Page 16 of To Love a Scottish Lord (Highland Lords #4)

H is eyes were on her, she knew it. She could feel his gaze, intent and unrelenting. She blessed her training and the experience she’d had in facing a dying patient’s family. Give me strength. An often uttered prayer, repeated like a never-ending echo now.

What had they done to him?

Welts of blue, green, and vermillion discolored his skin. An even deeper outline of black accentuated the multicolored swirls and lines. The longer she stared, the more she could discern the shape of it. Tattooed on his chest was the figure of a man.

No, not just a man. A bizarre form, depicted dancing, his arms outstretched to wind up to Hamish’s arms, his waist disappearing beneath the fabric of Hamish’s trousers. As if, she thought wildly, his captors had tried to obliterate Hamish beneath the picture of this stylized figure.

“Who is it?” she asked, placing her fingers on the face, realizing that the drawing was so intricate that it must have taken days, if not weeks, to finish. Each color was deeply inscribed into Hamish’s skin as if they’d scored him with a knife to create the design.

“Shiva,” he said expressionlessly.

She glanced up at him. “Shiva?”

“A Hindu god of destruction and birth. All things are created by Shiva, and destroyed by Shiva. Good and evil dwelling together.”

Slowly, she withdrew her fingers.

“How did they do this?”

His gaze didn’t leave hers. “First they cut me,” he said calmly, as if reciting the ingredients for a medicine.

“Before the scars healed, they were colored with dye. The smaller areas were done with long copper needles, dipped in dye as well as acid. The procedure was enough to be painful but not enough to kill me all at once. As Shiva was coming to life, I was slowly dying.”

She felt nauseated. “That’s hideous.”

He smiled at her, an almost fond smile for all its humor.

“Yes.”

“Is this why you cannot sleep?”

“No.”

Mary stood and walked around to his back. There, the image was as detailed, the reverse of the god in all his splendor. One shoulder was completely tattooed in brilliant colors, the yellows, oranges, and blacks forming the picture of a snarling animal.

“What is this?” she asked, tracing the outline of the animal’s head.

“A tiger,” he said shortly. “As you can see, I’m a testament to my captors’ artistry. They evidently grew tired of Shiva. Or perhaps I was used as practice like a blank canvas. Like their form of torture on my arm and face.”

“Why did they do this? Why not simply kill you?”

She wrung out the cloth once more, smoothing it over the marks on his skin. She was so close that her skirts covered the legs of the chair in which he sat. Her sleeve brushed against his bare back. The heat of his body was warmly welcoming, as if he was a brazier and she trembling and chilled.

He shrugged. “They wanted to humiliate an Englishman. What better specimen than the captain of a ship? I was the living embodiment of all they’d come to despise, a stranger invading their country.”

“But you aren’t English. Why didn’t you tell them that?”

His laugh echoed throughout the room.

“We didn’t speak the same language, first of all.

Everything I learned about Shiva was after the fact, I’m afraid.

But even had I told them they’d captured a man born in Nova Scotia, whose family hated the English as much as they, I doubt they would have released me.

It would have been easier to simply kill me, and I found that I wasn’t quite ready to die yet.

Not then. I became the English trophy that they carried from village to village, letting anyone see me, and their handiwork. ”

She moved to the table, dipped the cloth in the warm water, and wrung it out again. All routine actions. Her gaze was on his face, on the distant look in his eyes, as if he saw into the past rather than a small tower room in Castle Gloom.

“I was their sacrifice to Shiva, the Englishman rendered in his image.” His voice held an edge to it. The first time she’d heard him express any emotion about his imprisonment. “They’d captured two other men as well, but I hadn’t known of their existence for months.”

“Did they mark them as well?”

He smiled. “I was the only one to be honored in such a fashion.”

“How were you captured?” she asked, moving around to his back once more, and placing the cloth on the worst of his scars. She could almost feel his pain as they cut him.

He shrugged, dislodging the cloth. She replaced it, smoothing her fingers over his damp skin.

“My ship was attacked and fired. Although we fought them off as well as we could, we were outnumbered and soon overrun. You mentioned my family, Mary, the fact that we were all captains of our own ships. We MacRaes were never reared to believe that we might fail in some venture. It took me weeks to believe it could happen.”

She smiled. “Then you have lived a very fortunate life, Hamish MacRae. All of us fail at one time or another.”

