Page 5 of Laird of Sighs (His Highland Heart #5)

CHAPTER 5

A nders fought to keep his expression unconcerned while he sparred with the lovely Ailsa. Sinclair! Of all places to wash up onto shore, injured and out of his right mind, he had to do it in Sinclair territory. He didn't know why, but being in the Sinclair keep seemed wrong to him. He hated that he didn’t know what kind of wrong. Dangerous? A clan rivalry? Or was there a lass here whom he should remember? He didn’t know, and not knowing could get him into even deeper trouble. He could find himself in the Sinclair dungeon long before his wounds healed, and likely without his clothes. He wouldn’t last long there, but he could tell from the look on the guard’s face visible behind Ailsa in the doorway that one wrong move and he’d be taken there whether Ailsa or the healer objected or not.

His condition when he arrived had been unexpectedly fortunate. He’d passed out and had been unable to answer any questions. He still couldn’t answer more than one. His name was Anders. He felt confident of that much. But it might take more time than he had for the rest of his memories to return to him. “When will I meet yer da, the laird?”

She hesitated. “In a few days when ye are feeling better.” She seemed reluctant to answer that question. Was the laird away? Was that why he’d been interrogated at the gate by his daughter? Was she the heir? Something about that idea made his heart beat faster and his belly clench. Was it from the idea of a lass being a laird? Had he seen that done somewhere else in his travels? What travels? How had he gotten here? And why?

The questions were piling up and making him frustrated and angry. Why couldn’t he remember?

Despite having just woken up, he suddenly felt tired again, and the more he tried to force memories, the more his head ached. “Where is the healer?”

“I dinna ken. Do ye need her?”

“Aye, if I’m to have something to drink and a bath. Could ye find her, please?” Might as well be polite. He couldn’t do much else. “And maybe some clothes for me, too?”

“I’ll try,” Ailsa promised and left him to wallow in his misery.

He didn’t believe he usually did that. If he recalled anything real about himself, he wasn’t a wallower. He took action. Frustrated by his inability to do so now, he lay down and arranged his covers as best he could to keep him warm. Why didn’t the healer have a fire burning in here? He was freezing, damn it.

On some level, he knew that wasn’t right. He shouldn’t be this cold, but he had started to shiver. Where was the healer with a sleeping potion? Surely he’d feel better when he woke up. He might remember more then, too.

His teeth were chattering when he felt a warm hand on his forehead. He hadn’t heard anyone enter the herbal, or worse, approach him. How long had he been out?

“He’s taken a fever,” the healer said to someone else.

Anders didn’t want to open his eyes to see who was there.

“How bad? He wanted a bath and something to drink.”

Ailsa?

“I dinna ken, but I’ll do all I can to help him. Some willow bark tea to start, and watered ale will help him. Then let him sleep. The bath will have to wait.”

“Shall I have the lads build a fire for ye? I brought clothes that might fit him, too.”

“Fetch the lads. A fire will help. I’ll need more plaids, furs, anything to keep him warm for the now. But we’ll no’ dress him yet. He’s going to sweat this out or die trying.”

Die trying? Anders didn’t like the sound of that.

Later that afternoon, Ailsa knew the minute her brother Boden returned from the hunt and got the news about the man she’d brought into the keep. She heard him stomping down the hall, ranting about an outsider in their midst. She gave Maighread, who was chopping herbs at one of her work tables, an apologetic shrug. In seconds, Boden burst into the herbal.

“What the hell were ye thinking bringing a stranger inside the walls?” He glared at her, then turned his frown on the man sleeping on one of Maighread’s cots. “That’s him? God’s teeth, he’s big. Have ye lost yer mind? Raghnall, too. He should have forbidden this.”

“Ye werena here,” Ailsa answered much more calmly than she felt. Her brother had worked himself into a fine sense of outrage, his prerogative to make decisions as heir and, as he saw it, man in charge while their father was away, had been ignored, and his ego was suffering. Answering him in kind would get her nowhere. “He collapsed in front of our gate. What was I to do? Let him die on our doorstep?”

Boden turned to the door and beckoned to the guard who’d moved into view, watching the argument. “Go get a few more men. I want him moved to the dungeon. Now!” Boden ordered.

