Page 36 of I Loved You Then (Far From Home #12)

She laid the cloth flat over his ribs, spreading it out until there were no wrinkles against his taut flesh.

“Back at the hospital, there was a team. Different shifts, a whole roster of doctors from different departments. Here, I feel it’s all on me.

I’m not sharing responsibility—honestly, I don’t even count Diarmad anymore, and you and I are going to talk about him when you wake.

” Her mouth tightened as she wiped along the line of his shoulder.

“He’s incompetent, Ciaran. The more I see, the more sure I am.

God, it drives me crazy, wondering how many Kerr soldiers have died because of him. ”

She rambled on, laying down and lifting up cloths, one after another, her gaze continually returning to his face, watching for any reaction, any sign that he was hearing her, that he wasn’t as insensible as he appeared.

After almost an hour, she covered him once more with fresh linen cloths, then slid her arm under his head to feed him broth and willow bark tea.

When that was done, and now cross-eyed with fatigue, Claire slumped into the chair at his bedside, scrubbing a hand over her face.

She’d slept here the night before and would likely do so again, too worried to leave him overnight.

Folding her arms across the mattress, she rested her head there, her cheek pillowed against her hands, and let herself drift.

Time blurred. She couldn’t tell if she had slept or only hovered at the edge, until a new sensation stirred her, a faint touch, fingers ghosting through her hair.

Her eyes flicked open, seeing Ciaran’s arm stretched weakly toward her, his hand tangled in her hair. He wasn’t awake, but the touch lingered, slow, almost tender.

She hardly dared to move, but her pulse hammered with hope, letting him rest his hand there, not sure what to think of it, with no idea what he thought in his fevered dreams.

When she shifted at last, trying to ease her cramped arms and shoulders, his hand slipped free.

She caught it instinctively, cradling it against her palm, and turned her fingers into his.

She’d expected only a slack, unconscious weight—but instead his grasp tightened faintly, weak yet deliberate, she chose to believe.

His long fingers wrapped around hers and then went still.

“Ciaran?” She said hopefully, believing he might be coming out of the worst of it.

There was no answer. Yet her throat ached with sudden, quiet feeling at the thought that he had sought her out.

Exhausted but steadied, Claire lowered her head again, and slept with Ciaran’s hand in hers.

***

Ciaran woke slowly, as if dragging himself up from deep water. His mouth tasted foul, thick and bitter, and his body felt heavy, as though he hadn’t moved it in days. For a long while he lay still, trying to piece together where he was, what had happened.

It was the weight and warmth at his hand that finally cut through the fog. His fingers were curled around another’s. He blinked, tipping his chin downward, and saw Claire, slumped beside the bed, her cheek resting on her arms, her bonny face angled toward him.

Claire was here.

Holding his hand.

What the—

Fragments stirred in his mind then, heat, shadowy dreams, her voice.

A haze of moments, half-remembered, awake, aware, and then not.

Aye—the fever, he recalled just then. It had swept through Caeravorn and had apparently taken him with it.

He shifted his gaze to the window, where the faintest pale light marked the coming of dawn, or near to it.

Hours must have passed, many hours. He must have been dangerously ill, to have warranted Claire at his bedside—unwilling to leave him? Afraid he might die?

Another memory stirred—twelve people showed signs of the sweating sickness, he recalled Claire saying. Was she run ragged, then? Too exhausted, perhaps, to find her own chamber?

His chest tightened at another thought. What if it was not only weariness? What if she herself was sick now, having sat so near him through it all? Fever did not spare the strong, nor the stubborn.

The notion cut colder than the night air.

“Claire.” His voice rasped, raw from disuse. He tried again, firmer. “Claire.”

Her lashes fluttered, her head shifting against her arm. At last she stirred, lifting her face from the crook of her elbow. Gray eyes blinked up at him, clouded with sleep. “What?” she mumbled, her voice thick.

He forced his hand free from hers and reached, clumsy with weakness, to touch her brow as he’d seen her do. “Ye’ve caught it, too,” he muttered, almost to himself. “God’s teeth, why did ye nae keep yer distance?”

She jerked awake, blinking hard, her eyes still heavy with sleep. “No,” she said quickly, then again, clearer, “No, I’m fine. Just tired. I fell asleep here, that’s all.”

