Page 24 of His Wicked Highland Ways

So God did answer prayers, Jeannie thought, but not always in the way one wished. She had asked most ardently to see Finnan MacAllister again. Just now, lying in her bed, she had longed for it in a decidedly impious fashion. And so he came, but so sorely hurt her hands shook and her heart quailed as she surveyed the wound.

His left arm had been laid open from the shoulder nearly all the way to the wrist. She could not see how deep the wound went for the welling blood. How had he ever managed to carry Danny, so? And how did he remain upright on the stool now?

She looked into his face and was caught by the light that simmered in his eyes—bright, wicked light. She knew in that moment what filled his mind, and it was not his wounded arm.

Heat raced up her body and engulfed her face. She turned from that look and asked Aggie sharply, “Is that water hot yet?”

“Almost, mistress.”

“Bring me bandages—tear up the last of that sheet. And fetch a cloth to hang over that window.” She wanted no one peering in from the dark upon this well lit tableau.

Finnan spoke as Aggie hurried to obey. “I do not wish to endanger you.”

“You are here now,” she answered shortly. “Do you think you have been dripping blood on the ground all the way here?”

“I hope not. They will track me like hounds. ’Tis why I must leave. Be a merciful angel and wrap that, but then I will away.”

“This needs more than wrapping. Do you want to end up like him?” She gestured at Danny. “How easy would you make it for them?”

“’Tis not your battle,” he said again.

Jeannie did not argue it further. She accepted the cloths Aggie fetched and did her best to stanch the wound. But just touching Finnan, even in so rudimentary a manner, started up a steady hum of desire. She bit her lip and did her best to avoid his gaze.

What was she to do with these feelings, with the impulse even now to lean down and cover his mouth with hers?

Aggie brought the basin of hot water, and Jeannie set about cleaning the wound while Finnan sat quietly beneath her touch, as if he felt no pain. The man might be made of granite for all the reaction he showed.

“How did you get this?” she asked when the worst of it lay exposed.

“Sword,” he told her shortly, and his breath hissed between his teeth—perhaps not so unmoved by pain after all.

“It will not stop bleeding and needs to be stitched,” she told him firmly.

“Will you do it?”

She did look up and meet his gaze then. It looked feral and dangerous, and she faltered. “Me?” Before he could answer, she told Aggie, “Run get the needle and thread…again.”

“We had best not make a habit of this,” Finnan said with a touch of humor, when Aggie went into the other room.

Jeannie wanted to make a habit of him. Should she mind in what condition he came to her door, so long as he came?

She thought of all her fancies these past nights, of the two of them lying together performing shocking and exquisite acts upon one another. Her cheeks heated further.

“Have you a flask?” she asked him.

He shook his head. “Nay, why?”

“My father, who was widely read, used to say whisky—any liquor, really—could be used to purify a wound. This looks ragged and very dirty.”

“Blood will wash it out.”

“As it did for Danny?” She looked up once more and caught him peering down the front of her night rail. Ah well, nothing she could do about that now, and he saw nothing he had not already held in his hands.

But he said, “You are very beautiful, Jeannie MacWherter. I suppose a thousand men have told you so.”

Only one, and Finnan did not want to hear about him.

“You are a wicked man,” she told him. “Cannot even a mortal wound dissuade you?”

“This is no’ mortal—just an inconvenience.” He dropped his voice for her ears alone. “You are all I have been able to think about. The taste of you, how warm you were when I—”

“Here, mistress.”

Aggie stood by with the needle already threaded. Suddenly, though, Jeannie felt unequal to the task.

Finnan assessed her with a measuring look and took the needle from Aggie’s fingers. “You steady my arm,” he told Jeannie, “and keep the blood sponged away. I will do the stitching.”

She knelt on the floor beside him and gripped his arm in both hands. Their heads bent so close they touched as, with another sharply drawn breath, he began the work.

Before he finished they were both sweating, and Jeannie’s hands trembled badly. Thirty painful stitches he had made, for she counted them.

What kind of strength—mental and physical—kept a man upright in his seat through such an ordeal? Finnan had turned pale as milk, but his hand remained steady and firm. A woman could only admire such a man.

In truth, she felt much more than admiration. At that moment, kneeling beside him, she experienced what she never yet had toward any man: a stir of the heart.

Nonsense, she told herself sternly. She could not possibly be falling in love with Finnan MacAllister, not when she had kept her heart whole so long. He was completely and utterly unsuitable—the last man in the world she needed: wild, dangerous, beautiful.

He looked up and caught her gaze with his, which was full of ironic light. “Well, now, that was no’ so bad. I thank you for your assistance.”

Jeannie, still shaking, got to her feet. “We are not done. You stay there while I wrap the bandages. Aggie?”

Aggie, who had stood and watched the procedure despite herself, stepped up with the remains of Jeannie’s best sheet cut into strips.

“Aye,” Finnan said, “and then I will away.”

Jeannie glanced at him. “You are going nowhere. Aggie, make the laird some tea and then take an extra blanket up to the loft.”

“He’s sleeping there?” Aggie squeaked.

“No, I am. The laird will take my bed.”

Finnan parted his lips to protest, but Jeannie’s gaze met his like a crossed sword.

“’Tis no’ safe for me to stay here,” he told her. “I refuse to bring trouble to your door.”

And she replied, “I do not wish to hear your protests. We will worry about the consequences come morning.”

****

Jeannie MacWherter’s bed, soft and comfortable, should have drawn Finnan into exhausted sleep. He had been living rough for days, laying his head on boulders and bracken, and his weary body craved this haven.

But his mind stayed vigilant even once his body relaxed and the cottage became quiet. He listened for every sound inside and out—heard the women murmuring to one another in the loft before they slept, heard Danny stir restlessly. He listened to the wind rise outside and fooled himself there were footsteps.

His arm throbbed with a steady ache in time with his heartbeat. He throbbed elsewhere also and ached for release. Jeannie’s bed smelled of her, a delicate and beguiling scent, and prompted a host of memories. Her golden head had lain on this pillow—he recalled burying his face in her hair when they lay in the rowan copse. He thought on the perfect globes of her breasts, glimpsed down the front of her night dress, almost enough to distract him from his stitchery.

By all the gods of this place, how was he to sleep, with her under the same roof?

Upon that thought, his ear caught a sound, and then a succession of them, inside the cottage rather than without. A shadow stirred in the doorway of the room, and then a miracle came to him on soft, bare feet.

She wore only the night rail and floated like a spirit, being nearly soundless. In the dim light—for she had hung a cloth over the window—he could barely see her, just the blur of her pale clothing as she moved.

But he did not doubt her identity, and the breath caught in his throat. “Jeannie?”

“Hush, we do not wish to wake the others. I came to see how you fare.”

Liar. ’Twas not why she came. Finnan’s every instinct told him she answered the same desire that rode him here in the dark, and his heart leaped with hope.

She paused beside the narrow bed and regarded him. He wanted so to reach for her, but in this game he played she must reach for him.

She whispered, “I hoped you slept.”

Liar, again. Whatever she desired, she did not want him insensate.

“I cannot sleep,” he told her. “My mind is too full.” As well as another aching part of him. But this was no rowan copse out on the hillside. Would she truly give herself to him here under her own roof, with the others within hearing distance?

While still he wondered, she reached out and her cool fingers found his forehead. “No fever yet.”

He asked, his voice a taunt, “Never tell me you were lying up in that loft thinking about me?”

“Yes.” The word whispered between her lips. “I feared you might be unconscious, delirious, or cold.”

“So have you come to keep me warm?”

In answer, she slipped into the bed.