The Intended (6 page)

Jaime shook her head, putting down beside
Malcolm’s head the potion she had been stirring for the Welsh
physician. “I brought him here, Master Graves. Now I have to see to
it that he lives.”

“It might be that his fate lies beyond the
scope of our abilities, my dear. Surely beyond my skill. He has
lost too much blood already, and what we have left to do...”

“...Won’t get done if all we do is simply
stand and talk now, will it?” Jaime cut in decisively, pausing to
gently raise Malcolm’s head and carefully lowering it onto her lap.
“Tell me what we must do next, and let’s just get on with it.”

The aging physician stretched a rheumatic
shoulder, wiped his hands on a clean rag, and scratched one of the
tufts of red hair that adorned either side of his bald head. He
studied the young woman sitting at his patient’s battered head.
Even with her elegant gray cloak already stained with the Scot’s
blood, Mistress Jaime Macpherson was totally out of place in the
filthy cell that the duke kept for prisoners in the stable
buildings. She’d stayed beside him since shortly after the prisoner
had arrived from Norwich Castle, but they still had a long way to
go with this one. Graves knew there would be a great deal more
blood on that cloak before he was finished stitching the Scot back
together.

He’d tried to send her away immediately; he
didn’t need a hysterical woman swooning at his feet. But she’d held
her own in the early going. She was a far cry from the rest of
them. He glanced down at her firm but gentle hands as she coaxed
the Scots lips open a bit, tipping the liquid preparation down his
throat. Aye, she has her wits about her, Graves thought. I should
always have such competent help.

“Make him drink it all, if you can,” the
physician ordered, watching the throat constrict in an effort to
swallow. “His fever will surely kill him without more fluids in
him, and this is the only liquid he’s taken at all.”

Jaime nodded to the man as she trickled more
liquid past Malcolm’s cracked lips. All the anger she’d felt in the
past toward the Highlander amounted to nothing now. Nothing
compared to the reality of his suffering. It was almost too much
for her to bear. Malcolm MacLeod may have caused her humiliation
and hurt, but even in her wildest moments of fury and grief, she
could never have wished this misery upon him. Her heart ached in
her chest. Looking down at Malcolm’s bruised face, swollen to the
point of being nearly unrecognizable, she wondered briefly if he
knew who was making him drink this. At the core of her soul, she
wished he had the strength to lash out at her for what she’d done,
for bringing him here. She wished he would go after her the way he
had at Norwich Castle. She would bear his wrath any time in lieu of
this life-draining stupor, this battered daze, this shroud of
oblivion.

A gurgle erupted in his throat, and the
liquid she had been feeding him bubbled out. He was rejecting her
even in his unconscious state.

“He’ll not make it,” Graves said under his
breath, watching the Scot’s suddenly labored breathing. “Look at
his chest, his scalp. He is bleeding again...more than before.
Much, much more. Look, this gash on the shoulder has begun to open
again.” The surgeon’s hands hesitated for only a moment, and then
commenced to sew the wound on Malcolm’s shoulder with quick, sure
movements.

Malcolm thought the pain would drive him mad.
But when his anguish was at its height, he drew back, realizing he
had within his grasp the power to walk away from it all. So he did.
Rising like a cloud, he moved away. At the sound of the voices,
Malcolm turned—the words were murmured, indistinct, but the voices
familiar somehow, as if they were a part of him. The Highlander was
only mildly startled to see himself lying in a heap of straw, the
dirty gold strands stained with his blood. Two heads bent over the
motionless frame. Their voices wafted back to him, their words
unintelligible, and he drifted weightlessly away from them. He had
no pain now.

Somewhere far behind him a door opened, and
as he turned, he felt himself slowly drawn toward it. Malcolm
watched. Through the door he could see the bright light of a sun in
a cloudless sky. He blinked his eyes and tasted the warmth. He
could feel the presence of someone, something. It was so close.
Within his grasp. A world beyond the door. A peace that pulled him
onward.

“Damn you, Malcolm MacLeod. You will not
die.”

