Page 10 of Highlander’s Escaped Prisoner (Highlands’ Partners in Crime #7)

“ T hank God,” Nessa breathed. She had never felt so relieved in her life. “Bryce, can you hear me?” she asked softly. “Tell me you can hear me.”

“Water,” he croaked. His lips looked dry and chapped, and his words were barely audible.

Catriona placed a goblet of water in Nessa’s hands, then propped Bryce’s head up while she allowed Bryce to sip the liquid gratefully. When he had finished, he lay back and looked up at her with blank eyes.

“How do you feel?” she asked gently.

He sighed. “Very, very sore,” he replied. His voice was hoarse and cracked. “But very glad to be lying in a warm bed and not tied to a tree.”

Nessa put her hand over her eyes to avoid looking at him. “I wish I could turn back time and undo that.” She shook her head and sighed. “This whole situation is my doing, and I am so very sorry, Bryce. Can you forgive me?”

To her surprise, he answered at once.“I forgive you, Nessa. May I call you Nessa?”

“Yes, Bryce,” she replied, smiling. “You may call me anything you please, including insults. I deserve them.”

“Can ye eat a wee bit?” Catriona asked. “Then we will see that ye sleep an’ tend tae a’ these bruises.”

“I think I could eat,” Bryce replied. “I could manage some soup if you have it.”

Catriona laughed. “Soup is the one thing that is always in this house,” she told them. “’Tis a sure cure for every sickness!”

When the soup came, it was a fragrant mixture of chicken, carrots, onions, barley, and turnips in a thick brown gravy. Nessa fed it to Bryce on a spoon, and he swallowed it eagerly, then requested more when he had finished.

When he had eaten his fill, he smiled at the healer. “Thank you, mistress,” he said gratefully. “I am sorry, but I have no way to pay you.”

“I will pay,” Nessa said at once. “As I said, this is my doing, and I must mend the wrong I have committed.”

“I never ask tae be paid,” Catriona assured them. “People give me what they can, and the Good Lord looks after me.”

“You are a good person,” Nessa smiled, putting her hands on the other woman’s shoulders. “But I will pay my share.”

“If ye want, mistress.” Catriona smiled. Then she studied Bryce for a moment. “If ye don’t mind me sayin’, sir, yer clothes have seen better days. My husband has passed, but he was a big man an’ a’, so I can help ye out.”

Bryce looked at her as if he would like to kiss her. “Thank you!” he said gratefully. “I owe you a great deal.”

“Pfft!” Catriona flapped her hand at him.

“I give what I can spare. Now, let me attend tae yer ills.” She bandaged his wrists with gentle hands, then produced a great jar of white salve and began to smooth it over his bruises, rubbing it in well, and Bryce felt the pain melt away as if by magic.

All the while she was doing this, she was reciting prayers, and the rhythmic sound of her lilting voice was lulling him back to sleep.

By the time she had rubbed on the last drop of ointment, his eyes had closed, and he was slumbering contentedly.

“I have a bed ye can use, mistress,” Catriona told Nessa as she saw her looking at Bryce.

“No, thank you,” Nessa replied, shaking her head. “I will sleep on the floor beside him.”

Catriona tilted her head on one side to study Nessa. “Is he yer sweetheart, mistress?”

“No,” Nessa answered, sighing. “I have done him great wrong, and I need to make amends.”

“I am sure ye are too hard on yerself,” Catriona observed, as she handed Nessa a cup of hot ale. “Ye love each other, I can see.”

“What?” Nessa cried in disbelief. “We have known each other for only a few days. We hardly know each other!”

Catriona smiled at her calmly. “I can always tell,” she observed. “An’ I am never wrong, mistress.”

“You are this time,” Nessa retorted. “You see the burn marks on his wrists? I tied the ropes that made them. I tied him to a tree, then rode away and left him to be beaten by bandits. What kind of a person does that make me?” Her voice was bitter.

Catriona shrugged. “A sinner, like me, like everybody, mistress. Ask God tae forgive ye, an’ forgive yerself.”

Nessa nodded and sighed. Catriona brought her a thin straw pallet to lie on and a blanket to cover herself with.

She laid down on the mattress after taking one last look at Bryce’s sleeping face, with its heavy dark brows, strong aquiline nose, and full lower lip.

His thick dark eyelashes cast shadows on his high cheekbones, and she knew that underneath the thick brown beard would be a strong angular jaw.

He looked so tranquil, and Nessa was once more stabbed by an acute feeling of shame and guilt as she looked at his wrists, now bound by clean strips of white linen.

She laid her head on the mattress, covered herself with a blanket, and closed her eyes, but not before ensuring that her dagger was tucked into her belt.

“Goodnight, Bryce,” she whispered.

At some point during the night, Bryce heard a voice in his ear, a hissing, cackling sound.

He sat up with a jerk and looked around, his heart hammering in his chest. He could see that it was almost dawn from the faint light that was creeping under the door and filtering through the small window, but where on earth was he?

