Of course she’d believed him. She’d come all this way; she would latch onto anything he’d said in support of her mission, no matter the state he’d been in at the time he’d said it.
He closed his eyes and scraped his hand over the whiskers on his jaw. “Bloody hell.” He opened his eyes and pinned her with a hard stare. “You are nothing but trouble, do you know that?”
Her gaze had grown sharp, her full lips compressed into a line of suppressed anger. “Yousaidyou would.”
“I was ill. I knew not what I sputtered on about.”
She got to her feet, hands fisted at her sides. “I saved your life! Or have you forgotten that now, too?”
He crossed to the carved wooden chest against the wall and lifted the lid, grabbing a clean shirt. “I haven’t.”
“And have you forgotten that I did itafteryou deceived me? How you and your brother must have laughed at me! Mocking my letters, then pretending to be some ridiculous groom. And a poor bit of acting it was.”
He pulled the shirt over his head. “I told you—I never mocked your letters.”
She smirked. “And you’re such an honest man, I should believe you, aye?” Her gaze hardened. “Youoweme.”
“Ah,” he said, a grim smile curving his mouth. “Now you’re beginning to sound like the virago in the letters.”
Her mouth dropped open in insult. “Virago! I see.” Her tone was biting, her skin flushing with fury. “Well, I think you are a knave. No! A blackguard.” Though she didn’t smile, she stood straighter and lifted her chin a notch, obviously well pleased with her insult.
He held back the smile threatening to surface and crossed the room to stand before her. “Anything else? Now that you’ve had time to think on it?”
She raised a scathing brow. “A son of a—”
He raised a finger. “I wouldn’t if I were you.”
“But you’re not me, and if you were you’d know that healing my father is the most important thing in the world to me.”
William didn’t like the tightness forming in his chest. “How old is your father?”
“What does that matter?”
He raised his brows expectantly.
She sighed. “Eight and forty.”
“Not ancient, but neither is he young. Everyone must die, Rose. I know you love your father, but I cannot heal the infirmities of old age.”
“He is not infirm, and it is not old age that is killing him!”
William inhaled deeply and decided to try another tack. “When a person begins to age, this makes them susceptible to many illnesses. I suppose I could keep healing them, one after the other, but I cannot make the body stronger or younger and so they will continue to deteriorate—”
Her eyes flashed. “Do you think me daft, to speak to me in this manner? I, too, am a healer. I cannot perform miracles, but I am competent, I assure you.”
William rubbed the bridge of his nose. “No, I do not think you daft. I do, however, think you cannot see this clearly. You said in one of your letters that your family had only recently been reunited after a long separation. Could this be clouding your judgement as a healer?”
She gazed up at him with such pleading, such disappointment in her lovely eyes that he found himself wavering, being led by something far baser than intellect.
“But you said you would.” Her voice was soft with defeat. She lowered her gaze and turned away, folding her arms beneath her breasts and gripping her elbows.
He couldn’t remember saying it, and yet it was likely he had. He did not make a practice of trailing after lasses like lost puppies, but he’d done it with this one. In fact, since Deidra’s birth, he’d left women alone entirely. But since Rose MacDonell had forced her way into his life, he’d said and done things he knew he should not.
“What else did I say in my fever?” he asked grudgingly.
She looked at him over her shoulder, from beneath a fan of cinnamon lashes. His body responded immediately to the look, tightening and growing warm.
“You said I was pretty.”