“Have you?”

He looked at her directly, the force of his gaze a little too curious. She picked up the basin and walked outside, emptying the cooling water near the curving curtain wall. She took advantage of the time to take a deep breath and calm herself before entering the tower again.

Had she failed? A question she’d prefer not to answer.

Brendan and Micah were repairing the lean-to, the horses left to graze in the courtyard. An almost pastoral scene, and one on which she concentrated rather than the tumult of her thoughts. But all too soon the image of what they’d done to Hamish was at the forefront of her mind.

She’d wanted to know, and now she did.

Entering the tower, she walked to the fireplace, folded a cloth several times, and used it as a pad to lift a bucket from the fire.

Moving back to the table, she poured the boiling water into the basin.

After placing the empty bucket on the floor beside the table, she dropped a linen bundle tightly tied with a string into the water.

Instantly, the room was suffused with the scent of rosemary.

“Another potion?”

“Something to ease your muscles,” she said.

Dipping another cloth into the boiling water, she held it by the corners to squeeze out the excess moisture. She waved it in the air to cool it a little before placing it on his left shoulder. He didn’t even flinch at the heat.

“This should be done at least once a day,” she said. “It might not hurt to do the same on the marks on your back. At least for a few weeks.”

“Will you be here that long, Mary?”

She hesitated. “No,” she admitted reluctantly. “Only a few days. Mr. Marshall is coming to Inverness, and wishes to meet with me. It’s a very great honor.”

“Your mentor?”

“Hardly that. I’m a student, it’s true, but I’ve never thought to have the opportunity to talk with him.”

“When will you be leaving?”

“Soon,” she said.

“With an easy conscience, I trust, now that you’ve treated me.”

She nodded, and then realized he couldn’t see her, as she was standing behind him. “Yes.”

“Perhaps you’ll see one of his electrical machines,” he said.

“I wish I’d thought to ask if he was bringing it.” She dipped the cloth into the water again. “Can I extract your promise to treat your injuries as I would?”

“You can always ask, but will you trust me to honor a promise?”

He was a stranger, a man she’d known for only a little while, yet she knew that if he gave his word, she could believe in it.

“Yes,” she said softly.

“But I cannot give it,” he said. For a moment, all she felt was disappointment. “I cannot reach areas of my back, Mary. Not as well as you.”

“Brendan can help you. Or Hester.”

“Will either of them be my confidant as you have?”

“If you wish them to be.”

“I didn’t mean to tell anyone what I’ve told you,” he admitted. “But you’d counseled me to do that, didn’t you?”

She smiled and moved in front of him.

“Will I sleep better for it?”

“I am surprised that you can sleep at all with the nightmares you must have,” she told him honestly.

There was that half smile again.

“Perhaps you’ll give me a potion to help me sleep after all.”

“Or perhaps you’ll find something else to do at night,” she suggested. “Read a calming book, sketch a drawing.”

His smile broadened, but he didn’t comment on her list. She felt her face warm, and moved around to his back again.

She asked him to bend forward, and she inspected his scars.

The Atavasi had evidently known where to inflict the greatest pain with the least damage.

There were no marks near Hamish’s spine.

Nor were there near any vital organs. But his torturers had left no large muscle untouched.

“You’ll miss Brendan,” he said unexpectedly.

It wasn’t a question as much as a statement.

“Brendan isn’t my patient,” she said, tracing the deepest of the scars on his back with gentle fingers. “So speaks Mary the healer. How does Mary the woman feel?”

“I cannot separate the various parts of myself, Hamish. The healer is the woman.”

She realized, however, what he was asking. She halted in her explorations and answered him. “I find Brendan to be a very pleasant companion. But he reminds me of a younger brother.” There, a confession that the healer shouldn’t have made, but the woman felt compelled to tell him.

“A sentiment that would irritate him, should he learn of it.”

“I have no intention of telling him,” she said calmly. “Do you?”

His silence incited her curiosity. What was he thinking? Where had he learned such restraint? Had it been during his imprisonment, or had he always been this way?

Once again, she submersed the cloth, wringing it nearly dry and cooling it slightly before placing it on his skin. She busied herself with the task of being a healer. Only when she moved in front of him did her composure come close to slipping again.

She placed the cloth on his chest, concentrating on her hands rather than looking into his eyes or seeing that charming half smile.