Page 19 of Anice’s Bargain

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James cast a nervous glance at his da’s deathly pallor. If the healer was needed by the people of Werrick, then surely, she wouldn’t stay to attend to a man who’d been set on killing them all.

For certes, choosing them over his father would be far too easy. But the withered old woman did not depart from Laird Graham’s side.

She waved James toward her. “Blow this in yer da’s face for a bit, aye?”

James gently exhaled and a wash of gray white smoke swirled over his father’s face then dissipated into the air.

“Ye take these packets,” Isla said to Anice. “And tell them to steep it. I knew many would try to eat too quickly. I prepared these a while back in the event we were saved.” She winked at her own foresight.

A knock sounded at the door again. James blew on the steady stream of smoke curling up from the bundle of dried herbs and glanced over his shoulder as a petite redhead walked into the room with a steaming pot held with a cloth.

The healer’s withered face crinkled more with her eyes narrowed. “Ye two can go now. I have the help I need.”

James hesitated, his hand still clutching the cluster of smoking dried herbs.

Isla hefted the steaming pot from the young woman’s arms without the benefit of the cloth, her fortitude and grit far more than James would have credited for the spindly woman. She was so wretchedly thin, she looked as though she might break.

She motioned to the young maid. “Get the herbs from him and wave them about the old goat’s face.”

“I’d like to stay.” James tightened his grip on the herbs and pulled them back, away from the young woman’s reach. The servant cast an uncertain glance toward Isla.

Isla set the pot by the hearth with a puff of irritation, strode over to him and plucked the herbs from his hands with wiry strength. “Ye’ll do me no good hoverin’ about. Off with ye.”

James opened his mouth to protest when his father gave a rattling cough. He immediately kneeled at his da’s side.

Behind him, Isla gave a long-suffering sigh. “Do ye see what I mean? How am I to get to him with ye in my way?”

A hand rested gently on James’s shoulder. He turned abruptly, expecting to see the sour, wrinkled visage of the old healer and instead saw Anice’s comely face, her brows pinched with sympathy.

“Mayhap you could join me in distributing the herbs?” She held up the basket she held in her other hand and offered a kindly smile. “It would give you a chance to know the people of Werrick Castle. And the distraction might be welcome.”

James cast one more glance at his da’s pallid face.

“Dinna worry, lad, he’ll no’ die.” Isla edged around James and glared down at the Graham laird. “He’s too stubborn to go, I’ll give ye that. And he’s too bloody important to us. Off with ye now.”

Reluctantly James got to his feet, cast one final, regretful stare at his father. He lifted the basket from Anice’s arm and allowed her to lead them from the room.

As they walked, his mind churned with turbulent thoughts. What if Laird Graham died, and he wasn’t there to say goodbye? What would happen if his father was no longer in charge of the Grahams?

Certainly, he wouldn’t have to marry Anice. He would have full reign of the clan to do with as he pleased without his father’s interference.

He would have everything he’d been wanting. But he could not bring himself to wish for his father’s death. Laird Graham might be mean spirited and blinded by avarice more times than not. But for all his gruffness, the old man loved James and showed his oldest son affection in his own peculiar manner.

After all, Laird Graham had sacrificed his desire for Werrick Castle to offer James the opportunity to fulfill his wish for a life without marauding. James knew how long his father had wished to take Werrick Castle again. And he’d given it all up for James.

“It is difficult to see someone you care for suffer.” Anice’s soft voice drew him out of his ruminating.

He made a low hum of consideration and shifted the basket more comfortably against the crook of his elbow. Its weight made him grateful for having insisted on taking it from her.

She twisted the small ruby ring. “My mother died during childbirth. I was by her side when she finally succumbed.”

There was a quiet pain in Anice’s voice James could not ignore. It was one with which he was familiar regarding his own mother. “I imagine that was difficult to have been there for,” he said. His own mother had died in childbirth as well, to a sister who also had perished, but he hadn’t been allowed to be present. Not that it had kept him from hearing her screams.

Anice drew in a heavy breath. “She was beyond comprehension at that point. Carrying the babe had been difficult as she was so filled with despondency after—”

The baritone of male voices came from the open doorway to the great hall. James stopped and caught Anice’s free hand. “After what?”