She nodded.
“And how often does he visit Kildunan?”
“At least once a fortnight.Someone contracts a fever or twists an ankle or eats bad meat.”She narrowed her eyes.“But why so many questions about Peris?Has he done somethin’ wrong?”
“Nay.I just…” Hew could already feel the effects of the wine.It was loosening his tongue and wrecking his judgment.Perhaps it would be best to steer her aside before he revealed too much.“If I’m to stay at the monastery, I’d like to be of help.It seems like Kildunan could benefit from having their own physician.”
“Notyou?”she asked, incredulous.
The idea of him as a physician made Hew chuckle.“Nay.I’m a warrior.I do all my bloodletting with an axe.”
She arched a brow and murmured, “Ye won’t be doing any bloodlettin’ at all if ye join the order.”
He sighed.For one morose opium-addled moment, he regretted his decision to quit his warrior ways to become a monk.Then he remembered that wasn’t true.It was just a story he’d made up.
“I hope ye’re not thinkin’ o’ stealin’ Dunlop’s physician,” she said.“We need him here.”
The wine was washing away his pain.Now he was feeling quite good.Giddy even.If he wasn’t careful, he might blurt out something inappropriate.Something dangerous.
“I don’t need Peris.Not with a beautiful angel like you by my side.”
Like that.
Chapter 13
Carenza had been called “beautiful” hundreds of times.
Sometimes the word was used as a sort of currency by suitors and flatterers who wanted something for their efforts.
Sometimes it was spoken on a sigh, an involuntary reaction to the particular arrangement of features with which she’d been blessed.
“Beautiful” had become a description with little meaning for her, like the repetitive warble of a sparrow that knew no other tune.
But she was well aware that—wrecked by fire, smelling of smoke, with her hair hopelessly snarled and her face smeared with ash—she was as far from beautiful as a boar was from a butterfly.
But he saw past all that.Hew peered into her soul and called her “beautiful.”
It took her breath away.On Hew’s lips, it became a new word.Sweet.Pure.Honest.Imbued with deeper meaning.
Normally, she responded to praise with a humble dip of her head, a smile of gratitude, and words to the effect of “How kind o’ ye to say so.”
But hearing Sir Hew offer the compliment with such gushing sincerity, she was left speechless.
It was just as well.He wouldn’t have heard her reply anyway.Thanks to the strong wine, he’d already sunk into the murky depths of ease where he was free of pain.Free of care.Free of having to answer for speech that was completely contrary to the virtuous intentions he claimed.
For Carenza, however, his words echoed in her head, tormenting her.
It could be, she reasoned, that his brain had simply been muddled by opium.That he was confused.That he’d temporarily forgotten about his monkish aspirations.
He might have imagined Carenza was someone else.A past acquaintance.Or perhaps a real angel.
But she couldn’t shake the feeling that what he’d said in that moment had come from the heart.And it made something inside her quiver with delight.
What would it be like, being the “beautiful angel by his side”forever?
To be wed to a true hero who had snatched her from the jaws of death?
To be wife to a champion who would protect and defend her with his life?
