Page 17 of I Loved You Then (Far From Home #12)

She waved a bit whenever the kid happened to glance her way, but it took several times before he realized her presence and the fact that she was trying to get his attention.

His eyes widened when he saw her, and then his light brows dropped and he glanced around, probably wondering if the doctor had seen her, too.

Claire waved him toward her and removed herself completely from the open door, standing just to the left so that the doctor would not then see the kid talking to her.

He stepped outside a short moment later, still wearing a frown, this time with a question attached to it.

“Hi,” she said, “I didn’t want to simply barge in—I’m honestly not here to cause trouble,” she began. “But you speak some English, right?” At his wary nod, she continued, “Would you help me?”

He shifted, now more wary. The kid’s eyes were a gorgeous blue, and his skin neither pale nor tanned but youthfully unblemished, which had her guessing him to be maybe ten at most. Both his tunic and his short boots appeared too large for his thin frame, and she wondered if he wore someone’s castoff clothing, or hand-me-downs.

There was a streak of dirt that went from his nose to the middle of his cheek, as if he’d wiped his hand or sleeve across a runny nose, dragging snot and grime across his cheek.

“My name is Claire, by the way,” she said. “And I wondered if you would help me apologize to the doctor.”

His answering frown suggested less wariness than a lack of understanding.

“I want to say I’m sorry to the doctor,” she explained, “but I’m afraid he might take one look at me and start shouting again.”

“Doc-tor?” He questioned.

“Oh, um, the healer?” Claire corrected. “No, wait—Ivy told me he was called the barber-surgeon.” That had been when Claire had related the entire ugly episode to Ivy shortly after it had happened.

“Diarmad?”

Claire shrugged. “Sure, if that’s his name. Can you translate my apology to him?” He appeared confused again, prompting Claire to clarify. “Can you repeat the words I speak in English to him in your language?”

And now he understood. His thin brows completely relaxed.

“Aye, but dinna speak fast—too hard.”

“I see. Okay, I’ll talk slowly and you say it as best you can.”

He nodded.

“What is your name?”

“Coraidh.”

“Koh-ree,” she repeated. “Oh, is that like Cory in English?”

He lifted his shoulders and hands, indicating he had no idea.

“And you said the doctor’s—I mean, the barber surgeon’s name is...Jeer-mit? Am I saying that right?”

Cory shrugged again, this time suggesting he supposed that was the best she was going to do with it.

Claire grinned. “Shall we, Cory?”

When he nodded, Claire exhaled, then squared her shoulders and stepped inside.

Cory walked directly to where the doctor was and maybe had been when Claire had been peeking inside, off to the direct right, out of view from where she’d been hovering outside the door.

He looked up at their approach, his dark eyes narrowing into daggers.

Before he could bark at her, Claire raised both hands, palms open.

I come in peace , she thought.

“Tell him,” she said to Cory, “right away that I’m here to say I’m sorry.”

The boy repeated her words in rapid Scots. Diarmad’s face hardened, his jaw working. For a long, terrifying moment, he said nothing, only glared at her as though he would throw her out bodily. Again.

“I am sincerely sorry for intruding as I did the other day,” she went on, having to tap at Cory’s arm to remind him to translate, which he did immediately.

“I did not mean to offend or upset,” she said, and when Cory had repeated those words, she went on, more emphatically, “and I certainly did not mean intend or expect that the laird would punch you.”

He listened to Cory’s recital, hopefully translated pretty closely to how she’d said it, and she thought she saw just the tiniest easing of his surly countenance. His brows, drawn so tightly together before, loosened a fraction, though his eyes still burned with suspicion.

Claire laid her hand over her heart. “I am truly sorry. I only meant to help.” She waited for Cory to repeat this, and then said, “I have experience tending wounded people, people with injuries just as severe as some of these.”

It was a slow undertaking, her speaking and Cory translating, but she was optimistic because as of yet, Diarmad hadn’t snorted, scoffed, or pointed to the door.

“I imagine this is a lot of work for just one man, and I thought you might appreciate an extra pair of capable hands. I promise I won’t cause any trouble.”

This time, Diarmad didn’t scowl. He rubbed a hand down the front of his stained apron, exhaling through his nose, and after a long silence finally spoke—short, blunt words that Cory hurried to translate.

