“She came in while I was asleep and sat on the mattress beside him,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I was asleep in the chair. She could have doneanything, Ruark, and I would not have seen it. I will not allow that woman to give my son any more of her medicines. I want McBain or Mary up here.”
Ruark understood the ramification of Julia’s fear in a way that sent a chill over him. If something happened to Jamie while in Rose’s care, he would never be able to protect her from his family’s wrath.
“You have hardly slept since his return, Julia. You are exhausted. I will send Mary up. Go wash. Change yourclothes. Sleep. I will talk to my wife. She will not go near the boy again unless you say so.”
Julia touched his forearm, her long slim fingers feathering across the crisp white of his sleeve as if unsure. In the end, she withdrew her hand. “Will ye not come inside and see Jamie?”
“I have to go to Hawick and fetch McBain,” he said, inexplicably annoyed with both himself and her at the moment. “Have you seen Duncan since our return?”
She shook her head. “Nay.”
Julia’s hands tightened in her shawl. She made no other move to touch him. She had kept her distance since his return, even taking her meals upstairs. She was avoiding him, almost as much as his own wife was avoiding him, and last night he had dined downstairs alone. “Nay. I have not.”
He started to turn, then stopped. His impatience gone, replaced by something less discernible.
“Did my father treat you well?” he asked, because he had not asked yet, and because for some reason he needed to know.
Her mouth softened as if she understood the turmoil her forced marriage to a man like his father had once caused within him.
The light from the diamond-paned window at the end of the hall captured her blue eyes. “You did not fail me, Ruark. It is I who bears the shame for then and for now. I know what ye did for me and for this family now. And I will never forget it.” She moved toward the door.
“Julia.” He curled a hand over the doorknob to prevent her leaving.
Her shoulder brushed his, and she raised her chin without moving away. She was still as beautiful as she had been at seventeen. But he knew now he had never loved her. “Rose is my wife.”
“Mayhap, but she is not Jamie’s physician. I have no idea what motive she would have for continuing her visits, as if we would want her near him.”
He dropped his hand from the door knob. “Maybe you should ask her, Julia.”
An hour later, Ruark reined in Loki at the top of a barren rise broken only by a stretch of twisted rocks. Cattle grazed in the distance. He’d ridden past the manicured parkland through the orchard above the northern field oft used as grazing pasture in summer. The hillside had been cleared of trees generations ago when reivers still roamed the countryside and warred on their unprotected neighbors. Thistle and tansy, with its strong-smelling foliage and flat-topped yellow flower heads, grew in abundance among the rocks. Loki stomped in impatience, snorting his displeasure as Ruark tightened his grip on the reins.
He’d been to the surgery only to find Rose gone and had come this way after one of the groundskeepers saw her walking toward the fruit grove, carrying a large empty basket on her arm. The ground was still soft in places after last night’s rain and a small print marked someone’s recent passage. He followed the tracks down a path to the open field.
Summer days might be long in Scotland, but warm weather could oft be short-lived. Today the sun shone high in a flawless blue sky and a warm breeze caressed his face, bringing with it the faint scent of pine from the distant wood grove that led to the falls. He spotted her walking out of the woods, Jason beside her. The two were engaged in conversation as Jason helped her negotiate a creek. Ruark nudged Loki forward.
Rose’s laughter died while Jason greeted Ruark’s arrivalwith a wide grin. “We have been to the falls. I was just telling her about the art of tickling trout.”
Ruark shifted his gaze from the delicate hand resting on Jason’s forearm to Rose’s flushed face framed by her unbound hair.
She wore a dark blue apron over a brownish homespun dress that could have been a burlap sack for all he cared or noticed, when she was more beautiful to him than sunlight at dawn.
Ruark smiled, his tact considerable when he found himself perversely stirred and annoyed at the same time, first by her unsmiling response to his arrival and then by her proximity to Jason.
“I will see her safely returned,” he told Jason. The lad nodded, but before he’d taken three steps, Ruark called to him. “Thank you for seeing her safely about.”
Jason seemed to recognize the inherent message in his words:She is never to leave Stonehaven’s walls without an escort.
To Ruark’s surprise, Rose laughed. He’d never heard a gladder sound than her laughter. “Truly, Ruark,” she scoffed after Jason started jogging toward the house. “I did not go far. Besides, this has been a most productive morning and I have taken full advantage of the bounty your lands offer. I found exactly what I sought.”
Indeed, she looked as if she’d been crawling on her knees in the dirt. The hem of her skirt showed evidence of mud from the stream.
She offered up the basket for his approval. Inside it laid assorted plants and roots. She tapped a pile of field fungi. “Bolg losgain. Frog’s pouch,” she said proudly. “Used to stem bleeding, counter boils and abscesses.”
She caressed a muddy root ball like a mam admiring her wee babe. “Mallow root. ’Tis for stomach ailments.And this?” she held up a handful of ... something—“is for fever. This will help Jamie.”
Lowering the basket, she held the handle with both hands and squinted in the sun as she peered up at him. “What are you doing all the way out here this fine day? Are not lairds supposed to be occupied with their lands and serfs and not worried over their brides’ whereabouts?”
He leaned his elbow on his knee. “I came to tell you I have business to attend to in Hawick and the shipping offices in Carlisle.”