He narrowed his gaze, unwilling to take her at her word. “Ye’ve nae color. Ye look...unwell.”

“I’m not sick,” she insisted, straightening in the chair, rubbing her knuckles over her eyes. When she dropped her hands, she gave him a weary smile. “I’d tell you if I were.”

He studied her a long moment, searching for signs of fever.

But all he saw was the weariness etched in her face, the shadows under her eyes, the faint red mark pressed into her cheek from lying on her arms. She looked worn, aye—but she looked.

..bonny, too. Aye, but she could have been dressed in rags, covered in soot and sweat, and she’d still be bonny.

Mayhap bonnier still for having stayed with him, for giving her strength when he had none.

For a long moment he studied her. Even rumpled from sleep, hair mussed from where it had pressed into his bed, she was striking.

The lamplight caught on pale locks of hair, pulling threads of silver from it, and her eyes—though weary—still held that clear, unwavering gray that always seemed to draw him and pierce him.

There was strength there, even in exhaustion.

Ciaran let his hand fall onto his middle, onto cloths nearly dry, ones she must have draped over him. “Ye’ve the look of a ghost,” he muttered, softer now, “and yet ye’re bonny still.”

She blinked at him again, as though not sure she’d heard right. Then her features softened, the fatigue not erased but transformed, and a slow smile curved her lips. It was small at first, tentative, then steadier, warm enough to light her tired eyes.

“Oh, boy,” she deflected lightly, “I see the fever still has you in its grip.” She stood and laid her warm hand over his brow. “Or not,” she assessed.

Ciaran captured her wrist, drawing it down, and waited for her to meet his gaze. “Nae fever,” he stated. “I thank ye, lass. Truly.”

Claire nodded, though for a moment she looked nonplussed, as if she didn’t know what to do with, or how to respond to, his humble appreciation.

She cleared her throat and fussed with the blankets, drawing them up over his chest.

“Yep. I’m so pleased you pulled through,” she said airily as she took a step backward. “I should... well, you’re better now, so I guess um, you don’t need me hovering. I’ll go. Okay? Okay. Get some more rest, though.”

Her eyes flicked around the chamber, as if checking for something she ought to gather, though she seemed to find nothing. Then, with an almost apologetic smile, she turned and slipped out the door.

Ciaran lay still, staring after her long after she was gone, his chest tight with thoughts he wasn’t strong enough yet to untangle.

***

The morning light slanted pale through the high windows of the hall, striping the flagstones across the long chamber.

Ciaran sat at the high table with his steward and baillie.

The hearth’s fire spat and hissed, throwing occasional warmth into the chill, though autumn had not yet given way to winter.

His body ached with the remnants of fever, and his limbs felt heavier than they should, but he sat straight-backed, refusing to betray the weakness.

A laird did not bend before a cough or a fever, not when so many of his kin still fought against fever themselves, and not when so many watched their laird for any sign of faltering.

Seoras, his steward, was hunched over a roll of parchment, lips moving as he tallied out loud. “The holdings at Glenbrae sent their rents in oats, as agreed. Three carts’ worth, but one is spoilt from damp. They seek relief on account of the late harvest.”

“Nae relief,” Ciaran said flatly. “They’ve long had the richest ground in the Kerr demesne. They’ll pay in oats fit to grind, or in coin if their store is fouled. Mark it.”

The baillie, a bulky man named Torcall with a voice too high to suit him, shifted on the bench.

“And the croft at Drumglen—ye ken the one, laird—the widow MacNair’s place.

She owes her feu-duty still. Claims her eldest lad broke his leg and they couldnae bring the sheep to market. ’Tis her third excuse this year.”

Ciaran pinched the bridge of his nose, patience thinning. “The widow keeps her ground only by paying the feu-duty. If she canna, then she must yield the croft. Give her till Martinmas. Past that, I’ll hear nae more pleas, nae excuses.”

Seoras dipped his quill, scratching the note. “Aye, laird.”

“And the courts?” Ciaran asked, his gaze sliding to Torcall.

The baillie straightened, eager to speak.

“Two disputes to hear before Michaelmas. A matter of grazing rights betwixt Frangan and Gillebeart—each claiming the strip of meadow by the auld kirk, both insisting rights given by the cleric ere he passed. And a poaching charge laid against one of yer own men, Gavan, for setting snares in the Sinclair wood. They’ll want yer ruling. ”