Page 9 of The Highlander’s Enchanted Healer (Spellbound Hearts #2)

I stared at Laird Campbell’s broad back as he strode in front of me and pictured myself plunging a dagger deep into it.

The thought made me shudder. I wanted to destroy him, but as I visualized the dagger piercing his skin and then blood seeping out in a red circle, nausea roiled within me and my nostrils flared.

Och! I could never wield a dagger to kill another in cold blood, not even this man who had attacked my clan’s lands and killed our warriors, killed my family.

What a fine time to discover this weakness in my character!

I fumed as Laird Campbell hurried through the shadowy passageway.

Servants greeted him warmly as he passed, and if I didn’t know him to be the ruthless killer he was, the way everyone here acted toward him might have persuaded me to think he wasn’t a barbarian.

Then again, my da had always said a wise ruler knew it was far easier to bend people to your will with kindness than with cruelty.

Maybe that’s exactly what Laird Campbell practiced: calculated kindness.

If I could not imagine personally kill him, could I really go through with aiding in his death as I had claimed?

This was what I hoped to happen, after all.

I was here to gain information to help Ramsey win battles that Laird Campbell would undoubtedly lead.

As we exited the castle and Laird Campbell led us across the inner courtyard toward a building on the other side, I pictured him on the ground with a sword in his gut, a line of blood and spit running out of his mouth.

The thought instantly made me clammy and shaky, but I replaced that image with the ones of my da, brother, and uncle as I last saw them—after they were poisoned and before we buried them.

Their faces had been devoid of color, their skin had looked oddly thin, and their eyes were forever open in a shocked state.

I would find the will to do what I must to avenge my family and stop Laird Campbell from taking more of our land, our clanspeople and our home.

Laird Campbell suddenly halted and turned to me. “I need to stop into the kitchens before we continue to my sister’s bedchamber.”

I nodded, remembering Ramsey’s advice to offer as few lies as possible so I’d have fewer lies to remember.

My stomach knotted thinking about every lie that could raise suspicion if I made a slip.

My fake name—Aria Leslie—and that I was to have wed Laird Leslie.

That lie had been my idea, and Ramsey had agreed wholeheartedly and immediately sent riders to Laird Leslie to relay the message to his friend.

And then there was the lie that worried me the most—that I was a healer. What if I was drawn into the healing room to aid someone like a woman or child on the verge of death? I held no ill will toward the Campbell women and children, just the warriors and their leader.

“My sister—” Laird Campbell began, drawing my attention back to him. He frowned and shoved his hand through his dark hair. He clearly was agitated. I needed to remember this gesture and what it meant for his state of mind. “Do nae let what Isla might say about Alba make ye fearful of her.”

“I’ll nae,” I assured him. “But what happened to the lass, Isla?” I asked, recalling her scratches and shorn hair.

He scrubbed a hand across his face. “My sister cut off Isla’s hair and attacked her when Isla suggested she might want a bath.” I felt my lips part in shock at the news. “She’s nae possessed,” he hurriedly added.

“Isla or yer sister?”

“My sister,” he replied. “She hums to herself and hits her ears. ’Tis nae possession by evil spirts. ’Tis her aching soul that makes her act that way, and ’tis the pain she’s trapped in of what she endured by the Gordon warrior’s hands.”

I did not like that he sounded truly worried and caring, as a good man would, as a loving brother would.

I did not want to think he had any goodness in him.

That made my plotting his death that much harder for me to stomach.

I swallowed and shoved down any pity, any understanding.

This man undoubtedly wanted his sister better simply so he could use her for an alliance, not because there was a smidge of goodness in him.

He motioned me to follow him through the oak-planked kitchen door, and as we entered the cavernous room filled with the aromas of freshly baked bread and simmering stew, women in flour-dusted aprons rushed about, their laughter echoing off the stone walls.

The moment our boots crossed the threshold, every eye turned to us.

The chatter died like a snuffed candle, laughter caught in throats, and solemnity swept across their flushed faces like a shadow chasing sunlight across the moor.

