Rhian snorted. “Ye be a fine one to talk.”
He shrugged. “I’ll rest when I need to. Soon.”
She’d have to take him at his word on that.
She watched him walk away and forced herself to follow him, even though she’d left her basket inside with her patient. She had other baskets, and other patients, for all that.
She could return for it later.
But as she made her way back to her own quarters, to the blessed silence there and the peace of it, she continued to think about Leith MacLeod.
What would it be like to awaken, as he eventually would, to pain and darkness? To blindness and the knowledge that he lay surrounded by enemies?
She’d had scarcely a chance to return to her chamber all day. The fire had long gone out, and the room felt chilly.
She washed and changed out of her bloodstained clothing, then once more sat beside the hearth and kindled a fire. The very act brought her a measure of peace, and the terrible tension inside her eased as she watched the flames strengthen and grow.
Here was her center, the place where she belonged. She never had and never would need anything more.
She must keep a close eye on the woman she was. No lass any longer, but a woman grown, one who planned to remain a spinster. A levelheaded, practical soul with no time or room for fancies. One with a tight grip on her emotions.
Though she did feel for poor Elreadh, no matter how cowardly her actions. And she felt for the man who lay in darkness so far from home.
Chapter Thirteen
By morning itwas all over the settlement, what Elreadh had done. It had perhaps spread via the guards who’d overheard some of what Alasdair said to Rhian. No way to tell.
Rhian herself first heard the gossip when Fiona came to her door early the next morning.
Fiona, a woman of middle years and a widow, had been… Well, in truth, she’d been Da’s lover. Following the death of Rhian’s mother some years ago, Da had been distraught. Aye well, they all had.
Fiona had stepped in after a handful of years to comfort him. Rhian still remembered how shocked she and her sisters had been when they discovered Fiona had been spending her nights in Da’s chamber. In Da’s bed. The same he had shared with Ma.
Iain MacBeith had been a big, bluff, kindly man with a loud laugh. Fiona’s company had brought some of that back to him, though he’d never been the man he was when Ma was alive.
Eventually, his daughters had come to terms with the relationship. It had been Saerla who made the observation.Everybody needs someone, and I believe men do even more than women. We canna claim to love Da and yet wish him aught but happiness.
Fiona could not be more different from Ma, who’d possessed a quiet, serene spirit. Fiona’s emotions showed almost too readily, and she had a tendency to chatter. But she’d been devastated by Da’s death, and Rhian could not doubt the sincerity of what she’d felt for him.
That did not necessarily mean Rhian welcomed a visit first thing in the morning following a restless night.
“Have ye heard?” Fiona demanded even as she came pushing into the chamber. “’Tis Elreadh. She tried to murder yon MacLeod prisoner last night.”
Rhian said nothing. The fire in her hearth that had lent her such comfort last night had burned to nothing, and with the morning light, all her worries flooded back in. She felt scattered and found she’d gained scant rest after all.
When Fiona received no answer, her fine hazel eyes narrowed. “But here’s me telling ye something ye already knew. Ye’ve been tending the man, aye?”
“Aye. Has Elreadh been found?”
“No’ yet, though Alasdair has men looking. ’Tis believed she’s left the settlement. She and her young brother have an aunt outlying. She’s likely gone there, though Tearlach will no’ say.”
Rhian bit her lip.
“Did ye see the prisoner after the attack?” Fiona demanded, no doubt deciding that if she could not shock Rhian with her news, she might at least mine her for further details. “How did Elreadh attempt to kill him? No one will say.”
Then Rhian should not say either. “It was a cowardly act, Fiona. Let us leave it at that.”
Fiona’s expression grew hard. Rhian knew this woman for a warm one, a generous one, qualities that had no doubt drawn Da to her. Now she pronounced almost viciously, “The MacLeod would be better dead.”
