“Good morrow to ye, Aftyn.”
She spun as if she hadn’t known he stood right beside her. But her expression gave her away. In that moment, he realized she could not keep anything from him. She had to have told the truth about her efforts for Niall. He could trust her, but not with everything. His secrets were too important to divulge to someone he’d known only a few days.
“Ach, Jamie, ye startled me. Good morrow to ye, as well.”
If she’d spoken smoothly, he might have doubted his judgement in trusting her, but she looked past him and didn’t meet his gaze. She was a terrible liar. “I’ve something to show ye, if ye have a moment,” he told her, satisfied with his assessment.
She resisted for a moment, glancing aside at the display she’d used to keep him from being aware she had been studying him. Then she shrugged. “What is it?”
“I found a merchant with an extensive collection of useful herbs. Do ye ken him?” Jamie led her to his find. She shook her head, eyes wide, but not, as Jamie expected, with excitement for his find. Rather, she looked… frightened. Seeing that, Jamie took her arm and led her beyond the cart out of earshot. “What fashes ye, lass? Do ye ken that man?”
“Nay, I dinna think so.”
“Then why are ye upset?”
“I’m not upset. I simply dinna need anything he has.”
“Dinna need? Or dinna ken how to use?” And if so, why did that make her afraid?
Aftyn covered her mouth with one hand. “How did ye ken?”
“It makes sense, lass. Ye didna ken all ye need, so why would ye ken the less common healing herbs and how to prepare them.”
“I have a sufficient supply of the ones I ken how to use.”
Jamie nodded. “Perhaps. But ye must learn more. Ye have said so.”
She glanced around, then dropped her gaze. “Will ye teach me?”
Why was that difficult for her to ask of him? “I’ll do as much as I can until Niall is fit to travel. But I dinna understand yer fear. Has someone threatened ye?”
She paled and a sheen of tears glinted in her downcast eyes. Then her lips pressed into a thin line.
“Ye canna tell me? Or ye willna, Aftyn?”
Instead of answering, she turned back to study the man’s cart, then sighed. “I suppose ye will say we’ll need at least one of everything he has.”
So she would not tell him. Jamie wanted answers, but the midst of a public market was not the place to demand them. He could see that Aftyn had enough problems without him making them worse. She feared something. Or someone. After the way he’d berated her the first night he arrived, he didn’t blame her for not trusting him. But a healer afraid to heal was no healer at all.
He should be angry for her sake that her mother’s death left her so poorly prepared. She clearly did not recognize many of the tools most healers in Scotland used—even his mother—among the contents of the farmer’s cart. But he vowed he would discover the secret behind her fear before he left to return to the Aerie.
“Yer basket is nearly full,” he finally said. “Take it home. I will deal with the farmer for his crop and bring it to yer herbal.”
She looked up then and met his gaze. He wasn’t sure what he saw in her eyes. Sadness? Gratitude? Without another word, she turned and left him. Jamie bargained for the entire contents of the man’s cart and carried it all in a fold of his kilt back to the keep. It might serve to get the clan through the winter, until the next growing season would allow Aftyn to replenish any stock she used. He’d show her how to make any common preparations she didn’t know and would likely need.
* * *
Aftyn puther basket down in her mother’s herbal. What would Jamie think of it? She’d done little in here since her mother’s death save try to understand the journal she’d left behind. Both she and Neve had been over it carefully, and had copied several preparations for poultices Aftyn knew would be useful, but had only managed to recognize one or two symbols from those. Not enough to help Niall. In her urgency to save him, she’d substituted ingredients, timing, even temperature, steeping at room temperature or heating the mixture, all to no avail.
She didn’t doubt she’d done something wrong in preparing them, but what? Her ignorance could have killed Niall, had Jamie not arrived in time to save him. She raked a hand through her hair in frustration, then growled as her fingers got stuck in the top of her braid. She pulled them free and looked around her mother’s domain. Now hers, at least for the time being.
Bunches of dried herbs still hung along one wall, but all carried fairy tracings of cobwebs, showing how little they’d been used. A collection of pots and vials remained. Aftyn had feared to disturb them, except for a few she had become familiar with before her mother’s death. Those she had remade, replacing tinctures and poultices with fresh preparations. The mint she’d used to continue her mother’s treatment of the Keith heir was nearly gone. But Braden had survived and now thrived. She ran a finger over the pot and inhaled its fresh scent, grateful its contents gave her some guarantee of a home.
Before long, Jamie arrived and dumped the plants he’d bought next to her basket. Hands on hips, turned to look around.
Aftyn cringed. What would he think of the dust? The spiderwebs?
Jamie moved to the cabinet that held pots and stoppered bottles, picking one up and sniffing, then another, seemingly at random. He studied the dried herbs and pinched a few leaves between two strong fingers.
