Night of the Highland Dragon (22 page)

Time had a vile sense of humor.

For the first six days after the transfusion, while William had drifted in and out of consciousness and nobody had been able to give odds on his survival, there had been almost nothing to occupy Judith's time. Without Ross's disruptive presence, Loch Arach was settling peacefully in for the winter; the Connohs' new store was going up smoothly; and Judith's own recovery would have kept her from hunting in either form, even if she had wanted to go that far from William. The days had ticked by while she sat at his bed or attended to the minor tasks that did wait for her in the castle.

Stephen and Mina's arrival, with little Anna, had been a relief. Even Baxter had been a welcome distraction in his own way—but the day after his arrival, when Judith had taken him to the sickroom, William had come back to himself enough to speak, and to speak lucidly. After that, his periods of consciousness came closer together, and a day later, McKendry said that his fever had subsided as well.

He would live.

Judith went home, slept for twelve hours, and then ate all of the huge breakfast that someone—probably Stephen, who'd always been a favorite with the kitchen staff—had sent up on a tray. She held back from too much joy—joy was a fragile thing and a temptation to old and malicious forces. When she opened the note from McKendry, she made herself expect the worst.

Mr. Arundell is awake and of sound mind.

The letters blurred and danced in front of Judith's eyes. She set the note down, blinked hard, and picked it up again.

I don't advise much conversation just yet, as he still seems easily tired, but I believe your company would be welcome.

She dressed quickly but carefully, glad that she had slept and more aware than ever before of the face looking back from the mirror. It was a much paler face than it had been nine days ago, and it had a hollow look as well. Judith wished she'd had time and strength to hunt, but thankful for small blessings, she was just glad she'd slept.

William was sitting up in bed when she entered the sickroom, wearing a dressing gown more ornate than anything a villager would have owned, and eating a meal nearly as large as her breakfast had been. For a second, Judith could neither speak nor move. She stood in the doorway and drank in the sight.

Looking up, William smiled. If Judith was pale, he was paler. If she was thin, he was damned near skeletal. But his eyes were clear and unclouded, and his smile was as warm as ever—if a little diffident just then. “This is the third breakfast I've had today,” he said. “I assume one does stop gorging, eventually?”

“I—yes.” Judith caught herself, midway through tumbling down toward some abyss of feeling, and pulled her mind back onto a rational and slightly businesslike ledge. “At least I think so. You've not eaten much in a while, aye? And we've always done ourselves proud at mealtimes.”

She watched his face when she said
we
and
ourselves
, waiting for revulsion or resentment. It didn't come. She didn't think so, anyhow, and she realized that she couldn't trust her judgment. She wanted too much. She feared too much.

“Sit, please,” William said and gestured to the chair by his bed. “You were there often enough, as I recall—when I recall anything. Thank you for that.”

“'Twas the least I could do,” Judith said and sat stiffly on the edge of the chair, hands folded in her lap. She had too many questions, and it wasn't fair to ask any of them, so she started with a statement. “You'll want more meat, generally. And rarer. Mina—my brother's wife—said to tell you that. Though she'd not eaten much before, so perhaps there'll be less difference for you.”

William nodded slowly. “I'd imagine the process was more—complicated—for her.”

“Yes and no.” Judith pushed back her hat, which didn't need adjusting. “Different complications.”

“Will I”—he made a few vague gestures, fork still in hand, before settling on speech—“transform?”

“I don't think so,” said Judith. “None of the women have. I think you have to be born to that part of the blood.” She didn't let her gaze leave his. “You'll live longer, though. At least that's generally how it works.”

William's mouth turned up at the corners. “Better not let that get around, I'd say.” Then, more soberly, “As long as you will?”

“More or less. As long as you don't get stabbed again.”

His eyes revealed nothing. “Although I do hear that I can heal from a number of wounds now.”

“A number,” said Judith, and she felt her hands tighten on each other. “Not everything. Fire harms us less, and silver more. And we don't often get ill, so you'll not need to worry about spring colds. I hope—”

There she teetered on the edge of a question it wasn't fair to ask. If he
did
object to what she'd done, if he would have preferred to die as a mortal man, he was too much of a gentleman to tell her now, and she would not force him to lie. “I hope Stephen or Mina can answer any questions I can't. She's been through it, and he knows more of our history.”

“You'll have to introduce me,” he said.

And then McKendry's maid knocked at the door. “Lady MacAlasdair? I'm sorry to disturb you, but your brother says there's important business up at the castle.”

Of course there was. And when that was done—a matter of flooding in the cellars, and Stephen panicking as if he were a Londoner born and bred—then Baxter came calling to have a formal tea and talk carefully around the terms of alliance, with nobody involved willing to make any kind of direct commitment or even
statement
just yet. It would have been Stephen's forte, except that he was still uncertain about the entire situation and inclined to glare like a subdued volcano.

Judith did the best she could, avoided dumping the teapot over Baxter's head, and tried not to think about how else the conversation with William might have gone.

Time had a
vile
sense of humor.

Later she thought that maybe it was better this way. A man recovering might not welcome attention—God knew she was surly and inclined to crawl into holes when she was hurt—and the more she was around him, the more she would be tempted to open her mouth and let stupid things fall out.

Judith had told him she loved him. At the time, it had felt more than appropriate—it had been the only thing to do. Now, when she wasn't writing lists or showing Mina the storerooms, she remembered the expression on William's face, the way he'd repeated just the one word, and wondered whether it had been wonder, distress, or simple surprise—or delirium.

Confessions were much less risky when the listener was non compos mentis, easier still when she hadn't entirely expected him to survive. Of course she was glad, but—she felt exposed in remembering her declaration, far worse than she had been just shedding her clothes in front of him. She could fight naked, if she had to. It didn't make her weak, and it wasn't—these days—showing anything that could be used against her.

