vegetables always in the same spot on his platter, and placed his goblet of ale always to his right, he managed without much trouble.

“We have to leave, mistress,” Kenneth said, returning with a bucket of water he’d filled from the well beside the cottage, then set it down beside the small bench where he’d been working. “We can wait na longer.”

Màiri shook her head. “He is na well enough to be left on his own, Kenneth.”

“I saw warriors today. They were your father’s.”

“I know.”

Kenneth gave her a look that showed his displeasure that her gift had warned her about a danger and she hadn’t told him. “Then you know how important it is that we leave.”

“But he is na recovered enough.”

“Then we will send someone from the convent to care for him. It is too dangerous to stay here any longer. He is too dangerous.”

“How can he be dangerous? He is blind.”

Kenneth nodded toward the cottage. “He’s a MacAlister. Have you forgotten what his purpose most likely was in coming here? Does na your gift warn you—”

Màiri slammed the bowl down beside her on the bench. “Nay! My gift fails me where the MacAlister is concerned. It has never been like this before. I feel na warning.”

The puzzled look on Kenneth’s face deepened. “Then it is more important than ever that we leave.”

Màiri knew Kenneth was right. She had done all she could for the warrior. If they waited much longer, her father would find them. Her death was too important for him to give up his search.

“Are you sure you will na change your mind about the convent, lass? I could take you home with me. Your grandfather would give you refuge.”

“Nay. I must go to the convent. You were with my mother when she died. You heard her warnings.”

“Your mother’s family is not without wealth, lass. I am sure—”

Màiri threw the leek she’d been cleaning into the wooden bowl. “Is there another there with my gift? Another who can give me hope that I would be accepted?”