Page 7 of To Love a Scottish Lord (Highland Lords #4)

Sleep was difficult for Hamish. Tonight, it was made doubly so with the addition of Brendan’s party to Aonaranach. Hamish found himself pacing his small round room, walking in circles like a tethered bear.

These last few weeks had been the first time in his life he’d been completely and totally alone. At first, he’d missed the sound of voices, so much that he had wandered through his new home talking to himself. Yet he was now nearly desperate to banish the first people he’d seen in almost a month.

Leaning against the edge of the window, he stared out into the cold night.

A sliver of moon only occasionally viewed through rapidly moving clouds was the only illumination.

The sea was a giant black creature licking at the shore and breathing heavily in gentle swells of waves.

A night bird called in a lonely, plaintive cry, and was left unanswered.

He was no stranger to this view, having learned it well over the past weeks. Tonight, however, he could smell the cook fire, and the odor of ale from a cask, scents that hadn’t been there before and meant habitation, civilization, and strangers.

He couldn’t fault the meal he’d been served. That, at least, was a change from the past weeks.

Glancing at his cot, he made no move toward it.

However much his body needed sleep, his mind counseled against attempting it.

Tonight would no doubt be the same as it had been for weeks.

He’d fall into a restless slumber, only to be awakened by strange, misshapen nightmares as if he were drugged on opium.

Men he’d known all his life paraded before him, reciting their names as if he didn’t know them as well as his own.

Samuel, Brian, Alex, William, twenty-seven of them in total.

Those who’d sailed with him had done so not because he was a MacRae or because he’d made a fortune for his crew three times over since first given command of his own ship.

Men sailed with him because they believed he had the right mix of daring and wisdom.

In short, men signed on with him because they respected his abilities.

One man was no match for a mob of fifty, and at least that many had swarmed over the side of his ship.

He’d watched in numbed horror as they’d killed his crew and then set his ship ablaze until only a burned husk was left above the water line.

Finally, it, too, tipped over and sank to the bottom of the ocean.

The nightmares followed the same litany each night.

When the roll call of his men was done, he was propelled back to the encampment at the hands of the Atavasi, his dreams mimicking the reality of his imprisonment.

He was being dragged along from village to village, from waterfall to mountain, from valley to riverbank.

Each scene was marked by another interlude of pain.

Just when he’d begun to pray for an end, his captors had allowed him to regain some strength, the better to prolong their torture.

Hamish returned to the cot and sat on the edge to remove his boots. Standing, he stripped off his clothing and stood naked in the night air.

He knew his body well, acknowledged the tensile strength of each bone, the tolerance of each muscle and nerve.

He’d been both captive within it and separated from it, part of himself and yet not.

He felt about his body the way he had his ship, an extension of himself, simply a vessel in which he lived.

The Atavasi had done their best to make him a walking corpse. The fact that they’d not succeeded was due to his indefatigability, a quality he’d never known he possessed until India.

All during that time, his mind had refused to believe what was happening to him.

He’d distanced himself from what they’d done to him by disappearing into his thoughts, transporting himself back in time with his memory or forward into wishes.

He’d clung to a tiny vestige of hope that still remained despite the circumstances and the torture they’d inflicted on him.

Toward the end, he’d felt himself separate, as if the creature known as Hamish MacRae had to divide itself in order to survive. The physical body had been given up for lost; the mind controlled the pain by fleeing from it, his spiritual nature was muted by pain and a sense of horror.

Gradually, after his escape, he’d begun to heal as much as he could, given what they’d done to him. His mind was still troubled and would no doubt remain so for the rest of his life. Only lately had his soul emerged from its cocoon to announce its presence, just when he no longer needed God.

As he lay on his bed, staring off into the darkness, Hamish thought of Mary Gilly, the healer with the omnipotent touch.

Unbidden, his thoughts shifted to the sight of her striding across the courtyard, her loose limbed gait hinting at long legs and curving hips.

He’d not been with a woman for years, and his body was suddenly very aware of that fact.