“Nay!” Maighread’s shout echoed around the room, loud enough to be heard out in the great hall. “Ye’ll kill him for sure,” she said more softly, but with as much conviction. “He’s fine where he is. I can keep an eye on him. Raghnall put a guard on the door, so he’s nay going anywhere. Especially off that cot for the foreseeable future. He’s fevered, wounded, and canna recall who he is or where he’s from. Ye put him below ground and he’ll be dead before the laird returns. When someone comes looking for him and finds out Sinclair let him perish rather than care for him, how well do ye think yer da will react to that?”

Ailsa wanted to cheer. Maighread determined was Maighread unstoppable. Boden knew that, too. Thank goodness their visitor was sleeping under one of her potions. He didn’t awaken, despite the noise and frayed tempers, to hear how close he was to being allowed to die.

“I’ll toss him back into the sea first,” Boden muttered. Clearly frustrated, he turned on Ailsa. “What are ye doing in here? He’s a stranger, ye are an unwed lass. He could be dangerous. Da will kill him, and ye—and me—if he does anything to ye.”

“Really, Brother? Look at him. How do ye think he’s going to manage that? He canna lift his head.”

“For today. What about tomorrow, or the next? Nay. This is madness. Ye are forbidden to come in here.”

Ailsa planted her fists on her hips. “Ye canna stop me.”

“I’m in charge while Da is gone. Ye must do as I say, or I’ll lock ye in yer chamber.”

Ailsa smothered a laugh behind her lips. “Ye can try. I willna stand for it. He’s harmless, and until he isna, he will be cared for to the best of Sinclair’s ability.”

"Maighread’s, aye, no yers, Sister. One of the serving wenches can help Maighread.”

“Boden, ye ken better than that. If Mother were here, she’d help Maighread. I can do nay less.”

Stymied, he swore and stomped out, his voice echoing as he berated the poor guard at the door. “That man will go to the dungeon as soon as he’s well enough.” He turned and looked back into the herbal, his frown sweeping from their visitor to Maighread and landing on Ailsa. “Or sooner if he causes any trouble.”

The man’s fever lasted another day and a half. Ailsa fretted the entire time and left his side only when Maighread shooed her out to get some sleep. He was restless during that time, muttering and mumbling in his sleep, mostly incomprehensible sounds, but occasionally a word—or a name—would come through, such as storm or crate . Once he said marry , which stopped her heart. Had he meant marry or Mary , a woman’s name? Did it mean he had a wife at home?

Once he started talking in his sleep, she had hoped his dreams would help him remember, or would give her clues about who he was. The fact that he recognized the Sinclair name made her certain that at the very least, he had recalled his own name and perhaps more. Sinclair looked to the Norse king and had poor relations with the clans all around them. No matter which clan he came from, there was a good chance her father would consider him an enemy.

“’Tis good to have yer help watching over this man,” Maighread told Ailsa after the first day.

“I feel I owe it to him,” Ailsa confided, “since I turned him away before he collapsed at our gate. I was afraid of what Da would say or do when he returns to find a stranger inside our walls.”

“Yer da will have naught to say once yer mother hears of this, so dinna fash . I ken what ye are thinking lass, but ye did the right thing in caring for him, no matter where he is from.”

“I still worry that Da will agree with Boden and want to put him in the dungeon.”

“I willna allow that, no’ yet. Nor will yer mother. If we’re to find out who he is, he must heal and get strong again. That willna happen in the dank and dark down there.”

Maighread’s reassurance made Ailsa feel better, as did seeing how much better the wounds on the man’s head, hands, and leg now appeared under Maighread’s care. He seemed cooler and fretted less often, his sleep seeming to become deeper and more peaceful. Did he still dream? Of home? Of a lass named Mary?

Maighread looked down at him and sighed. “How can one man be so handsome? Shouldn’t some of his beauty have been shared with other men who have little or none?”

Ailsa joined her. “I ken it doesna seem fair, but think on this. Why dilute such handsomeness among many men when we can enjoy it here, in this one?” Her fingers curled into the folds of her skirt. She might only be able to look and never touch.

Maighread put a hand over her mouth to muffle her laugh. “I like the way ye think,” she said, stepping away from her patient. She picked up a bunch of herbs and several pieces of willow bark from a shelf. “I’m going to be here for a few hours making more of the potions I’ve used on our lad. That’s enough time for ye to get a hot meal and a wee sleep, aye?”

Ailsa put a hand on her shoulder in gratitude. “It should. Have someone fetch me if ye need help before I return.”

“I will. Now, go on and get some rest.”

