Rhian caught her breath as her heart swelled.Be content, my lass,she told herself, and it sounded like her mother’s voice. Only the greediest of women could ask for more.
Chapter Eighteen
“Iconfess, man,I did no’ expect to see ye up and on your feet.”
“I did no’ entirely expect to be here.” Leith stared at Farlan with rising gladness. After a day trapped here in the malodorous cell, forsaken and alone, he could not think of anyone he’d rather see. Well, mayhap one person.
She had not come, all the long day she had not. Though he’d prayed—prayed for her to return.
Farlan studied him carefully. At home, back at MacLeod while growing up, Farlan had always been the steady one, the calm voice of reason. The member of their trio whom they could count on to talk Rory down when he’d become too carried away with himself.
Leith had been the jester, the one to make the other two laugh. He’d given Rory a dose of nonsense, once Farlan gentled him.
He could not feel farther from nonsense than now.
“I am that glad to see ye,” he confessed to his friend.
“I am that glad for ye to see me. As soon as I heard your sight had come back to ye, I had to come and find out for mysel’.”
“Who told ye that?” Leith asked, thinking of Rhian.
“Moira did. Her sister did mention it. How d’ye feel? Here, sit down, man. Ye look a bit wobbly to be stomping about. And I brought a flask.”
Thank God. Though he would not give in and take one of Rhian’s draughts, Leith would not refuse strong drink at this point.
They sat on the pallet, since there was no place else, one of them on either end. Farlan passed Leith the flask, and he drank deep.
“How’s the wound?”
Leith swiped his lips with the back of the same hand that held the flask. “I tell ye, Farlan, I ha’ ne’er suffered the like. ’Tis hurting something fierce and has teeth that will no’ relent. And only look—I canna use my right hand at all.”
Farlan appeared fittingly horrified. “’Tis your sword hand, that.”
“Aye. I canna so much as make a fist. The arm’s as limp as a dead fish.”
Farlan frowned deeply. “Wha’ does Mistress Rhian say about it? She’s been treating ye, has she no’?”
And there it was. Already, her name brought her alive in the room.
“She’s a fine healer, and I daresay saved my life,” Farlan added.
Leith hesitated over how much to share with his friend. It sounded like madness. On the other hand, no one alive would understand his predicament better than this man.
He fixed Farlan with a hard stare and lowered his voice. “I swear, Farlan, she brought back my sight.”
“Eh?”
“She laid her hand upon my brow, and ’twas as if the darkness lifted. The first thing I saw was her face.”Her beautiful face.
Farlan swore softly.
“Aye—’twas like some miracle out o’ the old stories we heard as lads. I do no’ think she’s an ordinary woman.”
“None o’ the three o’ them is,” Farlan declared. “Old Iain’s daughters.”
“I’ve never known her like.”
“Christ Jesus, Leith! Do no’ go there.” Farlan looked uncomfortable.