Jaime thought of all who loved this man—of
all the hearts that would be broken to hear of his death—and the
thought weighed like a stone on her soul. Fiona and Alec, losing
the son they’d raised as their own. His wife...what was her name?
And...oh, by the Holy Virgin, what if there was a bairn? So much
Jaime didn’t know. Leaving Scotland, severing the lines. She’d
never so much as allowed the mention of his name. But, now, fate
bringing him here, to take his last breath at her feet. She
couldn’t let it happen. She couldn’t.

“Do you hear me, you pigheaded beast? This is
not the place for you to die. I won’t let you cause me more pain!”
Jaime cursed him again under her breath and pressed a wad of clean
bandages against the wound on the side of his head. The blood was
everywhere and a panic tore through her soul.

As he neared the crossing point, Malcolm felt
the troubles of his life drop from his body like so many plates of
armor. Like a snake shedding skin. He was so close now! Eternity!
The sky opening up before him. The freedom of flight. Air, sweeter
than any he’d ever tasted, filled his lungs! He continued to move
toward the light. Toward its promise.

Jaime, tears coursing down her cheeks,
watched in horror as his ragged breathing faltered, then came to a
rasping stop. She lost all sense. Leaping up, she moved the
physician aside and punched at Malcolm’s chest

“Nay, blackguard.” She was hammering on his
chest, cursing the Highlander. “Nay, Malcolm. You cannot...”

Malcolm was nearly through the door. He could
see wisps of silk fluttering, waving. He saw his own arms reach out
for the flowing silk, felt his heart open to the soft whispers that
beckoned him. Almost through...

Then, he felt arms encircle him from behind.
A hand, strong and sure, pressed against his chest, holding him
back. A woman’s voice. Why, she was shouting, cursing at him. The
bloody wench was calling him names! He could hear her distinctly.
She was degrading his honor—his very manhood.

The presence through the door called softly
to him, but he could not understand the words. He struggled to shut
out the voice behind—to move on.

But she wouldn’t let go. The strength, the
anguish behind her angry cries pulled at him. The voice beyond the
door called him once again. What is it? Wait, he cried out.

The physician looked on, aghast as she
continued to curse the Highlander’s carcass. Graves heard language
he hadn’t thought possible in a young woman of breeding. Language
he hadn’t heard since he was a young man on the Scottish
campaigns.

And after all, the man was dead.

Jaime, tiring, leaned heavily on Malcolm’s
chest. She was not aware of the sobs wracking her body. She only
knew that his spirit was slipping beyond her grasp. And she knew no
way to bring him back.

Please, Holy Mother, she screamed silently.
Please don’t let this man go from here.

The voice beyond the door whispered again.
Bloody hell, Malcolm thought. He couldn’t hear a thing. He turned
back toward the wench, anger pervading his spirit. If she would
only quit her ruckus. Suddenly, he could see her clearly. Jaime,
her hands on his heart, her black hair down around her face, her
lips moving. A pain shot through his chest, his head pounded.
Malcolm again felt his bones disintegrating. The agony was
back.

Nay, he screamed, turning back to the door.
He glimpsed the final flash of light, but the door had closed.
Gone, he realized through the pain.

By God, the wench had won.

“Is he dead?” Mary Howard’s whisper broke the
momentary silence that had fallen inside the cell. Peeking into the
open door, she froze at the site of the blood and the bloody wreck
of the Scot’s body.

The physician cast an admonishing glance at
the blanched face of the newcomer, and Jaime’s startled expression
quickly changed to bewilderment at the appearance of her
cousin.

“Did you come down here for a dance, Mistress
Mary?” the physician asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
Turning to Jaime, his gruffness returned as he barked, “Take her
out of here at once, Mistress Jaime. The poor lad is barely hanging
on as it is. We don’t need the entire household tramping through
for a peek at his miserable carcass.”

“But...but we’re not finished with him,”
Jaime argued. She had no desire to go just yet. “You need help with
his dressings. I should try to clean the blood from his
wounds.”

“I’ve done this for over thirty years,” Grave
grumbled under his breath. “I can manage the rest just fine. As for
the cleaning, I’ll do what I can and have one of the stable hands
sleep in here. We don’t want any of the barn vermin getting at him
during the night.”

