Iain peered closer. She wasn’t wearing her skirt. Mayhap she thought he was still too feverish to notice.
A heaviness set in his aching eyelids, but he forced them to stay open. He didn’t want to stop looking at her, for she still looked like an angel to his eyes. He was also scared she might turn out to be a fever vision after all and disappear. Had they even traveled with the MacDonalds? Was it all a dream and he was still on the battlefield, slowly dying?
Iain fisted his hand and dug his fingernails into his palm. Nay. He was in a deserted house with the most beautiful lass he had ever set his eyes on.
Her eyes blinked open and caught his. She gasped and sat up, wiping her mouth. “You’re awake.”
“Aye.” His voice was gritty. The corners of his mouth twitched.
Abigail threw her cloak off, jumped up, and bent forward to feel his forehead. “You’re still hot.”
His eyes widened at the open top of her shirt.
She stood up and scrunched the material closed.
Raking his gaze over her near-naked body, he cleared his throat and winced. “That isn’t going to make much difference.”
Her eyes widened, and she looked down. She gasped in surprise. Had she forgotten her state of undress?
She had dispensed with the skirt and vest and only wore a shirt. Iain couldn’t remember seeing anything like her shirt’s style before. It was long enough to cover her body but not much else. He couldn’t place the cloth, but it was as shiny as silk. Mayhap itwassilk. He frowned at the buttons. They were small and white but not covered in cloth, and they were placed from neck to hem. It wasn’t like any sark or shift he had ever seen.
She glared at him. “Stop looking at me like that.”
He raised his eyebrows, his eyes roaming down her length once more.
“Blast it. Turn away so I can get dressed.”
“I like it.” He grinned, knowing hunger eclipsed the pain in his eyes. By the boar’s blood, his whole body hungered for her.
She snatched up her skirt and, turning her back to him as if she thought that would give her privacy, she bent forward to step into the skirt. His breath hitched in his throat as thebottom of her shirt rose. Something pink and shiny that again looked like silk covered her skin but was so tight, he had nothing to compare it to. Who, what was she? If he was going to die in the rundown farmhouse, he wanted to know more about her first.
She wrenched the skirt up over her long legs and tied it at her waist.
As she turned back to him, she held out her arms and sang, “Ta da.”
Taken aback, Iain stared at her.
She let out a small laugh. “Don’t worry about it. It’s just an expression from where I’m from.”
Although he was sorry to see her so covered, he decided it was for the best.
He patted the bed. “Tell me aboot ye, yer family, yer country.”
He gritted his teeth and made room for her but couldn’t stop a groan from escaping his throat from the movement.
“Keep still.” Abigail filled a mug with water and set it down on the small round table beside the bed.
She leaned so close, he could smell the faintest glow of herbs and breathed in her sweetness as she propped up the folded blanket, she had placed behind him. He helped as much as his weakened body allowed, which wasn’t much at all. Abigail grunted with the effort, and by the time she had him in a semi-upright position, she was panting.
His voice rasped, “Thank ye.”
“Thank me by drinking this.”
He glowered at the mug. He didn’t want to drink. The last time she made him take some water, his stomach had twisted in excruciating pain. He glanced up at her hopeful face. If he wanted to have strength to do all the things his fevered mind imagined, he needed to drink.
Placing the mug against his cracked lips, she waited for him to bend his head to it before tipping it up. He drank a mouthful and then pulled away. A rope pulled the water down into his gut and thrashed about for painful moment.
When it passed, he said, “I am much indebted to ye, angel.”