Ailsa took Maighread’s advice and headed to the great hall for a meal. Expecting several people to approach her while she waited for food to be brought to her, she was dismayed that the first to do so were the two women most likely to spread rumors. “Who is the man the guards carried in two days ago?” The older of the two, Lorna, asked first.

“Why have we no’ seen him since? Did he die?” Her friend Fingalina demanded and crossed her arms over her skinny frame.

Ailsa knew the less she told these two, the better. “Maighread is caring for him. He’s been unconscious most of the time,” she added with her fingers crossed under the table for the lie. Well, it was mostly true. He’d been sleeping a lot with the fever.

“Is he going to die? ’Twould be a shame,” Lorna said. “I got a glimpse of him. He was quite handsome for a man in his condition.”

“’Twould be nice to have a braw, new man in the keep,” Fingalina added. “And a handsome one.” She huffed out a sigh. “I hope Maighread is taking very good care of him.”

“I’m sure she is,” Ailsa said.

“Ye dinna ken who he is? Where he’s from? I heard he could be a raider from Orkney. Ach, nay, what if the Norse king means to attack while the laird is away?—”

Ailsa would have laughed—a lone Norse raider sent by their clan’s main ally? But derision changed to relief when her friend Maesie, who worked in the kitchen and gardens, brought her food and shooed away the two busybodies.

“I ken ye are tired. I’ll keep an eye out in this direction in case ye need me to chase anyone else away,” Maesie promised. “Just give me a wave.”

“Thank ye,” Ailsa told her, “but those two were probably the worst.”

“Wave if ye need me,” Maesie repeated and went back toward the hallway leading to the kitchen and the herbal. And their mysterious guest.

Ailsa spent the rest of her meal enjoying her food, interrupted only by friends who stopped long enough to greet her. She went up to her chamber intending to get a few hours’ sleep, but woke close to sunset. She dressed and went back to the herbal. “Maighread, I’m so sorry, I meant to come back before now, but I overslept.”

“Ye needed the rest,” Maighread said, turning away from the cabinet door she’d been behind while she looked for something within it.

“How is he?” Ailsa studied his sleeping form, still huddled under a pile of plaids and furs.

“Well enough. His fever is gone. He’s still sleeping off the last potion I gave him to keep him quiet.”

As she finished speaking, the man groaned and Maighread hurried to his side.

“So, ye are back among us,” Maighread told him when his eyes opened and cleared. She put a hand on his forehead and nodded. “Ye’ll soon be better. Yer leg is doing well and so are the rest of yer scrapes and cuts.”

“Thank ye,” he said on a deep exhale. “The fever is gone?”

Maighread nodded.

“Ye saved my life.”

“Nay so much as that, I think,” Maighread told him, “but ye’ll enjoy it more now that ye are on the mend. Ailsa,” she said and looked up, “would ye go to the hall and have one of the lasses bring a good meat broth and watered ale for our lad?”

“I’ll fetch it myself from the kitchen,” Ailsa offered, suspecting that he might need some privacy. She left the healer to help him. The ever-present guard stood outside the door and she could call for help from him if she needed it.

Cook had what the healer requested, and Ailsa added a request of her own. “Have ye enough water heated for a bath for our visitor tonight?”

“Nay, I dinna think so. I’ll send the lads with a tub while more water heats.”

“Please do. Maighread hasna said she’ll allow it, so she doesna need it yet, but soon.”

Cook nodded as she put a bowl of broth and several cups of ale and water on a tray. “Can ye carry so much, lass?”

Ailsa hefted the tray. “Aye. ’Tisna far, and the guard can get the door for me. Thank ye.”

“Send word when ye want the bath.”

Ailsa smiled and took the tray back to the herbal, pausing at the door to let the guard make certain she would be welcome. Maighread waved her in, so she entered and set the tray on the table where the man sat upright on a stool clad in the sheets and plaids he’d taken from the cot. He’d wrapped one around his waist and the other covered his back and shoulders like a shawl. “I’ve asked Cook to ready a bath for him. If ye approve, of course.”

“ I approve.” He spoke up with enthusiasm, louder and with more energy than he’d demonstrated up to now.

“As do I,” Maighread added. “Clean, ye will feel better, and yer wounds are healed over well enough.”

“I’ll go tell Cook,” Ailsa said and turned to go.

