It would take a week’s worth of traveling to reach Dumbarton Castle where the king was wintering, but he must know what was afoot that could defeat his plan for peace between the Mackays and Sutherlands only days after their truce had begun.
That grim thought spurring him, Alec felt a twinge in his head as he made for the door, but if that was all he suffered after so harsh a blow, he could count himself fortunate.
“Lady Mackay prayed for you night and day beside the bed, Laird—aye, sometimes weeping as well. Dinna be too harsh with her. She has already suffered under the blame and shunning by your servants and kinsmen.”
Alec spun around to face the healer, aye, too quickly when he swayed a bit, which only made anger flare instead of the healer’s hoped-for pity.
“I will speak tae all of them—my wife is the lady of this house, after all. Yet anything else you will leave tae me, Simeon. Are we understood?”
The healer’s somber nod only made Alec stiffen that the old man would defend Rowen—och, but he didn’t know the truth that she possessed so treacherous a woman’s heart.
What else might she be plotting out in the snow that Alec could see was drifting down beyond the windows?
Through clenched teeth, he uttered his thanks to Simeon for tending to him and then strode from the room…angrily shoving away—again!—any thought of whether Rowen might be cloaked and warm.
She had wept at his bedside? More likely because her plan to rid herself of him had failed, Alec still her husband until another attempt was made upon his life, damn her!
* * *
Rowen clutchedher cloak tightly around her and shivered as she plodded along the path she had made in the ankle-deep snow, the guards high above on the ramparts turning their backs to her whenever she passed by.
She had already walked around the bailey twice, Simeon’s kind words forefront in her mind that she get some fresh air after remaining close to Alec for the past three days—but it had done little to ease her heartsickness.
He was still sleeping when she reluctantly left him, Simeon’s powerful potion making Alec lie there like a man dead, though his breathing had remained steady.
His heartbeat, too, whenever she had pressed her hand to his broad chest to check for herself even after Simeon had done so, the healer shaking his head at her not in reproach but sympathy.
Just as he had done right before she wrapped herself in a cloak to leave the bedchamber, Simeon’s gaze filled with concern for her welfare.
“He’s doing better with each passing day, lass. No more spasms of pain and he sleeps peacefully. I’m certain he will awake soon—och, but go now. I will send someone tae fetch you if anything changes.”
With a last glance at Alec’s face so handsome in spite of his pallor, she had left him then and gone downstairs…every servant turning away from her as soon as they saw her.
Every warrior, too, when she had glanced into the great hall to see some of his men sitting near the central hearth to warm themselves…only for them to scowl at her and turn their backs, which cut her to the quick.
Not because their shunning hurt her, but that she felt she deserved every angry glance and muttered curse just as Alec had denounced her right before he had collapsed onto the bed—och, she couldn’t bear to think of it!
He had been so furious, and stared at her with such disdain…not believing anything she had said. Even if heaven spared him after all of her prayers, her tears, would Alec ever look at her again as he had done after he kissed her that second time, so impassioned at first only to become so tender?
The longing in his gaze when he had lifted his head to look at her matching what she had felt until she had forced away the unwanted emotion—God help her!
Forced it away and told herself she couldn’t be falling in love with him. How could that be when all she had wanted from the moment she’d been apprised of her arranged wedding was to free herself from Alec and their marriage?
Then she had remembered Errol and wondered if he was somewhere near even as she felt stunned at the emotion Alec had awakened within her right before—no, no, she didn’t want to think about her clansman and his sling, either.
She didn’t want to think about Alec lying unconscious upon the ground and his stallion bleeding…or about all the hours she had spent despising herself while she didn’t know if he would live or die?—
“At least pull the hood over your head, wife, if you dinna want tae catch your death.”
Rowen gasped and spun around to see Alec standing in the doorway that she had just trudged by, his strapping form a dark silhouette against the torchlight spilling out from the keep onto the fresh snow.
“A-Alec?”
He didn’t say a word as such joy filled her that she hastened toward him, outstretching her hands.
He had awoken at last! He didn’t move to meet her, though, but remained in the doorway while her heart pounded fiercely.
Why hadn’t the healer sent someone to tell her that Alec had roused from sleep? She was so eager to reach him that she stumbled in the snow and fell to her knees—and still, he didn’t move a step from the threshold to help her.
