He took a step into the kitchen and leaned on his walking stick. “I haven’t come for treatment, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Fia felt her face heat again. Dair raised one eyebrow and regarded her flatly. She fixed her gaze on the laces of his shirt. “That’s good,” she said. Was it good? She thought of what Moire had said, that he might still die. She cast her eyes over him, the broad shoulders, the lean, catlike strength of his body. He was the mostaliveman she’d ever met. She returned to watching the pulse point at the throat of his open shirt.
“So why have you come?” She could have bitten her tongue in two. This was his home, not hers, and she had no right to ask.
“I wanted a bit of bread and broth. I missed breakfast.”
“I can serve you some,” she said, and rose from her seat, glad of something to do. She found and a bowl and a ladle. She was aware of him watching her as she bent over the bubbling pot.
Her hand shook, and she dropped the bowl into the stew. “Oh, no!”
Without thinking, she reached into the pot to snatch it out again before it sank out of sight. The pain was instant and intense, and she cried out and drew her hand back, burned. The ladle in her other hand hit the floor with a clatter.
Dair was by her side in an instant, gripping her wrist, pulling her toward the door, half carrying her there. He plunged her hand into a bucket of cool water. Fia felt tears sting her eyes. “I—” She didn’t know what to say. She should apologize for her clumsiness, but her fingers hurt. His big body enveloped hers, and his hand held hers in the soothing water, cooling her skin. It seemed that every other inch of her was scalded by his touch.
He removed her hand from the bucket, examined it, and the water poured off in glistening streams, soaked her gown, his boots, and the floor. He paid no attention. Her palm bloomed with scarlet blisters. The rest of her hand looked white and very small in his big tanned fingers. “’Tis not so bad,” she said, her voice quavering.
“I’ve no doubt it hurts like the devil. What were you thinking?” His voice was gruff but not mean. He spoke to her the way one might speak to a child—or an idiot.
She looked up, met his eyes. “I wasn’t thinking. At least, I mean—” He was staring at her, his eyes scanning her face, so close she could see the tips of his dark eyelashes were golden. She could feel his breath fanning her cheek. It made her mouth go dry again. “You smell of the sea,” she said foolishly. Her tongue was as clumsy as the rest of her, apparently. She shut her eyes. “I mean—as if you’d been swimming. Have you been swimming? My sisters swim in the loch at home on hot days . . .” She was babbling, and he was still staring. She closed her mouth. She was shaking, and it wasn’t just the burn.
“I’ve been out on the cliff in the wind,” he said. He looked at the pot of salve. “Does that work on burns?”
“Yes,” she managed to say.
He crossed the short distance to the table. “Sit down,” he said, indicating the stool.
She sat, and he dipped his fingers into the pot. He picked up her hand, applied the salve with his fingertips. His touch was gentle, careful. “What’s in it?”
She’d made it a hundred times, but at that moment she couldn’t remember a single ingredient. “Oh, soothing things, healing herbs, flowers, leaves. Nothing bad.”
He released her hand, and she felt the loss of his touch, wanted it back. He was staring at her, his eyes scanning her face. They stopped on her mouth. She was aware she’d caught her lip between her teeth and let it go, flicked her tongue across the wee bite mark. He swallowed.
“It must be magic,” he murmured. “The salve I mean. It takes time to win the trust of a Sinclair. Yet they trust you.”
“Do you?” she asked, her unruly tongue getting away from her again. She trapped it between her teeth.
His brows rose at her boldness. “Ah, but I have more knowledge of the world, and more experience with strangers than they do. I am not a superstitious man.” He put the lid on the pot. “It will take more than herbs and flowers and leaves to convince me of—” He stopped, met her eyes again. “Do you sing, Mistress MacLeod?” It was like being struck by lightning. He knew—or suspected—that she’d been beside him in the night.
“A little,” she admitted, felt her face turn as red as her burned palm.
“Lullabies?” His gaze sharpened, as if he were trying to solve a problem or a complex mystery. Was he shocked or angry? Her skin heated again. She nodded.
He drew a quick breath, as if someone had hit him in the belly. His mouth tightened but he said nothing. He rose, moved toward the door.
He paused on the threshold and looked back at her, and the light outside outlined the male silhouette of his body, while the low eaves above him cast his face in shadow, hid the scars. “I knew a physician in Paris who swore the best thing for a burn was honey. Ask Ina for some when she returns.”
Before she could reply, he was gone.
Fia stared after him, shaking, her hand stinging.
He had forgotten to eat.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It was her voice he’d heard. Fia MacLeod’s.
Dair hobbled along the passage that led to the hall, his heart pounding. He’d been lost in a nightmare he couldn’t recall. He hadn’t even known she was there . . . he stopped, leaned against the wall, tried to remember, couldn’t.