A weathered woman with eyes the pale blue of winter sky and silver hair pulled tight beneath a linen cap stepped forward.

She dipped into a practiced curtsy before Laird Campbell, her gnarled fingers clutching her apron.

Her gaze, sharp as a gutting knife, sliced over me before she said, “Isla told us ye would be coming to speak to us, Laird.”

“Did she gather the chamber lasses, Fenella?”

“Aye, Laird,” Fenella replied, her calloused hand gesturing toward the back of the room, where a cluster of young women huddled around a worn oak worktable with half-formed loaves abandoned in their haste.

In the center of their protective circle, like a wounded fawn among does, stood a woman with crudely shorn hair—chunks missing as if cut with a dull blade in darkness—and angry red scratches scoring her pretty face.

That was the woman Laird Campbell had addressed as Isla in his solar.

The woman’s hands trembled like autumn leaves in a bitter wind.

I understood her fear down to my marrow now that I knew what had happened to her.

Laird Campbell swept his gaze over the room. “It’s come to my attention that there are whispers that Alba is possessed.” His words had taken on a hard edge.

It was so quiet in the kitchen that I could hear my own breathing.

When Laird Campbell widened his stance and crossed his powerful arms across his chest, I was certain he was about to demand the name of the person who started the whispers about his sister and use threats to get it, just like a brute who ruled by fear would.

So when he said, “I understand how frightening Alba’s behavior can be,” my lips parted in shock.

“I would ask that each of ye remember how we found her—beaten and severely abused,” he continued. “Nae any of us ken the horror she endured or that she endures day after day trapped in her mind as she is, so please be kind, as ye would want others to be to someone ye loved.”

I didn’t have a quarrel with Alba Campbell, and Laird Campbell’s words made me feel as if I truly wanted to help her.

Perhaps it would be possible after I read her mind and got information to help Ramsey.

She was a casualty of the feud between her clan and mine, just as my da, brother, and uncle had been.

Ramsey had assured me what had happened to her had not been by his orders, but rather, by the hands of two of our warriors who had defied those orders and had allowed blood lust and the desire for revenge to rob them of reason.

“We will all strive to be kinder and more understanding, Laird,” the woman Fenella said.

When she narrowed her eyes and swept her gaze across the women in the kitchen and the action elicited immediate murmurs of agreement, I suspected Fenella oversaw the kitchens.

“Who’s this ye have with ye?” the woman asked, staring at me with open curiosity.

“This is Lady Aria Leslie, a healer who will be working with Alba. Please welcome her into our home and aid her as she needs.”

For a moment, the women stared at me with obvious wariness, then Fenella stopped toward me, curtsied, and said, “I hope ye last.”

“I fully intend to,” I replied, glad to be speaking the utter truth.

One by one, the dozen women gathered in the kitchen introduced themselves to me, and by the time the last one stepped forward to do so, I could feel the restless energy rolling off Laird Campbell.

I stole a look at him from under my lashes and found him rocking heel to toe, toe to heel as he darted his gaze from the door to me.

When the final woman moved back to her station, Laird Campbell said, “Shall we depart now?”

I had a feeling he’d been having to bite his tongue not to demand our departure six introductions ago.

I nodded, though the spiteful side of me wished I could detain him longer just to frustrate him.

Still, the sooner I met his sister, the sooner I could read her mind.

The moment the kitchen door shut behind us, Laird Campbell doubled his pace, forcing me to triple my own.

I was anxious to see if I could read his mind, so when he stopped and found his lost manners and motioned for me to go up the stairs first, I pretended to trip, so he would hopefully steady me.

Immediately, he grasped my elbow, and I murmured, “Thank ye,” meaning it.

Here was the opportunity to find something in his own head to use to destroy him. “If ye could just steady me a—”

He released me just like a thoughtless barbarian would before I could voice my request.

“Take the time ye need,” he said, looking past me up the stairs as if I were unpleasant to look upon.

I ground my teeth. Given I didn’t really need time, the only thing I could really say was, “I’m ready to proceed.

