“Wheesht!” Mhairi’s irritation showed in that one word, telling Calum his stubbornness wasn’t appreciated.
Ella felt a small surge of satisfaction.
“I willna cover both. ’Tis time for ye to start using both yer eyes again. Ye can uncover it in the morning. We’ll do the same for the next sennight. After that, yer eye should be healed well enough that ye may sleep without protecting it. And yer vision should continue to improve.”
He sat back on the stool without another objection and let Mhairi tend him while Ella watched. She felt frozen to the floor, unable to move, either to go to him or to leave. When the healer finished, he stood and walked out of the herbal without another glance or word to either of them. But she noticed he stayed to the right side of the doorway, even laying a hand on the stone as if to steady himself. Of course, with his left eye covered, he was blind on that side. He’d favor what he saw to his right. Being half blind, he’d said, also worried him. Now he knew what it would be like. It had to be another frustration to add to all the others he’d suffered since Harlaw.
Ella sank onto the stool Calum vacated. “He willna forgive me.” She kept her tone matter-of-fact, but inside, her heart was in pieces. Sharp, jagged little pieces that cut with every breath she took. If this was going to be their future—if she made such an effort and he reacted like he’d rather die than accept her help—she’d been wrong about him. “Am I never to find a man who accepts me—all of me—for who I am?”
The healer pressed her lips together and raised a finger. “Dinna let him belittle ye. Without ye, he might no’ have regained his sight. I couldna be there all the time. Ye kept his head still and helped him when he was desperate to move and risked his sight out of frustration.”
“I dinna think he will believe that. Ye are the healer. I am…nothing but a bonnie lass.”
“Perhaps as his eyesight clears and he regains his confidence, he will accept the part ye played in his recovery. He is still hurt and embarrassed by it all, but that will pass.”
“Will it? Will he come to me and beg my forgiveness? After this, I canna…I willna go to him.” Or any other man at all. If she couldn’t break down the walls Calum built against her, if nothing worked with him, she would give up and accept that she was cursed with bad luck in matters of the heart.
The healer nodded, closing her eyes briefly, then captured Ella’s gaze with her own. “If he doesna, there is yer answer. Ye have been strong for him, but ye must be stronger still for yerself. He will come to ye, or ye will tire of waiting and find what ye seek in another man.”
“I dinna want another,” Ella said, turning to stare out the doorway Calum had exited, the pieces of her heart a leaden weight in the bottom of her chest. “I thought I’d found what I needed in him. I hope that I still can. And that he will come to see I did the best I could for him. If he will let me, I will fight for him—for us. But if I must,” she vowed, “I will find my way forward without him—or any other man at all.”
Calum squintedagainst the brilliant shaft of sunlight that suddenly lit the Moray Firth and turned it into a restless silvery bonfire. At first, heavy clouds made the light bearable for his initial foray outside without an eye covering. But no longer. The wind was rising, tearing the low clouds apart, making ragged edges that let sunlight glow. Reflections flashed in the agitated water’s surface.
The healer had finally removed the last bandage yesterday, giving him back the depth perception he’d sorely missed and a blurry but useful return to vision on his left side. Still, he struggled to focus on the target set up against the outside wall of the keep. His eyes were still sensitive to bright light, makingthe injured one fill with tears and sting. He lowered his longbow and wiped away the wetness on his cheek with the back of his left hand.
Mhairi had warned him not to touch his eye and ruin all her work and his hard-fought patience. On pain of death, she’d scolded. And she would make it a painful death, he was certain she knew how. So he let the eye leak and fought the urge to rub it. She’d warned it might do this for days or weeks to come, and he must let it be.
Let it be. Like he did everything in his life now. Including Ella. She was avoiding him. Or he was avoiding her. He wasn’t certain which was more true. Perhaps both. She’d lied to him. And he’d hurt her. Badly. The healer was not happy about that and never missed an opportunity to remind him that what Ella did showed how much she cared about him. For him. And that she deserved his forgiveness. The last time she lectured him, he warned the healer to cease bringing it up or he would stop coming to her.
“Just try it, laddie,” she’d scoffed. “Ye must be careful for sennights more, or the thing ye fear most could still come to pass.”
The thing he feared most? Losing his sight in one eye? Or losing Ella? He’d already done that. Or as near as could be. Both possibilities seemed to have changed his life for the worse. And the only one he could control was not rubbing his damned eye, even when any stab of bright light made tears run down his face like he was agreeting wean. He’d accused Ella of thinking of him as a bairn. Now, except for his size, he must look like one. With his tears, all that was missing was a wean’s wailing, and God’s bones, he remembered times when he’d been tempted to give in to the urge to cry out in his despair.
He missed his friendship with Ella, but he couldn’t find a way to let go of his anger. What would it take for him to forgive her? He didn’t know how to fix any of this.
Perhaps Euan was right. Ella lied to him because he was being an arse then, just as he was now. But she, as Janet, also tried to tell him that his skills as a scout were his way forward. When she’d taken him outside, even blindfolded, he’d still been able to identify where he was in the bailey and what was around him. And where she was when she slipped, close enough to scoop her up into his arms. The onions hadn’t been what made him aware of her presence. It was her. Ella. She had tried to prove to him that he was enough, his senses were undimmed, and he could still thrive. He never should have doubted that she would go to any lengths to care for him. Even to act against his wishes.
Disgusted with himself, he dropped the bow and his arrows on the ground and stalked toward the seaside cliff. The firth danced and shimmered in the changeable light. In the past, he might have admired the beauty of the display, but today it only served to add to his anger and frustration. He could see, damn it. Not perfectly. Not as well as he used to. But well enough on a cloudy day. He lifted his gaze to the ragged sky, then turned quickly away as another spear of light pierced his eye. And his temper. Damn it! Days more of this he might be able to abide, but sennights? Months? And what if it never stopped? What good would he be then?
Footsteps sounded behind him. He recognized Euan’s tread and stiffened.
“The clouds are starting to clear,” his friend announced as if it wasn’t immediately apparent to anyone who bothered to look. “If yer eye is paining ye, we can do this in the gloaming later today.”
Calum tensed, all but overcome with the urge to whirl and hit something, but the only target was Euan, and he didn’t deserve Calum’s ire.
Instead, he heaved a breath and nodded but didn’t turn to face his friend. “Go on in. I’ll follow ye shortly.”
Euan knew his temper better than to question him. Calum imagined he stared, then nodded before turning away to gather bows and arrows. He’d leave the target in place for after sunset, when they’d try again.
As much as Calum hated the necessity, he’d never survive a battle unless he learned to compensate for his vision. He should be thanking Euan, as the Brodie arms master and as his friend, for standing with him, rather than fighting the urge to pummel him into the ground.
He stayed where he was until he no longer heard his friend, then he turned back to the wall. The target was still in place. They would return later. Euan meant what he’d promised. He always did.
Something moved and Calum lifted his gaze. Shocked, he took a step back when he spotted Ella looking down at him, then realized his peril so near the cliff’s edge. He straightened and moved forward to safety as he studied her. Thank the saints he hadn’t been standing on the edge of the cliff or he would have gone over. Her hair blew in the breeze. She clutched the shawl around her shoulders together in one hand, the other lay over her mouth, her expression unreadable. No, not that. Controlled. Sad and fighting not to show it.
Terrified by his near plunge over the cliff? Or pitying him?
That, he could not abide. With an oath, he strode away, around the curve of the palisade to the wall’s gates and through. He headed straight for the keep’s heavy oak door, never looking to see if Ella still stood on the rampart. He didn’t want to know.