“Nay, lass,” Maighread said, stopping her. “I’ll go. Stay here and make certain he drinks all of that broth. The ale he can drink as he wants it. Water, too. I’ll send the lads in with the tub. I’ll be back in a wee,” she added and left them.

“Alone at last,” the man quipped.

Surprised at his display of good humor, Ailsa grinned. “And ye with naught to do but eat,” she said, pointing to the bowl in front of him. “Ye heard the healer.”

“I did. I’m also certain I didna dream it, but heard ye say ye felt bad for turning me away. That ye feared what yer da would do. I’m grateful for yer care. Yers and the healer’s. I dinna want yer da to be cross with ye for helping me. I will leave as soon as I am able.”

“To go where? Do ye yet ken yer name?” Despite her earlier suspicions, the haunted look in his eyes told her he still didn’t remember who he was or where he belonged. “Nay, ye canna leave until Maighread says ye may, and nay until ye recall enough to be able to go home.”

“If I have a home.” His mouth flattened into a thin line. “I recalled a name, or dreamt it. Anders . I dinna ken if ’tis mine, but ye may as well use it,” he said and shrugged, causing his shawl to slip from one muscular shoulder. He pulled it back up, his gaze somewhere off in a distance only he could see. If he could.

“Anders. I like it. And dinna say that. Ye must have a home. A family. Ye came from somewhere.” She gestured toward his clothes, neatly folded on a bench by the door, his boots underneath it. “My friend Siobhan is a seamstress. She repaired yer clothes and said they are plain but of good quality. I’d judge ye are nay a poor crofter from the boots alone.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” he said and summoned a grin.

“Eat,” she commanded, frowning at the tray before him. “Ye might be a boot maker, a fisherman or some other trade from a nearby village, or a warrior in service to a nearby clan. Someone must be searching for ye—or will be soon,” she continued while Anders took a few sips of broth.

“Nearby clans? Who? Mayhap I’ll recognize one of them.”

“Gunn, Keith, MacKay, and Oliphant are the closest. We’re tied most closely to the Norse king Erik and to Orkney."

He shook his head. “I dinna recognize any of them. No’ as mine, nor as friends—or enemies.”

“Is the broth too much for ye?” She changed the subject. She could see he had hoped one she named would elicit something … anything … from the void in his mind. Belly hollow with disappointment, she watched him set his bowl aside, frowning.

“Nay, ’tisna that. I dinna understand why I canna remember. The harder I try, the more empty my mind seems.”

“Ye will remember,” she said and put a hand on his bare arm. “Yer skin is warm, but not fever-hot. Ye must eat and get stronger. As yer body heals, so will yer mind.”

He laid a hand over hers. “Ye ken this?”

“I pray ’tis so.”

“Ye are a kind lass.” He lifted his hand and stroked her cheek. “And a lovely one, too. In other circumstances, I would?—”

A noise in the hallway stopped him. He dropped his hand.

Before she could blink, he stood and shifted around her as if to get between her and whatever was coming toward them in the hall.

“ Dinna fash ,” Ailsa told him. “’Tis the lads with yer tub. The guard will let them in. Once ye finish eating, ye will be able to bathe.”

Barely out of a fever, weak from days without food and enough to drink, and with nay weapons to hand, he’d surged to his feet and put himself between her and the door. To protect her. He moved like a warrior, quickly and decisively. She hoped he could remember something about himself before her father returned. Her father would want answers, and at the moment, Anders had none—not even certainty about his name. If Maighread was right that he was a warrior, Ailsa’s father wouldn’t quit until he had the answers he sought. No wonder Maighread was determined to keep Anders here.

As he slowly settled back down on the stool he’d vacated with such speed, she let her gaze rake over his chest and abdomen where the plaid around his shoulders gaped. She enjoyed the view, but had to shift her attention to the doorway as the door swung open and six of the older lads appeared with a large wooden tub. Two entered in front, two along each side, and two more carried it from behind. Maighread had sent the largest tub the clan owned. Ailsa wondered how many buckets of water it would take to fill it. Around a man as large as Anders, probably not that many. Cook might have had enough hot water ready when Ailsa asked her for the bath.

The lads took their time letting the tub down and positioning it, while staring at Anders. The bravest one of them spoke up. “He’s the stranger?”

Ailsa nodded, embarrassed that they would speak about him as if he wasn’t there.

“I am,” Anders answered, surprising her. “Thank ye for bringing in the tub.”

“Ye are a big one,” another lad said, gaining confidence after the first lad spoke.