It took him a moment to remember. He was in the healer’s cottage, and Nessa was with him.

The first thing he had remembered the previous day was opening his eyes and looking into the stormy blue-gray depths of hers.

He had been aching all over, but the sight of those eyes had soothed him almost as much as the salve the healer had applied.

Presently, he heard a little sigh and looked down to see Nessa lying on a pallet beside his bed.

He could not see her well, but she was obviously having a disturbing dream, too, since he could hear her movements as she rolled from side to side on her bed.

Should he wake her up? He decided to wait for a few moments, but he leaned down to put a hand on her shoulder.

At once, he heard a gasp, then she spoke. “Bryce?” she asked fearfully, sitting up. “Are you all right? Are you in pain?”

He could see the glow of her eyes as she looked at him, but no more.

“No,” he replied. He was beginning to ache a little, but he decided that it was nothing unbearable, nothing that could not wait until morning.

“I am fine,” he whispered. “Go back to sleep.” He listened as Nessa laid her head back down on her mattress again. “Thank you for what you did yesterday.”

There were a few seconds of silence. “I would not have had to do anything if I had not tied you up to begin with,” she answered. “Bryce, this is all my fault. You need not thank me. You should be cursing me.”

“I do not believe in curses,” he replied, his deep voice softened by the darkness and the quiet. “Or bearing grudges.” Then he closed his eyes and fell back into a deep, dreamless slumber.

Nessa sighed. What a good man he was! Suddenly she wanted to put her arms around him, hug him, and cherish him. She had never felt protective towards anyone before, but perhaps this big man was bringing out the best in her.

“Time tae get a’ this fur off yer face,” Catriona said briskly as she ushered Bryce into a stout wooden chair and honed a razor on a leather strap.

He glanced apprehensively at the lethal-looking blade and then into Nessa’s eyes.

She gave him a reassuring smile, even though she herself was a little afraid of the gleaming blade of the implement.

Seeing their terror, Catriona smiled. “Dinnae worry yerself,” she said soothingly. “Dae ye know how many times I have done this? Sometimes the toffs fae the big houses need a barber an’ they come tae me.”

Bryce laughed nervously, but he relaxed as Catriona methodically shaved away the forest of hair from his face, and he watched Nessa’s eyes widen in astonishment as she saw it landing on the stone floor of the cottage.

“There is so much of it!” she exclaimed in horror.

“Seven years’ worth.” Bryce’s voice was bitter. “It is a wonder it is not down to my waist.”

When Catriona had finished with his beard, she began to cut Bryce’s hair, and he watched Nessa’s reaction change from one of horrified amazement to one of approval. Finally, the healer declared herself finished.

“Ye are now fit tae be seen,” she announced, standing back and smiling triumphantly. “But I have nay mirrors,” she said regretfully.

Bryce turned to Nessa and raised his eyebrows in a question. She was almost weeping. “You look...glorious!” she breathed. “So handsome.” She had to restrain herself from rushing forward to kiss him.

If Bryce could have seen himself, he would have looked upon a tall, muscular man with wavy brown hair that just touched his shoulders and a smooth, clean-shaven face with an angular jaw and a square chin with a perfect dimple in the middle.

If he had but known it, it was the face that Nessa had imagined it would be.

“Aye, ye have a handsome face, sir,” the healer agreed, smiling as she took out a broom and began to sweep the floor. “Looks as if a wee animal has died in here!” she laughed.

Bryce ran his hand over the soft, smooth skin of his jaw, wishing he could see himself.

“Soon,” Nessa said, smiling as if she had read his mind. “Then you can admire yourself to your heart’s content.”

“We must go,” he said, sighing. He looked down at himself, now clad in some serviceable working clothes.

Catriona’s dead husband had been almost as tall as Bryce, and she had been glad to donate them to the tall man whose ragged clothing was almost falling from his body.

“Thank you for everything.” His voice was fervent as he handed her the bundle of rags. “Please burn these for me.”

“Gladly!” Catriona smiled. She handed a small linen bag to Nessa. “Here are some healing herbs, mistress. I hope ye wilnae need them, but it’s as well tae be ready for anything. God bless ye.”

“Thank you for everything,” Nessa replied gratefully. She handed the healer a bundle of coins, and Catriona thanked her without counting them.

Bryce and Nessa mounted Jo and went on their way while the healer watched their progress, smiling. She was not called a wise woman for nothing. She knew love when she saw it.

They rode for a little while in silence, as they had before, but Bryce knew enough about Nessa now to know that there was some momentous question in her mind.

“I need to know a little more from you about my uncle’s death,” she said suddenly. “I do not believe my father did it, so if we dismiss him, then who are we left with?”

Bryce shrugged. “Me...and the reason that the suspicion fell on me,” Bryce explained, “is because someone smeared my horse’s hooves with blood. I have a feeling that it was done by Logan Crosbie, who hated me.”

“I see,” Nessa said evenly. “Would it surprise you to know then that I am betrothed to Logan Crosbie?”