“How are ye feeling?” she asked urgently. He hadn’t had any ale since she fell asleep.
“Much better, especially now that I woke to find ye in my arms.”
She blushed and moved away from him. “Ye are still in danger. Best not to leave yer bed fer a few days.”
“We will see.” He didn’t exactly give in.
“Helen is locked in my room. The windows are boarded up.”
“Did she say why she poisoned me?”
“Nae, but I suspect she did it at someone’s request.”
His gaze zeroed in on her. “Who?”
“I dinna know. She willna say. Ewen is questioning her.”
“Why do ye think she isna alone in this?” he asked.
“Because she told me her master had found her and one night, while he was striking me, she killed him. I believe there was a man involved. Mayhap she killed him, mayhap she did not. I believe she did not. I believe he sent her to kill ye. Mayhap one of yer enemies used a lass to try to take ye doun. They drugged me and that is why I dinna remember anything.”
“Those are all excellent possibilities,” he said with a tender smile.
“Aye,” she agreed without correction. Indeed, she was no longer passionate about killing him. Not as much as she was about kissing him.
She shook her head to clear it of such traitorous thoughts.
Watching her, his smile deepened. She looked away from it.
“Ye were sayin’?” he urged.
“Aye, I went to speak with her after she was put into my room. I heard her speaking through the door. I thought someone was with her, so I listened. I heard her say, ‘He will kill me if he finds out I slept with Ealar.’ When I entered the room, she was alone.
“He.”
“Aye. She willna say who “he” is.”
He shrugged his shoulder and pushed himself up on the bed. She hurried to lay her hands on his shoulders. “We will find oot and whoever “he” is, will be dealt with.”
“Dinna move too much.”
She couldn’t help her eyes from roving over his visage, taking in sight of him with his mahogany-colored hair spilling over his pillows, his dark brows adding shadows to his eyes, his shapely nose, and decadently full lips.
How could any man look so good after being poisoned?
“Thank ye fer takin’ care of me, Elspeth, he said softly, compelling her to move closer. She didn’t. She cared for him. There was no denying it. But she could resist it, couldn’t she?
“Ye have been kind to me,” she told him. “I was simply returning that kindness.”
“Is that the only reason? Do ye care fer me, Miss Woodburn?”
His resonant voice seeped into her blood, her bones. “Dinna be—” She stopped before she said ridiculous things. Her answer was clear in the way she took care of him, and in her behavior with him, letting him kiss her…
“I am afraid I do, Mr. Cameron. Just a wee bit,” she told him the truth.
Instead of torturing her with another one of his smiles, he pouted, which was just as detrimental to her good sense.
“That must make things doubly difficult fer ye,” he empathized.