“Aye, but I think I’ll fit in there,” Anders told him and nodded toward the tub.

The lads laughed and went out the door.

His response had been the perfect one, acknowledging the lad rather than arguing, and making a jest out of the lad’s observation. Anders had charm aplenty. And knew how to use it. What had he been about to say to her before the tub arrived? In other circumstances, he would … what?

Next, a parade of serving lasses entered with buckets of steaming water. Ailsa noted Anders nodded to them, but didn’t smile. He pulled the plaid around his shoulders together over his chest and waited until the parade was finished and the lasses had gone before he let go and reached for the bowl to finish the broth.

Not that his circumspection had helped. Every lass had eyed him with interest, one after the other. In a few cases where a lass couldn’t look away from him, more water landed on the floor than in the tub. The last one was so entranced, she dropped her bucket into the tub, sighed and left without retrieving it. The next lass in line pulled it out and took it with hers.

Ailsa’s jaw clenched watching them admire him. Something about their behavior tensed her shoulders, too, and drew a line between her brows. Was she jealous? Or just embarrassed for his sake? “Ye’ll be the talk of the gossip mongers in the clan in no time,” Ailsa told him after the guard closed the door behind the hapless lass. Lorna had already gotten a glimpse of him when the guards carried him in from the front gate. She’d be furious when she heard what the lads and lasses who’d just been in here had seen. Ailsa would need to avoid her or she’d beg an introduction every chance she got.

“Let them talk,” Anders said, but his expression betrayed concern.

“They will.” She wondered what sorts of things the lads would say, and how different the lasses’ comments would be. And how much of it would get back to Boden. Lorna was an irritant, but her brother could be a danger to Anders. “Take yer time,” she told him. “Ye’ll want that water to cool a wee before ye try it.” There were several buckets of hot water and cold on the floor nearby to adjust the temperature of the bath.

Maighread returned and took in the large tub. “Ah, good. Yer bath is ready for ye.” She put a stack of bath sheets on the nearby table and handed Ailsa a pottery bowl full of soap. “Ye’ll do the honors, lass. Brana’s bairn is coming. I dinna ken when I’ll be back.”

“What? Wait. I canna—” Bathe Anders? She felt her face go hot as her fingers grew cold. She wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to get her hands on those shoulders, that chest, but it wasn’t proper. She wasn’t the clan’s lady with a husband to protect her honor, and he wasn’t an important guest.

“He’ll need help, and I canna stay to do it.” Maighread plunged a hand into the tub. “The water is ready. Get to it. He can dress when he’s clean.”

“What about the wrap on his leg? His hands?” Ailsa didn’t dare look at Anders, afraid he’d be angry the healer left this care to her, or worse, he was laughing at her.

“Unwrap them for the bath. I’ll check them when I get back.” Maighread gathered what she needed for the mother-to-be, left them and closed the door firmly behind her.

Ailsa gestured for him to take a seat at the table, bent and removed the cloth covering the gash in his leg. The wound looked much better than it had when he first arrived. “’Tis healing well,” she told him, trying to distract herself. She was much too close to him, and to his lower half, covered only by a layer of linen and another of wool. She kept her eyes on his leg wound as she stood. His hands were nearly healed.

“ Dinna fash , Ailsa. Turn yer back. I can get in the tub without help.”

He probably could. She was tall for a lass, but he was bigger, heavier and stronger. “What if ye fall?” The idea that she could hold him up seemed preposterous.

“If I do and ye are beside me, I’ll fall on ye. I dinna want to hurt ye. Stay here until I ask ye to come to me.”

Ask her, not tell her. She liked that. “Ye are kind, as well.” She saw heat in the smile he gave her, not at all like his earlier grin, but not a polite smile, either. He saw her as a woman, one he found as attractive as she found him. Or so she imagined.

“Turn around, lass,” he said and moved to the tub, dropping the makeshift shawl from his shoulders onto the table as he went. She took a moment to admire the muscles that defined his back. It was as firm as his chest, wide at the shoulders and narrowing to a trim waist. When his hands went to his waist to loosen the plaid tied there, she turned away, but as soon as she heard him testing the water, she glanced around. Heavily muscled buttocks and legs matched the rest of him. When his head started to turn toward her, she looked away. Had he seen her looking at him? The swash of his body entering the water told her if he had, he had chosen to accept or ignore it. She hoped for the former, because she would see—and touch—much more of him soon.