“He says...what are you willing to do?”

“Oh, gosh,” she blurted, a bit startled that he was turned around so quickly.

In truth, she rather expected it might have taken several visits to earn his trust, or at least a chance.

“Um, well, to start, ask him if it’s all right if I help out with simply cleaning the.

..ah, infirmary,”—at Cory’s questioning glance, she waved her hands around the long, narrow barn-type room, and amended—“this area, this whole place.” She swept her hand toward the rows of pallets, the soot-darkened rafters, the buckets of murky water that made her want to shudder.

“All of it. I want to make it safer, healthier—so fewer men fall sick with fever.”

Cory translated, his voice tentative, the translation slow.

For a long moment, Diarmad studied her, his broad hands flexing at his sides, eyes narrowing as though weighing whether this was an insult or a sound idea.

Just as Claire wondered if pride would prevent him from accepting her help, Diarmad gave a short, abrupt dip of his chin, more command than concession.

Cory turned back to her. “He says...aye.”

Claire smiled brilliantly, clapping her hands together. She spoke directly to Diarmad. “Thank you. You won’t be disappointed.”

***

Ciaran’s attention had been caught at first by nothing more dangerous than the glint of sunlight off flaxen hair. Just coming inside the gate, he’d done a doubletake, seeing that the flaxen hair belonged to Claire, who stood speaking with the lad, Cory, at the door to the sick house.

Bluidy hell!

Ignoring the way the pale strands of her hair shone like gold under the mid-morning sun, Ciaran stabled his horse and strode immediately to where he’d last seen her, but where she and Cory were not now.

Assuming she’d ducked inside, he almost regretted the second conversation he’d had yesterday with Alaric, conceding that he’d overreacted, and withdrawing his request that Alaric, Ivy, and Claire and his army depart Caeravorn.

Almost. But still, he thought, gritting his teeth as he hadn’t yet today, she had no business skulking about the old barn.

He was certain he’d have to drag her out again, forbid her from crossing the threshold.

But he was given pause as soon as he stepped inside the sick house. Her voice carried, strange and lilting, that previously unknown English. She stood before Diarmad, her back to Ciaran at the entrance, speaking words that lifted his brow.

An apology. One that did genuinely seem sincere.

And then she went on, offering to work, to clean of all things.

Her hand swept outward in a graceful arc, the loose fall of her hair swaying across her slim back with the motion, as she indicated the whole sorry length of the room.

It was the labor of Cory and others like him she named, not the sort of task a woman of her ilk should be committing herself to.

Aye, a woman of her ilk, though he’d yet to figure out what that was.

She had none of the weary deference of the peasants, nor the unquestioning servitude of washerwomen.

Neither did she bear herself like a lady of rank, lofty in her manner or guarded in her speech.

She spoke too boldly for a noblewoman, too refined for a servant, and too learned by half for either.

She didn’t fit the shape of anything he knew, and that unsettled him more than her strange claims of coming from another time.

His jaw worked, unsettled. Against his will, something shifted in him as he listened to her.

Had he misjudged her?

He didn’t even like to consider it, did not like believing he understood her only to discover reasons to doubt himself.

And he refused to give up his suspicion, no matter how pretty her speech or how generous her offer of labor.

Suspicion kept him sharp, kept everyone at Caeravorn safe.

He would not loosen his grip on it, not for flaxen hair catching the sun or a sweet apology given in a soft voice.

Still, he lingered by the door, silent, watching her. He told himself it was to rescue her or remove her as needed, to ensure she caused no further disruption. But in truth, he had some inkling that wasn’t true, wasn’t the only reason.

Nevertheless, he did take his leave before she might have turned and discovered his eavesdropping.

***

What followed over the ensuing week consumed the better part of each day.

She rolled up her sleeves and set to work, ignoring Diarmad’s lingering scowls.

With more help from Cory, by way of further translating, she convinced the keep’s washerwomen to add one extra load to their weekly schedule, boiling every rag and cloth Claire could get her hands on.

She proudly showed them to Diarmad, who made nothing of it, and then went about changing every strip of dressing in the barn—after having Cory explain in Scots to Diarmad what she was about and why.

She got the impression that he wasn’t too concerned, maybe only glad that she would be busy and leave him alone.