“So this Mrs. MacRyver cared for me?” Ivor guessed.
Eithne nodded. “She got all the herbs and potions she needed to treat the infection and told me that if we’d waited any longer, it might have been a problem, but that ye’d be perfectly all right as it was. Her young sons helped me get you here. Still, I couldnae bring meself to leave yer side nevertheless.”
Ivor kissed her forehead then glanced beyond her to the chair next to his bedside. “Ye’ve been there all day?”
“For three days,” she corrected. “She kept ye under with another potion while the herbs did their work. She said ye’ve to rest until tomorrow and then if we must go, we can, but nae before then.”
“Oh,” he replied. “And when will I meet me wonderful benefactress?”
“Nae now, and nae the lads either,” Eithne replied with a helpless little shrug. “Mrs. MacRyver took wee Tam out to the market with her and Ryan’s at the smithy for his apprenticeship. We’re alone.”
“Well,” Ivor said, “I cannae complain. Aye, me head might hurt a bit, but there are few men who’d have any sorrow about being alone in a comfortable bed with such a bonny creature as ye.”
A blush rewarded him, and he reached out and touched under her chin, tilting her head until their lips met.
She kissed him back, eagerly but slowly. It was the gentlest kiss they’d ever had, but somehow that inflamed his passion even more than any before it.
“Eithne,” he muttered against her lips as desire coursed through his body, enflamed by her slightest touch.
“Ivor,” she whispered back. She pulled away to smile at him like he was being told off and talked in a normal tone once more. “Dinnae think I cannae feel that under the blankets. Ye’re supposed to be healing.”
“I cannae think of anything more healing than yer kisses,” he replied. He swooped down to kiss Eithne again, tasting her smile, and then pulled gently.
She moved willingly, her legs straddling his waist and her hands on his chest as she gazed down at him. “I dinnae think the healers recommend this,” she said, and he watched, transfixed, as her chest rose up and down rapidly with her excitement. “Ivor?”
“Eithne?”
“Will ye stay a few days when I get to MacDonnell?” She bit her lip, an innocent action that made his groin pulse. “I ken ye cannae stay forever, but…just a few days. Just until I’ve settled back in. I’d love ye to meet Myrna, and ye can tell her about yer stories with Killian.”
A flinch of pain momentarily dulled Ivor's lust. If he could, he would stay with her forever. But MacDonnell was not for him.
Naewhere is for me. Nae after me parents. Nae after Iona.
The thought of his little sister was too much, and he forced it away. He never thought of Iona, and he certainly wasn’t about to start now. The fact that Iona hadn’t perished in the fire that killed his parents was the one thing he hadn’t even told Eithne about. It was the only way to keep himself together.
“I can stay with ye a few days,” he said softly, reaching up and touching Eithne’s pale cheek. Her skin was so soft under his fingers that he was almost overwhelmed by wonder all over again. “But nae more than that. Tell me ye understand.”
“I understand,” Eithne said readily, though she didn’t, not really, he knew. But she was trying for him, and he would never be able to tell her how much he appreciated it. Eithne leaned down and pressed her lips softly to his once more.
The shift of her hips, the touch of her lips, and the gentle brush of her tongue…her every movement quickly distracted him from his more maudlin thoughts. He couldn’t have her forever, but he had hernow.To let it go to waste would be near criminal.
His hands found her hair, and he pulled her closer. She moaned happily then giggled, pulling back.
“What?” he asked as she tried and failed to gaze at him with reproach. “I’m telling ye. It’s the best way for a man to heal.”
“Well,” she replied, her hands slipping under his shirt. Where her fingertips brushed his skin, he felt almost as though she had permanently marked him.
“Well?” he prompted, his breath speeding as he stared up at her.
“Well,” she said again. In a flash, she had stretched her back away from him. She wriggled out of her simple dress, leaving herself gloriously naked except for her smallclothes. “I suppose I’ll just have to be very,verygentle.”
* * *
Much later, when they were both satisfied and dressed again, the lady who had saved Ivor’s life knocked on the door. Eithne called for her to enter, and Ivor wondered how he would ever be able to offer thanks.
When she entered, Ivor was surprised. She wasn’t old, at least, not as he’d been picturing. Mrs. McRyver was perhaps halfway through her fourth decade, and her hair, though it carried strands of white, was a deep straw blonde that made her look still younger.
She’s the same age me da would be if he were alive.
