Alan nodded. “I am that grateful to ye.”
“The physician says ’twas a near thing. The blade passed between your ribs and narrowly missed your heart.” She hesitated. “So, how do ye feel?”
“Like I’ve been dragged over sharp rocks by a bullock. But I’ll recover.”
He wished she’d reach out and touch his hand. Instead she sat with her fingers folded in her lap like the demure miss she most definitely was not.
Och, but they’d promised not to touch each other save out of necessity. Just as they’d sworn to keep that connecting door shut.
It stood open now, behind her.
“I am sorry,” he said slowly, still pushing his way through the fog that filled his mind, “that ye ha’ been dragged into all this.”
She gave an odd little shrug. “At least I was no’ forced to marry your vile brother.”
“Ye are grateful for that, are ye?”
“Aye, I am.”
Their gazes met again and this time held. What he saw in her eyes made him feel as if he’d been struck in the chest again.
“Where d’ye think he will go? Evan, I mean.”
Alan shook his head and regretted it. “There are scores o’ places, none o’ them warm or comfortable.”
“Did ye give him as good as ye got? He is also battered?”
“Aye, I’d ha’ got the better of him if he’d no’ pulled the knife.”
She leaned toward him and widened her hazel eyes. “Fro’ now on, ye will ha’ to go armed. For he could be anywhere and could get the drop on ye.”
Did she care? Did she, truly?
“Though,” she added, “it seems a shame for a man to go about warring on his own lands.”
“They are no’ my lands so much as Evan’s. He has always felt that, as ha’ I.”
She inched closer on the bed. Alan found himself wishing she would slide in beside him.
“Surely all this will cause your father to feel differently about him. Can he no’ toss him out o’ the succession in favor o’ ye?”
“’Tis no’ how it works, at least no’ in my father’s mind.”
“It should be.”
“Many things should be that are no’.” But he smiled at her, feeling the pull on his battered face. “I appreciate the sentiment.”
“Can I get aught for ye? A cold cloth? A drink?”
“Your company.” The words surprised even him. “If ye will. Unless ye maun go to your woman.”
“Nay—I can stay a while.” As if in answer to his wishes, she slid farther onto the bed so she sat beside him and leaned her back against the tall headboard. With the bed curtains partly closed around them, it seemed isolated. Even intimate.
“Rest, if ye will,” she told him. “I will keep guard.” Leaning her head toward him, she confided, “I ha’ a knife o’ my own.”
“Do ye, then?”
“Aye. And if your brother comes to finish wi’ ye, I will serve him as he has ye.”