If ye could slow down a bit, though,” I added, to which his neck reddened, but he nodded.

As we walked up the remainder of the stairs, it occurred to me that the more I knew about Alba, the better.

“Tell me, Laird Campbell, has yer sister spoken at all since her attack?”

“Nay,” he replied, his tone tight and low. “She was completely silent until verra recently. The humming and the slapping of her ears is new,” he finished, sounding almost sad.

I had imagined him without any soft emotions, but hearing him speak of his sister, was making it harder for me to think of him as simply a monster.

“This is Alba’s bedchamber,” he said, pausing in front of a door of ancient oak, its surface carved with twisting vines that seemed to writhe in the flickering shadows.

He plucked a torch from its iron sconce, the sudden movement sending embers spiraling into the darkness above.

When he turned toward me, the space between us vanished.

Heat radiated from him, and the earthy scent of cedar mingled with woodsmoke and something wilder, like pine sap after rain.

Firelight caught in his eyes, turning the deep forest green to emerald, rimmed with a circle of burnished gold that glowed as his gaze locked with mine, searching, warning. “Stay behind me,” he ordered, his voice dropping to a rough whisper that brushed against my skin like velvet over stone.

That was more like the behavior I had imagined and expected—a man who gave orders by way of conversation.

I forced myself to nod and step behind him.

At least behind him I could openly glare at him without fear of being caught.

The hinges of the door creaked as Laird Campbell swung it open and stepped into the room, calling his sister’s name.

I peered into the shadowy room, suddenly apprehensive.

But I had come all this way, and I refused to let fear hold me back.

I straightened my shoulders and took a step into the bedchamber as Laird Campbell set the torch in a holder by the bed.

My nose immediately curled with the stench of sweat and urine that hit me.

I grabbed the edge of my skirt and pressed it over my nose and mouth and moved farther into the bedchamber.

There was a chill in the air, and I looked around, eventually locating the fire grate, which did not hold a fire.

That was strange, but mayhap Alba could not be trusted around a fire. I’d inquire later.

“Alba,” Laird Campbell said, drawing my attention to him.

His back was to me, and his voice was low and soothing like one would use for a scared child.

“Come out from behind the dressing screen,” he said, causing gooseflesh to pepper my arms. How many times had he done this exact same routine of luring his hiding sister out to meet yet another healer?

“Alba?” He started across the room toward the corner where the dressing screen was set up by a wardrobe.

I took a step to follow when the floorboard behind me creaked.

My pulse exploded as I swung around just in time to see a goblet coming at me in a blur.

With a scream, I brought my arm up, knocked the goblet away, and turned to run to Laird Campbell for protection.

A hand grabbed my hair and yanked me backward with such force that my scalp stung, and I stumbled to the ground with a resounding thud that stole my breath and caused pain to explode on my tailbone.

A high, keening pitch erupted from above me, and I was up on my feet and hands, scrambling backward when Laird Campbell thundered, “Alba, cease this!” Heavy footsteps pounded across the room, and I yelped again as my back met wall, and I realized I’d not stopped scrambling to get away.

There was just enough light from the torch that I could see what was happening now that fear was not utterly gripping me.

Laird Campbell clutched his sister by the wrists, as she twisted and writhed, trying to break free.

That was shocking, but not nearly as much so as her appearance.

Her gaze was wide and wild, and accentuated by hollowed cheeks.

Her hair hung in tangled clumps at her shoulders, and her ragged gown swallowed her rail thin body. Pity rose in me.

“God’s blood, Alba!” Laird Campbell roared. I stood as he started to gain control of her. My moment was slipping away. I took a step toward them and clutched her arm. “Let me help ye,” I said as I focused on the one thing I wanted—to hear her thoughts.

They hit me at once, a deafening sound that made me cry out, but there was one louder than all the rest: I’m to blame. I’m to blame. I’m to blame.

My lips parted with the sharp intake of my breath. Was it Alba Campbell who had poisoned my family?