“Lie back,” she tried again, her voice not as raspy as it normally was. “Or I shall get the guards tae hold ye down.”
That got his attention. He shot her a look of simmering rage before lying back on the pillow. Ainslee worked fast, finding her binding wrap, and slid it under his torso, tying it tight against his injured ribs.
“Leave this on until ye are able tae breathe properly,” she told him as she tied the last knot. “Yer ribs are injured.”
“I know,” he forced out. “’Tis not mah first injury.”
Ainslee pulled away from the bed, attempting to keep her anger to herself. When she got angry, her disguise slipped, and she could ill afford for it to do so this close to her brother. “I will mix ye a concoction tae ease yer pain.”
“Dinnae bother, healer,” the laird grumbled, closing his eyes. A moment later, he was asleep.
Or unconscious. She wasn’t sure which one he had succumbed to first.
Ainslee looked down at the laird. “Ye are not mah enemy,” she whispered, remembering his earlier declaration. He may be Liam’s, but not hers.
Sighing, she pulled up the chair beside the bed and wrapped her arms around her exaggerated waist, feeling exhausted herself. Caring for the laird’s prisoner had not allowed her to have much sleep herself, worried that if he died, the laird would hold her responsible.
She could not face her brother now. Ainslee had hidden from him for so long, his wrath directed at someone else as he had thought she was dead and gone. She much preferred it to stay that way. Some might say she was a coward, but they had not felt the knife pierce their skin, inches from ending their life. They had not felt her terror, knowing that her own family member could make an attempt on her life.
Nay, one could not label her a coward. She was a survivor.
“Well, well, he lives.”
Ainslee jerked awake at the sound of her brother’s voice, seeing him standing mere inches away from her. For a moment, she calmed her rapidly beating heart, hoping that in her slumber, she had not given away anything to him.
By the looks of it, she had not.
“Healer, does he live?”
Ainslee cleared her throat. “Aye, mah lord, he does.”
Liam tapped his fingers against his thigh nervously, something she had seen him do thousands of times before. “He’s tougher than I had imagined.”
Ainslee did not respond, watching Liam out of the corner of her eye as he glared at his enemy on the bed. It was clear to her that Liam was disappointed he had not destroyed the laird, his enemy, by his show of power last evening. Ainslee felt satisfaction that her brother was disappointed, that she helped heal his enemy and made him feel as if his plans were not working.
Liam turned toward the guards at the door. “Move him back tae the dungeon where he belongs.”
“Mah lord!” Ainslee rasped, catching her brother’s attention. “He will die down there!”
Liam glared at her, displeasure radiating from his expression. “Are ye soft for mah enemy, healer?”
As much as she hated it, Ainslee slipped to her knees, her head bowed. “Nay, mah lord. I only wish tae do yer bidding.” Her entire body trembled on the inside, knowing that at any moment, Liam would identify her and drag her to the dungeons instead.
Liam made a sound of disgust. “Fetch me when he wakes.”
“Aye, mah lord.”
Ainslee waited until the door shut before she rose from her position, grateful that she had escaped him yet again. This laird needed to heal so she could leave the keep for the safety of her hut again. There she was safe and not in the line of sight of her brother. It was hard enough to step foot in the keep and not be washed with memories of her past.
Falling into the chair, she cast a glance at the laird who slumbered on the bed, his arm thrown over his head. In his sleep, he looked younger, even relaxed as his nightmares did not disturb him. Did he know his days were numbered? Ainslee did not understand how he could not know that her brother would eventually kill him when he tired of making a mockery of the laird.
If only she were as strong as he was. If only she could bare her true identity to her brother and make him suffer for the years she had. Had it not been for Agatha, Ainslee would have not only perished from her wound, but also would have given up long ago. Liam’s cruelty had never broken her, and it would not this time. She had to get back to her solitary life in the wood so she could have some peace.
That and she could shed this disguise and become herself once more. Here she was Agatha, but in the hut, she was just Ainslee, a figment of imagination for the clan and her brother.
That was what she planned to stay as.
5
