“Set him in the room next to mine,” she commanded. It was the best one for a sickroom with a large window to air out the stink. Sadie, can you and…” She swallowed. She did not want to know right now why Iseabail Spalding was pretending to be a maid. “Can you share the bedroom across the hall?”
“Of course, we can.”
“Do we need to call the Watch or tell someone about…” What did she know of how England handled their thieves?
One of the big men tugged at his cap as he guided Connall up the stairs. “That’s been handled, miss. We stopped them afore evil could happen. The duke took the worst of it, but he kept his coin.”
Mairi felt her gut clench. “He fought them over a few coins?” What an idiot to risk his life over a few pennies he could well afford. She’d be having a few choice words for him about that—
“He wasn’t fighting because of the coin,” Sadie said as she, too, headed up the stairs. “They started… One of them…” Sadie looked at Iseabail with sad eyes.
Oh dear. “Do either of you need a doctor?” Mairi asked with a lowered voice.
“No,” Iseabail said. “One of the men—Mr. Reuben Bates—stopped him.”
Then she would make pains to thank this Mr. Bates. But at the moment, she needed to see to Connall’s care. She hadn’t taken stock of the countess’s sickroom supplies, but there had to be something. She looked at Sadie whom she knew to be a levelheaded woman, if rather dour thanks to her shrew of a mother. “Can you see that he’s settled? Have them strip him down. I’ll follow up in a minute with supplies.”
Sadie nodded. “I’ll see to it.”
“Good. Parry, show me your liniments and whatever you have for fever.”
Thankfully, after one quick glance at the countess, Parry didn’t argue with her. He sent the maids scurrying to heat water and a footman to get the luggage. Then he gestured toward the housekeeper’s room where Mairi had been working as she learned to how to organize staff and put on the countess’s dinner party next week. It was to be her unofficial introduction to society. Right now, she shoved everything aside in order to get at a cabinet of medicines.
“This is it?” she asked looking at the meager contents.
“Yes.”
She opened a jar and sniffed at it. This was not going to work.
“I’ll write down a list of things I need from an apothecary. You know of a good one?”
“Yes.”
She scrawled out a list and handed it to him. “Send someone immediately.” Then she gestured to a kitchen maid. “Bring soap and water now.” She glanced back at Parry. “And brandy.” She didn’t wait to hear his reply as she headed upstairs.
She paused before entering the sickroom. She’d seen plenty of wounds and illnesses in her life and knew how even small cuts could turn ugly. A slight cough could mean a funeral two days later. It all depended on God, and so she whispered a prayer, squared her shoulders, and entered the room.
The men had done their job, and Connall lay beneath a sheet naked as the day he was born. Sadie was directing the placement of luggage—what little there was of it—and instructing the coachman to do what was needed with the carriage and its cargo.
Cargo? Oh yes. Liam’s whisky. Mairi dismissed it from her thoughts as men’s business. Her job was to take care of the man. And what a man he was. She could see from his outline on the sheet that he was as handsome a man as Scotland could make. Broad shoulders, narrow waist, long strong legs, and large feet. Every part exactly where it ought to be with no awkward angles or swollen joints. Healthy and attractive, and she was woman enough to see it.
She also saw that his breath was rapid and there was a sheen of sweat on his skin. His knuckles were scraped, and his hands shifted restlessly across the sheet. As for his face—well, one eye was swollen shut and his jaw purplish with a bruise, but he still had the wherewithal to smile at her, lopsided though it was.
“Have you come to tend to me?”
“I’ve come to slap that ugly grin off yer mouth.” She sat down on the edge of the bed and began to wash the sweat and blood from his face. She touched him as gently as she could, wincing for him when she had to press hard. Typically, he didn’t even blink.
“You look worried,” he said softly. “I’ve been busted up worse by a ram, and well you know it.”
“You didn’t catch a fever from any sheep. And not one of them shoots a pistol.” She swallowed, not wanting to imagine it, and yet needing to know the truth. “How many were there?”
“Four.”
“And why would you fight over a few coins?”
He frowned at her. “You know me better than that.”
Did she? Seemed to her that he often took pride in his wealth. At least he showed it to her often enough. Whenever he came to the MacCleal castle, he always bragged about what he’d bought in Edinburgh, what he’d dined on, and who had been his companion.