She couldn't wish she hadn't spoken, but she did wonder whether William remembered or not, and what answer he might give her.

And the next day he came to the castle.

The family was in the drawing room when he arrived, save for Anna, who was upstairs napping while the adults played an inattentive hand of commerce.

“She'll be spoiled before you've been here a month, you know,” Judith said, rearranging her cards. The draw had not been good to her. She made a face, since Stephen would see through any attempt to hide her reaction. Brothers made the worst opponents at the table—or most other places.

“
I
wasn't.”

“Hah,” said Judith, and Mina grinned over her cards.

“We'll just need a good nurse,” she said. “Or I'll get my mum to come up—I doubt anyone could grow up spoiled with her around.” A memory made her grimace, but affectionately so.

“Mothers are far sterner than grandmothers, Cerberus,” said Stephen, “even if they're the same woman. Like sisters and aunts—you'll see. Judith will be the worst of the lot, for all her talk.”

“You know I can't be here very often,” said Judith.

“I know no such thing.”

“We've always—”

Stephen snorted, just as he did when transformed, and Janssen chose that moment to announce, “Mr. Arundell, my lady.”

“See,” Stephen said as William walked slowly in, “you can't leave. They'll never recognize my authority. Mr. Arundell, come sit with us and tell my sister that she's being unreasonable. You're looking well,” he added.

Relatively speaking, William was. He wasn't walking easily, but he
was
walking, and he'd already regained some of the color that had been so long absent from his face. As he entered the room, he looked first to Judith, and only as Stephen spoke did his eyes leave hers.

She shook her head. “Unfair. But it is good to see you up and about.” It was the mildest thing she could manage, and the most revealing she could stand to say.

William sat, Janssen closed the door, and Stephen, never one to give up a fight easily, turned back to Judith. “If we'll be working with mortals—and the English government yet—then we can bloody well stand it if a few people in the village ask questions.”

“They're recording births now,” Mina put in, “and taking photographs. Moving around won't be much of a disguise for any of us much longer.”

“They're trying to get me to stay,” Judith explained to William, though she suspected she didn't need to. It was something she could say. She shrugged. “Two against one—but I'm not trying to recruit you.”

“Good,” said William. He stood up again. “May I speak with you alone for a minute? If you'll excuse us, of course,” he added to Stephen and Mina.

“No,” said Stephen, rising, “we'll go. Best to check that the wee lass isn't terrorizing the servants yet.”

On his way past Judith, he grinned in an encouraging fashion that left her convinced he knew, if not everything that had passed between her and William, at least the better part of it. She hadn't discussed her feelings with Stephen—she'd barely admitted them to herself—but, well,
brothers
. She reminded herself to give him a thick ear when he returned.

“I think you should stay,” William said, even before Stephen and Mina had entirely left the room. “Your brother and Lady Mina are right, and I've never gotten the impression that you wanted to leave. I'm prepared to admit I'm wrong, if I am. That's not important.”

“No?” Judith asked with a faint smile. “Maybe not to you.”

“No, it's very important to me. Or I'd like it to be. If you stay, I'd like to stay with you—and if you want to leave, I'd like to go at your side.”

The world stopped.

As Judith looked up at him, trying to figure out whether he meant what she thought he did, William smiled wryly. “I'm afraid I really must ask to be let out of the down-on-one-knee aspect of the ritual. McKendry was very keen on that. But”—he reached into his pocket and removed a small package: a blue silk handkerchief, many times wrapped—“he did offer this.”

Gold gleamed as William unwrapped it: gold, and then a small stone, dark blue with flashes of green and silver inside it. “It was his mother's, he said, and he's not likely to pass it on to anyone else. He was quite insistent when he, ah, figured out my plans. Which he did with embarrassing ease, I might add.”

“You've been wounded,” Judith said, laughing in wonder as much as humor. “Nobody can expect top form—but what about your superiors? And your work?”

“I'll not be much use as a field agent for a while,” he said. “As a diplomatic liaison to a new ally, I expect I'll prove my worth, even if the arrangement is irregular. You have my word, though, that this will have no impact on the alliance. You can say no if you'd like. I won't make a scene, and I think McKendry will take the ring back without question.”

A smile took over Judith's whole face; she had to talk around it. “I'm sure he would,” she said and stood up so that her face and William's were only a few inches away. “But it won't be necessary. If
you're
certain, that is.”

“I love you. I'd say I was as certain as I was of anything in the world, but I'm not nearly as sure of anything else. I never have been. Any other questions?”

“No,” said Judith, and she stepped forward. Trapping the ring in its box between them, she slid her arms around William's neck and kissed him.

She had intended the embrace to be both light and brief, in consideration of his injuries, but William had other ideas. Even one-handed, he had no trouble pulling her against him, and while his fingers were light against the small of her back, their caress was insistent and thrilling. When he stepped reluctantly back, they were both flushed and breathing quickly.

Judith could have wished for more time before the door to the hallway opened again, but she didn't get it. “You could not,” she said as her brother and Mina walked in, “have gone to the nursery and back by now.”

“Just down the hall to talk to the maids,” Stephen said and grinned again. “It seemed time enough. Congratulations—though properly, you know, you should've asked my permission beforehand.”

“Like hell he should have,” said Judith, and she held out her hand for the ring. It was warm when William slipped it onto her finger, and the dark stone shone out at her: mystery, with flashes of light. “Let's begin as we mean to go on. Together.”

As usual, I'd like to thank the Sourcebooks editorial team, particularly my editor, Mary Altman.

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