I tried not to, at first. To see him as my charge and not my companion, a body that needed tending, nothing more.
’Twas a hale body and a young one, a body which insisted upon asking me so many questions and paying attention to the answers. A rare occurrence for a girl like me.
“Mairi Grieve taught ye this?” he asked, while I mixed ginger and goose grease together in a salve for his leg.
My face warmed as I stirred the paste. “No one else cared to listen. They had their own lives and their own plans—mayhap like Eamon heeded the priest too well when he called Mairi’s an unholy trade. So yes, she taught me.” I brought my salve and a clean rag over and took a seat upon the shepherd’s bed.
“I am sure ’tis more than that,” he said, eyes glued upon me as I shoved up his trouser leg. Ugh, how swollen his leg was. “Ye’ve a keen memory and a gentle touch. Mairi knew what she was doing.”
I kept my eyes very intent on his wound, dipping my rag in and smoothing the salve all upon his tortured skin. Next would come the splints and a linen bandage, though leather wound tight and wet would do as well.
This I understand. This I know how to do. Like a simple mortal healer, that is all.
“Did ye learn nothing from your mother?” I asked.
Thomas leaned back and closed his eyes, relaxing into my ministrations. “Died with my birth. I know naught of her, save she was the baron’s maid, not even what she looked like, whether she was dark or fair.” He swallowed hard. “When I catch my reflection in the well, I only see him.”
Him.The baron. Neglectful father and distant lord.Poor Thomas.I considered him a moment: the storm-grey eyes, straight nose, that cleft in his chin.It’s a very nice face,I thought.
What came out was, “When I catch my reflection, I see no one at all.” And I don’t know who initiated it, but somehow our fingers found each other’s and intertwined.
Two cuckoo’s eggs had found their own nest.
’Tis where I am meant to be. Beside him. On this side of the Veil.
But I dared not say this aloud, lest the words catch like thistles in my throat.
While Thomas recovered, I kept his house tidy as I could. It helped that the cottage was small, without many furnishings and with only the two of us and the dog to mess it up. It did not help that Thomas himself was ever a distraction and did not want to lie in his bed all day.
At least, he did not want to lie there alone.
“You are not yet well enough for that, lewdster,” I would chide him, as he reached to untie my apron strings.
“Parts of me are.”
This was... on the mark. And parts ofmeblushed at this, while other parts grew eager. “Then you must tell those parts of you to be patient. I have work to do.”And mayhap you will want to find your pleasures elsewhere, once you are up and about.I hoped I was wrong about that.
I brought water from the well for us to bathe in, bucket after bucket to fill a small tub I had borrowed from the Douglases and placed before the hearth. There wasn’t a time Thomas did not attempt to trick me into helping with his bathing, though he was quite capable of doing it on his own. There wasn’t a time I was not tempted by it, either, for he was sculpted as Adonis, or Endymion who won over the moon. I only wished I could be the goddess who swept him away.
And if you are? Not goddess, but Queen?I shook away the thought, not daring to entertain it for long.
Thomas stood before the hearth, cleaning himself off with the water I had fetched. His shirt was wet and see-through and clung to his broad chest and shoulders in a most arresting way. “I canna reach my...”
You are his healer, and he is not yet so recovered as he would wish.I rolled my eyes to tear them away from this distracting display.
“Well I know what you canna reach, Thomas Shepherd. And well I know you can reach it, too, for you have lo these twenty years, with me not here to help you, and it’s naught to do with where you’ve injured your leg.”
Surely Mairi Grieve did not suffer so much distraction from her customers as this!
Thomas stared into the distance, dropping his scrub cloth to the side. “Nearly twenty-one years, now. Nine years since I was sent from the manor house, to look after myself.” There was a stillness to him then, different from his usual manner. I wished to ask where he had gone, and whether I could come along.
“Thomas, I—” I did not finish. No words could make up for the years without a family, the boy who had had to do for himself, alone. I wished I might steal away the sorrow from his eyes, wipe the worry from his brow, offer him what comfort he could find in my embrace. If I could be certain this was not gratitude or pity that inclined his attentions towards me. If only—
Thomas splashed me with the bath water.
It hit, not as cold as might be this time of year, but not exactly warm, either. Thomas snickered at me, then tried to play innocent, limping noticeably, looking all around the cottage for someone else to blame. Unfortunately for him, Cullen was doing his business outside.
I put my hands on my hips. “You sure act like a wee bairn, for all those twenty-one years. And after I went to the trouble to fetch that water. Honestly, such behavior from a grown man.” I raised my chin, shaking my dripping arms before me as I staggered off to find a cloth to wipe up.