The physician smiled wryly as Mary Howard
paled again, looking as if she were about to be ill. He looked back
at Jaime. Uncertainty showing on her face, she stood looking at him
from her place beside the prisoner.

The lass had certainly been a great help, far
better than his own hapless, shirker of an assistant. But the truth
of it was that the physician needed a bit of time alone to regain
his wits. What he’d just witnessed had frightened him. Something
had passed between this woman and the wounded man, and he was
struggling, even now, to square it in his mind. He could have
sworn...no. There was no doubt. The Scot had died. He’d stopped
breathing.

He was dead.

And then—Graves dared not think of it as
magic—Jaime had brought him back to life. Back to life and back to
a conscious state. The physician’s hackles rose again at the
thought of the awakening. The Highlander’s chest had convulsed, his
fists clenched and then opened, only to tighten into fists once
more. And then the lad had opened his eyes, clear and alert
and...disbelieving. The Scot had just stared at her, anger quickly
taking over, wrath eclipsing any other expression on his battered
features. He’d silently drunk the entire potion then, never taking
his eyes from her face. Then, cursing her by name, his swollen
eyelids had drooped, and he’d fallen into a deep slumber.

Over a year ago, when Jaime Macpherson had
first arrived, the word had gone about that she was niece to Anne
Boleyn. He himself could see the family resemblance between her and
the dead queen. In the back of his mind, now, resemblances of
another type were pushing forward with an unpleasantness that
Graves was trying to ignore. Aye, he’d heard the stories that Queen
Anne was a witch—a sorceress of some kind who had cast a spell on
the king. That is, until he’d had her beheaded. They’d said she
could communicate with spirits. There was even talk that her ghost
had been seen in the Tower of London and other places, as well.

But Graves had never believed such talk. He’d
seen her before the king fell in love with her, and he’d seen her
as queen. She hadn’t been an easy lass to like, in his opinion.
Proud and vain. But hardly a witch, so far as he could see. Just
talk begun by her enemies, by those who wanted her dead. And of
course, he thought, ‘tis even easier to slander your enemies once
they are dead.

But now... His eyes looked searchingly into
Jaime’s face. Witnessing what had occurred here, what the lass had
done... and she a niece to the dead queen! Graves pondered a
moment. Nay, it couldn’t be, he decided, shaking his head. By Jesu,
he was even starting to think like these damned English.

“I’ll come back,” Jaime vowed, touching the
physician on the arm as she moved toward her swaying cousin.

Before she even reached the door, Jaime could
see the glazed look of horror that was fixed on her cousin’s face.
The sight was hardly one that Mary was accustomed to. The filthy
cell, the blackening blood, the battered and half-naked body of the
injured Malcolm.

“Is he dead?” Mary whispered again, leaning
heavily on the door frame. Her face was a white mask.

Jaime realized that her cousin had not heard
a word that had been uttered by Graves. Not needing another patient
at the moment, Jaime took Mary by the arm and led her into the
enclosed yard and out of the physician’s earshot. Standing in the
late-afternoon sun, Jaime squeezed Mary’s hand. It took only a few
moments for the younger woman to regain most of her composure.

Then, looking at Jaime with eyes wide, Mary
started with dismay. “Oh my, Jaime. The blood...your...your cloak!
Your hair! Your face!” The young woman, again too upset to talk,
flapped her arms like a bird in distress. “Jaime,
Edward...and...oh, my! Look at you!”

Jaime took Mary’s hands in hers. “Take a deep
breath,” she ordered softly. “You have news of Edward?”

Mary nodded and took not one but a few short
breaths.

Jaime waited impatiently for the other woman
to regain her composure. A stable boy passed by, carrying two
buckets of grain and gawking openly at the two. Horses could be
heard, stamping and snorting impatiently to be fed. A cart of
feed—pulled by an oxen being led by a tall, stick of a man—creaked
into the enclosure from some other part of the series of granaries,
smithies, and stables that comprised the stable area. Suddenly,
Mary’s attention was captured by the activities going on around
them, as if it were a world she was seeing for the first time.