Instead, she asked, “Would ye like me to read to ye?” She knew her voice soothed him and the stories gave his mind something to focus on besides his discomfort.
His eyes opened long enough for him to answer her. “Aye, I would.”
She removed all the damp cloths, pulled the covers up to his broad shoulders, but restrained herself fromtangling her fingers in the hair curling along the strong cords of his neck. Instead, she crossed to the chair beside the fire and picked up the latest book she’d been reading to him. Eventually, his breathing slowed and the crease between his dark brows smoothed out, making him look younger, even sweeter. She set the book aside, bent over him and brushed her fingertips across his forehead. Cooler. Something had helped.
She left him to his rest. After she closed the chamber door behind her, she leaned against it. Cameron was a temptation she didn’t need in her life. She could not hope for anything to happen between them. He owed duties to his clan and would soon leave her, so why did she allow herself to have these feelings about him?
She shook her head to rid herself of the unwanted longings and went to find the healer. After this relapse, Mary feared she’d spend the entire trip not just missing Cameron, but worrying for his life. She needed the healer’s reassurance.
Chapter 3
Mary awoke the next morning to the sound of someone knocking at her door.
“What is it?” she called, reluctant to leave her warm nest of blankets and the dream she’d been having about Cameron.
Her maid opened the door. “Yer father wishes ye to join him in his solar,” she announced. “Do ye need my help getting dressed?”
Mary groaned and tossed aside the covers. “Nay. Stir the fire, if ye will, before ye go.”
The maid complied and left her to her morning ablutions.
When she arrived at the laird’s solar, her father sat at his desk, pouring over the same list Mary had seen him study many times—the names of the men he had sent in July to fight with Domnhall, Lord of the Isles, against the Earl of Moray’s troops. Moray was the Duke of Albany’s man. The battle between their forces at Red Harlaw, so called for the amount of blood spilled there in one day offierce fighting, had solved nothing and resulted in many dead Highlanders, including men from Rose. Most of those still alive had returned by now. But even this late in the summer, a few stragglers had shown up at the gate, having wandered from town to village, doing God only knew what, until they decided to return to parents or wives and children. At least a dozen were still unaccounted for, a fact that obsessed her father. Mary thought they were probably buried in the field at Harlaw, but her father held out hope.
“Da, ye sent for me?”
When he set the list aside, Mary’s tension eased. So he had not called her here to dwell on those men again.
“I’m thinking of sending to Domnhall for some warriors. We are undermanned. If we were attacked today and our walls breached, we lack the men to fight the size force any of our neighboring clans could throw at us. Perhaps some of those Irish mercenaries…”
A cold chill skittered down her spine. Their neighboring clans were allies—had he forgotten? As for gallowglass men, she shuddered. “Da, do ye no’ recall what they did when Catherine and Kenneth were here?” Rose had taken in three of their wounded. The three hale warriors with them had assaulted Rose serving wenches and started a brawl in the great hall that had resulted in the lone Irish survivor of the brawl trying to kidnap Catherine. If she hadn’t kept her head, and if Kenneth hadn’t gone after her, she might have been ravaged and killed. But she fought off the attacker and Kenneth finished him. The next day, Rose had his men load the three wounded Irish into a wagon and send them off to Domnhall at Dingwall. “We dare no’ let any of them insideour gates.” How could her father have forgotten that day? His lapses worried her. She’d noticed his confusion before this, but to forget such events seemed more than distraction.
“Hmmmm, aye, I suppose ye are right.”
But his frown told her something else bothered him. “If our manpower worries ye, are ye certain we should leave Rose right now?” she ventured. “Perhaps we should call on Brodie or another ally for men, and delay the visit to Grant until they arrive…”
“Nay! We will leave tomorrow, as I have said.” He stared off into space, then shook his head and returned his gaze to her. “In the meantime, I called ye here about another matter. That crofter on the northernmost plot has failed to pay his rents these last three months. I tire of waiting. Send my arms master to collect what he owes. If he canna pay, I will throw him off the land.”
“Ye mean Eanraig? Da, ye must recall the man’s wife just had another baby. And an older child is sick as well. Their little coin has been given for medicine and for the midwife.”
“So?”
“The harvest is just starting to come in. I already told him he had until after the harvest to settle his account.”
“Ye did what? Ye are no’ his laird. If I say they must meet their obligations, they must do so. Or leave, and I’ll give the land to someone who will work it and make it pay.”
Mary didn’t like the stubborn thrust of her father’s chin, but she had to tread carefully or she’d make things worse for Eanraig and his family. “What good will it do them or Rose to make a family homeless? Eanraig hasbeen a good crofter since he took over the land from his father ten years ago. He’s only fallen on hard times with this last bairn.” Her father appeared unmoved, so she tried a more compelling argument and lowered her voice. “How will it look to our other crofters if ye do this to him and his family? If ye force them from their home to wander the countryside, the new bairn will die. When the rest of our crofters hear how ye treated Eanraig, they will be shocked. Do ye wish to lose them all?” She leaned forward, hands open, pleading. “Give him a chance to make good on his debt.”
Rose leaned back and sighed. “Very well, he has until after the harvest. But ye must ensure he is able to pay his debt then.”
Mary sat back, dismay roiling her belly. How did he expect her to do that? By growing the man’s crops for him? Controlling the weather? How exactly did her father think she could ensure a good outcome? She shook her head, dismissing the foolish idea.
She quit the solar still stewing over her father’s irrational order.
Soon after, the healer frowned when Mary repeated the conversation to her. “I dinna like it,” the woman said. “But I dinna ken what to do about it. No’ yet. Yer father will get better—or worse—and that may tell me what he needs.”
“I hate the waiting,” Mary admitted. “If he’s ill, I want do something. If he’s no’ ill, I want to throttle him.” She sighed. “In the meantime, it would be convenient if he forgot about Eanraig. I can do naught to improve his crop so he can pay his debt to the estate.”
“Aye,” the healer said and chuckled. “’Tis too late in theyear for a Beltane fire.”
