Page 49 of It’s in his Highland Kiss

He didn’t know, but it wasn’t a decision that he needed to make right then and there. First, he had to get Marion to visit him again, one way or another. Being apart from her for so long had left him morose, unable to eat or sleep, or do anything, really, other than think about her. It sounded pathetic, he had to admit, even to his own ears, but he couldn’t lie about the effect that Marion had on him, not to himself.

He knew better than to lie to himself.

Eiric spent the next few hours receiving visitors: the healer, his mother, Mrs. MacKay, who was worried sick about him and was constantly bringing him food in an effort to have him gain some strength, according to her own words. Once again, his father didn’t show. He had only come to visit him twice since Marion had brought him back to the castle, but Eiric didn’t hold it against him.

His father was a busy man, and he was a man who didn’t know how to deal with emotions. Eiric considered himself to be much like his father, and he didn’t know what he would have done had he been in his place. He knew that seeing him in bed, wounded, unable to even stand, was harder on him than everyone else thought. He knew that, despite the smile that he put on every time he saw him, his father was hurting.

And so, he didn’t blame him. He only wished that he would come visit him a little more often. Just as he was thinking about his father, the door to his chambers opened, and Eiric glanced at it, hoping to see the other man there. But it wasn’t his father; it was Edan.

Still, seeing Edan put a big smile on his face, one that made each and every wound on his head hurt and throb, but it was a pain so familiar by then that he didn’t mind. He was just glad to see his friend, even though Edan visited him multiple times every day.

“How is me lord?” Edan asked, in that obnoxious, sarcastic tone of his. “Are ye ready to walk yet?”

“Nay, that bastard, Lynton, hurt the soles of me feet, apparently,” Eiric said. Out of all the injuries Lynton had inflicted on him, that one seemed to be the worst. “I didna feel it on me way back, but I’ve been feelin’ it the last few days, and let me tell ye, Edan . . . it’s unlike anythin’ ye’ve ever felt before.”

“I dinna doubt it,” Edan said, as he took a seat next to Eiric. “He sounds like a sick bastard. But we’ll find him, I promise ye. Him and all his men. And we’ll do to them what they did to ye.”

“Nay, Edan,” Eiric said. He didn’t want that. Lynton may have been a sick, twisted man who had tortured him for hours, but he couldn’t possibly bear the thought of anyone else going through what he had, even if they deserved it. “If ye find them, then they’ll hang, but that is the end of it,” he said. “We willna repay senseless violence with senseless violence. Hangin’ them will be enough.”

“Ye’re a better man than I am,” Edan said with a small shrug. “But it’ll be done as ye wish.”

“Are ye any closer to findin’ them than ye were . . . what, two hours ago?” Eiric asked. Edan was like a clock, he thought, like a man on a schedule.

“Nay closer,” Edan said. “But they canna have gone too far.”

“Dinna fret. We’ll find them,” Eiric assured him. “Tell me noo . . . have ye seen Marion?”

The look on Edan’s face was precisely what Eiric always feared every time he mentioned Marion to him. Edan liked to tease, Eiric knew, and though it was always funny when his jokes were aimed at someone else, he didn’t like to be the one who was being teased.

“Why are ye askin’?” he said, cocking an eyebrow. “Have ye nae seen her?”

“It’s been . . . a while,” Eiric admitted, though he didn’t specify just how long, since he didn’t want to give Edan any ammunition. “I was wonderin’ if ye could find her for me.”

“I ken where she is, nay need to find her,” Edan said.

Eiric looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to disclose her location, but Edan seemed to have no plans to do so. “Weel?” he asked him. “Where is she?”

“Och, she’s with the ravens,” Edan said. “She’s always there, that lass. I think she likes those ravens more than she likes me.”

“Everyone likes those ravens more than they like ye,” Eiric pointed out.

If Edan could tease and joke, then so could he—especially when he was stuck in a room with little else to do. He needed some entertainment.

“Is that so?” Edan asked, as he stood and headed for the door. “Maybe ye can find Marion on yer own, then. Or maybe ye can ask the ravens.”

“Edan!” Eiric exclaimed, a hand shooting out to stop him, even though he was too far away from him to catch him. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry . . . please, tell her to come see me.”

Edan stopped dead in his tracks and turned around to look at Eiric once more, giving him a small smile. “Aye, I will,” he said. “Canna say no to ye, can I? I’ll tell her to come see ye.”

“Ach, thank ye, lad,” Eiric said, as he fell back onto his pillow, already exhausted from the little effort his had put into extending his hand. “And dinna say anythin’ foolish to her, do ye hear? Just tell her to come see me.”

“Ye ken that I canna promise that,” Edan said, and before Eiric could protest or say anything else, he was gone. Eiric was left alone in the room, hoping that Edan wouldn’t end up making things worse between him and Marion.

Eiric didn’t know how much time had passed when he heard another knock on his door. He had slept, but the light that came into his room hadn’t changed at all, so he could only assume that he hadn’t been sleeping for long, just enough to be left disoriented and get no rest at all.

“Come in,” he called, and his breath caught when he saw Marion there, walking hesitantly into the room.

“Edan said that you wished to speak to me,” she told him. “Is something wrong?”