Deliberately, he lay uncovered, allowing himself to be chilled by the night air.

The blanket, the sheet would be too abrasive.

He rested his good arm under his head, stared up at the ceiling, and felt himself harden at the thought of being healed.

Not in the way she imagined, perhaps, but with the only touch he craved.

A widow. Was she as lonely as he? Or was that word even correct? Could he even be lonely anymore with the ghost that inhabited his thoughts?

He resolutely pushed that idea away and stood, knowing that sleep wouldn’t come tonight.

Mary cupped her hands around her elbows. The wind howling through the three archer’s slits sounded mournful and condemnatory. A gust blew out the candle on the bedside table, leaving her in total darkness.

Standing, Mary grabbed her dress from the peg by the door and donned it over her nightgown. Without her stays she wasn’t exactly proper, but she doubted anyone else was awake, as late as it was. She wrapped her shawl around her shoulders and opened the door.

Gordon had had the most beautiful dressing gown made for her that last year, something he’d commissioned from the dressmaker as a surprise.

Countless hours had gone into embroidering the yoke and shoulders of the beige silk with crimson thread, to form a trail of prim roses.

Each time she donned it, she ran her fingers over the tiny, delicate stitches.

Gordon created masterpieces in gold, but these talented women had done the same with their needles.

Because it was one of her most cherished articles of clothing, she hadn’t brought it on this journey.

Now she missed its warmth as the wind swirled out the door, as if gleeful to escape.

Mary flattened herself against the curved wall of the tower and dared herself to go either up or down, anything but stand there frightened of the dark.

A sound from below captured her attention. Moving to the top of the stairs, she realized that deep shadows flickered along the wall. Someone had lit a fire on the main floor of the tower and was standing before it.

She would have liked to call it courage, but Mary was only too aware that it was her curiosity that propelled her down the staircase.

Halfway down, she saw him.

He turned at a sound, looking up at her. She stopped, a hand pressed flat against her chest to calm the sudden skipping beat of her heart.

Brendan should have warned her. Instead of telling her that his brother had a fearsome name or describing him as a boy, he should have stated that Hamish was arresting, that a woman’s heart might stutter when first viewing him.

He should have told her that he was a tall man with broad shoulders, and possessed of a warrior’s body.

His face, however, drew her attention, his jaw jutting out pugnaciously at the world, his lips oddly squared.

His cheekbones were high, and his nose was broad.

A half dozen or so irregular circles marred his face, each pitted and dark as if long healed.

They kept him from being called handsome, but they could not take away the impression of strength.

“Go back upstairs, Mrs. Gilly.” His voice was raspy, more than a whisper but less than a normal speaking voice.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said, in defense of her curiosity.

He said nothing, only turned and stared at the fire, his arms folded in front of him. A pose of dismissal all the more potent for its silence.

She descended the stairs, wrapping the ends of the shawl around her hands. Now was not the time for reticence. She walked closer, moved to stand in front of him, and before losing her courage, reached up with one hand and placed her fingers against the worst of the scars on his face.

“What happened to you?”

Pain was etched on his face, and a flatness of expression she’d never seen before except in the old or terminally ill.

Gently, he pulled her hand away, his thumb and forefinger easily encompassing her wrist.

“I need no healer, Mrs. Gilly. Brendan exceeded his authority. I’m sorry for the loss of your time and for your trouble.”

She stood with his hand still around her wrist. She could have easily shaken free, but she remained where she was, bound by his restraint.

“Won’t you tell me what happened?”

Her question was left unanswered.

In the silence, she reached up with her other hand and placed it flat on his chest, surprised when he flinched. He dropped her hand and stepped back, putting a little distance between them.

He didn’t like her touching him. She tucked that information away. Before ever beginning to treat her patients, she studied them, getting to know as much as she could about the way they lived and their general condition.

Hamish MacRae might be surprised by what she’d already deduced.

“I suspect you’re not as healed as you wish me to think, Mr. MacRae. I also think, despite your words, that you do need me.”