Duncan glanced at her. “Aye. I have to apply it now. And bring the wine for her, too.”
With a sharp nod, Bridgid left, leaving him alone with Aileana. He reached out, smoothing the thick, red-gold tresses from her brow. God, she looked so small in his bed. Helpless. Vulnerable.
He twisted the cloth in the mint water and unfolded it across her forehead. His eyes burned, and his teeth clenched as he worked, hating that he couldn’t take the ravages of the disease onto himself for her. But tending to her and treating her was the best he could do, and he vowed to make the healing work.
“Here.” Bridgid pushed through the door and hurried forward with the pot of salve. Kinnon followed close behind with a skin of wine. As Duncan reached for the ointment, Bridgid held back.
“I’m thinking you might want me to do this part, laddie. It’s not a pretty sight, what happens, after it is spread over them.”
“Just give it to me.”
His tone left no room for argument, and, handing the pot to him, Bridgid sidled out of the way. Wordlessly, Kinnon untied the wineskin and set it near the bed.
Duncan propped Aileana in his arms and prepared to help her drink. “You can both leave now.”
Lifting his gaze from Aileana only long enough to catch Kinnon’s concerned look and Bridgid’s frightened stare, he added, “I’ve got everything I need here. Go now.”
As if they both understood the strange force that drove him, they turned to leave. But before Kinnon stepped out he said, “If you need me, just come to the door and call. I’ll be sleeping in the hall, a little way off.”
Duncan nodded, not moving as his cousin shut the door behind himself. Then it was quiet. Gently, he laid Aileana back down. He washed his hands, readying himself to apply the salve that Aileana had mixed herself before she fell ill. If it went as he’d been told, she would resist the ointment, but once applied to the swellings it would immediately begin to take effect. She would most likely vomit, and the convulsions might start again. Within a few hours, the engorgements would either subside or burst, but with a different outcome for each.
The first meant life, the other death.
Steeling himself for the suffering he was about to inflict on her, Duncan removed the thin linen sheet. He worked with efficient speed, trying to hold her still long enough to smooth the ointment along her neck and on the swelled places below. He cursed when the stiffness in his crippled hand made the task more difficult, berating himself for the additional pain his clumsiness surely caused her. Perhaps he should have accepted Bridgid’s help.
But suddenly he was finished. Aileana lay still. Her cheeks remained flushed, though the rest of her was ghostly pale. Moving gently, Duncan covered her again with the linen sheet and set an empty basin near the bed.
Then he waited.
He didn’t need to wait long. With a sudden motion, Aileana jerked, her body heaving as she retched from the effects of the ointment. Duncan supported her, tipping her sideways and holding her hair from her face as he murmured soft words of reassurance until the violent sickness passed. Then he laid her back against the bolster and bathed her face with cool water again before giving her a few more sips of wine mixed with water.
When she was quiet, he pushed himself up from where he’d knelt by the bed. His legs protested the cramped position of the past three hours, and he stumbled as he walked to the hearth to drag a chair back to the bedside. He sat there like that, not moving except to bathe her face periodically with mint water and encourage her to take sips from the wineskin.
The night faded away. His legs grew numb and his eyes stung. And still he sat. He studied her face, the beautiful, noble features that shifted from wrenching pain to peaceful serenity and back again, more times than he could count as the hours slipped by. Aileana was in truth nothing like her sister, now that he took time to notice. Where Morgana’s beauty had been cold and precise, Aileana glowed with inner strength and goodness. He prayed to God for the joy of looking into her vibrant eyes again, vowing to fight any battle, face any enemy for the privilege of it. He’d even go willingly to the bowels of the Tower again and suffer the tortures of the damned.
If only she could live.
For in those still, empty hours of the night, when death hovered round him like a curse, Duncan realized something startling. Somewhere along the twisted path of hatred and revenge, he’d changed. The sweet enemy had come quietly, secretly, tying him with silken chains more solid and irrevocable than any walls that had ever held him prisoner.
And he knew that come heaven or hell, he would give up his life to keep Aileana MacDonell safe.
Chapter 11
Something stabbed her in the eye. Something white-hot. Bright. Twisting her head from the source of the pain, Aileana raised her arm to shield her vision. Her lids felt crusted shut, but she managed to edge them open enough to peek from beneath the shadow of her elbow.
Everything was quiet, the place coated, it seemed, in the scent of mint. Her mouth felt full of dust, and her head throbbed as if a boulder had rolled over it, but still she peered through scratchy lids, desperate for a drink of water. A pitcher and wash basin rested on the table across the chamber, but she felt too weak to get it. Then a more terrible thought wrenched her foggy mind.Heaven preserve her—she’d fallen asleep and left the sick to fend for themselves.
With a groan, she tried to push herself up from the bed, but her muscles refused to obey. The throbbing increased in her head and spread to every aching joint in her body, making her fall back limp against the bolster. Panic swelled. What was wrong with her? Why did she feel so strange?
Then she noticed something odd. Using every bit of effort she possessed, she pushed herself to her elbows and peered over the edge of the mattress. Duncan lay curled on the floor near the bed; his left arm stretched out above him, cushioning his head, his right hand was cradled to his chest as if for protection.
Or defense.
His hand. For the first time she saw his crippled hand without the glove to conceal it. The first three fingers curved in an awkward twist; they’d healed without being properly set. His knuckles seemed strangely flattened, and thick, ridged scars formed a mass at the back of his hand, while his thumb seemed locked at an angle.
She frowned and managed to roll to the edge of the bed, reaching down to gently touch him. It didn’t look nearly as bad as she’d feared it would. The sight of it inspired a rush of sympathy for the pain he must have felt with its happening, but she certainly didn’t feel disgust as she’d been led to expect, based on the murmurs of his clanswomen. So then why did he bother to—?
Suddenly, she slid and began to tip toward the floor, unable to stop herself in her weakness. She shrieked but the sound came out more like a croak from her ravaged throat. Duncan growled something indistinct as he sprang to a sitting position and grabbed her wrist, twisting it and forcing her back against the bed.
