She glanced back at him now, sound asleep in his bed. His apparent unconsciousness was deceiving, of course, as she’d learned to her exasperation. But this was the first time she’d been able to move away from that bed without him drawing her back.
She shook her head with a sigh. She should have stuck to her guns—helping him was undoubtedly a mistake that she would live to regret, yet what else could she have done? At least she’d been brisk and surly about her assistance, so if he remembered anything at all, which was really doubtful, he’d think her help had been given grudgingly.
But help him she did. She’d even relented and removed some of his clothes once she got him into his bed, at least his shoes and coat, to make him more comfortable. And the moment his head had touched the pillow, he’d fallen asleep.
However, that didn’t last, as she discovered the first time she tried to leave him. When she’d moved away from the side of the bed, he would groan as if he were dying. And he never even opened his eyes. He just somehow sensed it. And each time it happened she thought he’d settled down enough so that she could get back to bed herself.
It wasn’t a mere ploy either, as she first suspected. For all his talk and cajolery earlier, he had been in a really wretched state. And she had attended it all, with cold compresses when his body tried to sweat out the poison, with a gentle hand when it came out quicker into a handy basin. He’d rested easier after that, yet still, when she left his side, he’d make some sound to draw her back.
She could barely keep her eyes open now. She’d had only an hour or so sleep before he’d disturbed her last night, and none afterward. But moaning and groaning from him or not, she was going to be in her bed this morning before Mary arrived to wake her. That gossipy maid of hers was not going to be given the opportunity to speculate on where Kimberly had spent the night.
She moved back across the room to stop by the bed for one last time. Lachlan’s sleep did seem to be more peaceful now. And he looked so innocent she had to smile. But even the devil, she supposed, might look innocent in sleep. And there was nothing innocent about the things this man could make her feel. Even now, she had an urge to smooth back that unruly lock of hair that had fallen over his forehead again—just as she’d done a number of times during the night. She got out of there before she gave in to the urge.
It wasn’t all that much later that Kimberly was rudely awakened, not by Mary’s gentle tones, which had come and been ignored, but once again by pounding on her wall. It brought her sitting up in bed, blinking, trying to get her eyes to open, or at least, to stay open.
It came again though, not the pounding, but a very obvious crash of some sort. Something, or someone, had definitely fallen to the floor. And it was that noise that recalled to her sluggish mind Lachlan’s condition and what had passed during the night. The fool man was up and about already, yet his head was probably coming off with the worst headache of the century, and that was why he was stumbling into things and making another God-awful racket.
Her head turned slowly to glare at the wall behind her, but she knew damn well she wouldn’t get back to sleep until it was quiet again. However, there was no rush this time as there had been last night. She wasn’t even angry. She was tootiredto be angry. So she took some time to slip on her robe and a pair of slippers, and even spared a glance in the mirror above her vanity—which was a mistake.
She really did look as exhausted as she felt. Her eyes were still drooping, refusing to open fully. Her hair was in wild disarray. It was the wanton look that Lachlan had found so appealing, but Kimberly found it unladylike, and so totally unacceptable.
But a brush and a quick splash of water righted her appearance to some degree, the best she could hope for, she supposed, when all she wanted to do was crawl back into her comfortable bed. But during the few extra minutes she took, there was yet another crash next door, and some serious sounds of complaint, grunts and groans and the like. She was beginning to think that Lachlan was just falling out of his bed, albeit more than once—except, there had been that pounding against her wall again, and his bed was nowhere near the wall that separated their rooms.
She sighed, wondering how the devil she had been drafted to be his nursemaid. But there was no help for it. No one else would come to his aid so early in the morning. And wherewerethose two clansmen who had come here with Lachlan? Sleeping off the same overindulgence in their own beds? They should be assisting their lord, not her.
Kimberly left her room before she worked herself into a real disgust. But all thoughts in that direction ended abruptly, as did her step, when she discovered Lachlan’s door wide open, and the Duchess of Wrothston standing there, biting her lips, wringing her hands, and otherwise looking quite distressed as she gazed into the room.
Moving again, quickly now, Kimberly came to stand beside Megan, but she had trouble believing what she could now witness in that room for herself. The Duke of Wrothston was in there and he was quite simply beating Lachlan senseless. And Lachlan, that idiot, wouldn’t stay down to put an end to it—ifthat would put an end to it. Kimberly wasn’t so sure. The duke was clearly enraged. Yet it was a moot point as long as Lachlan kept getting to his feet each time he was knocked down. And how many times had that happened already?
By the look of him, too many. His nose was bleeding, his cheeks bore the prints of Devlin’s fists. A punch to Lachlan’s belly produced one of those grunts Kimberly had previously heard through the wall. Another to his jaw sent him back to the floor again, his arm slamming against a side table, which managed to topple with him.
Kimberly winced, imagining how each pain he was receiving was likely being multiplied a thousand times by his headache. He was holding up remarkably well, all things considered, but he certainly wasn’t defending himself; he seemed to be too dazed to even know what was happening to him…and Kimberly was unable to just stand there and watch as Megan was doing.
She was definitely awake now, wide awake, and she demanded, “What, may I ask, is going on?”
Megan was startled at first, not having noticed Kimberly’s quiet arrival. But she glanced her way and tsked before she answered, “You know, I was actually starting to like that Highlander, now that he’s stopped pest—ah, well, it’s a shame he reverted to form and tried his thieving here. I am really quite disappointed, truly I am.”
Kimberly was given pause, nearly blinked, did finally gasp. “Thieving? Are you saying he has stolen something from Sherring Cross?”
Megan nodded. “Not just something, mind you, but one of our finest stallions, as well as two of the breeding mares. It’s obvious he had intentions of starting his own breeding farm, to assist in his financial difficulties, I suppose. And so unnecessary, when a wife was all that was needed to put an end to those difficulties of his.”
Kimberly was about to point out that it really was unnecessary. So why would Lachlan take that risk? But she got distracted by another crash. Lachlan had slammed into the wall next to one of the windows. Someone had flooded the room with daylight by opening the drapery, possibly Devlin before he dragged Lachlan out of bed, so he could better see to slam his fists into the Scotsman. But with the drapery open…if Lachlan had fallen back just one foot to the left, he could have gone right through that window, or at the very least, severely cut himself by breaking the glass.
Seeing that, Kimberly’s temper exploded. “Stop it this instant!” she shouted into the room, or to be more accurate, right at the duke. “Can’t you see he’s in no condition to receive such treatment? He was so foxed last night, it will be days before he is completely sober.”
When there was no immediate response from the duke, Megan added her worried tones, “Devlin, she’s right, stop it. Haven’t you noticed that MacGregor isn’t defending himself?” and turning to Kimberly in a whispered aside, “How did you know about his condition?”
Kimberly blushed, but recovered quickly and improvised, “He woke me, a number of times, with his retching, falling down, groaning. I could have sworn he was dying, he sounded so awful—and you did say he’d gone off yesterday to get foxed, so I assumed…”
“Yes, quite right and a logical deduction—Devlin, stop it, d’you hear me? You’re killing the miserable wretch.”
“Did I…neglect to mention…that was my…intention?” the duke huffed between blows.
Megan tsked again, but in another side whisper to Kimberly, she confided, “I believe Devlin wants to know what MacGregor did with the animals. Otherwise, he’ll have him carted off to gaol. He could possibly be made to see reason if he gets the horses back. Possibly, mind you. Although with the way he feels about that man…”
It wasn’t at all likely was what Megan had left unsaid. Not very encouraging.
“Has he bothered to ask where the horses were taken?” Kimberly thought to ask.
