Page 26 of The Finest Scottish Fate

A light knock on the door made her curl into a tighter ball and try to sink deeper into the pillows. It opened with a telltale creak, then quiet murmurings that she couldn’t quite make out warned her that this must be someone Drummond had expected. Maybe that Mistress Martha person he’d spoken about? She tried to crack open an eye and peek, but the nauseating spin to the room returned with a vengeance. Clapping her hands back over her eyes, she willed herself not to vomit.

“Evie?”

The way Drummond said her name was so nice. His soft yet calloused touch on her cheek made her tilt her chin up, but she kept her hands over her eyes. “I’m awake,” she whispered, then swallowed hard against the fresh onslaught of bile burning the back of her throat. “Trying not to be sick.”

“Mistress Martha is here,” he said, his voice a husky whisper that would melt any woman. Well, any woman who wasn’t about to double over and heave. “I shall leave ye with her so she can get ye settled and feeling better, but dinna worry—I shall return to watch over ye, ye ken?”

He was leaving her with someone she’d need to be extra careful with. Okay. She could do this. Especially since she didn’t really have any choice.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

His audible sigh made her wonder what he was thinking, but she didn’t dare look. Not after drinking all that water that was currently boiling in her gut and threatening to bubble back out.

“Take care of her,” Drummond said to the woman he’d summoned. “This is a rare and precious lady.”

“Aye, m’lord. It will be done as ye wish. I swear it.”

Mistress Martha’s voice was that of an older woman, a much older woman. But Evie detected an underlying strength. She’d lay odds that Mistress Martha pulled no punches.

As soon as the door clicked, the uncomfortable pressure in the air shifted again, and Evie’s ears popped. With the cloth still held over her eyes, she worked her jaw and rolled her head to ease the knots of tension in her neck. Things were better now. Her stomach had stopped churning enough that she risked taking the cloth away and opening her eyes.

“Better now, m’lady?” Mistress Martha asked. Draped in a black shawl, the stooped old woman with hair as white as winter watched her with dark amethyst eyes that glittered with energy and something else that seemed oh so familiar.

“Yes. Much better.” Evie studied the healer. What was it about this woman? “Why do I feel like I know you?”

With a hitched gait, Mistress Martha moved closer and held out a cup. “Drink, m’lady. These herbs will help stave off the illness. Enable ye to fight it and keep it from returning.”

“But why did I feel better without even drinking it?” She wasn’t a fool, and entirely too much had happened for her to accept anything at face value anymore. “And why do I feel as though I know you?”

“Perhaps yer soul recognizes mine.” The crone placed the cup in Evie’s hand and nudged it toward her mouth. “Drink, Lady Evie. It will help ye.”

“Why did I suddenly feel better?” Mistress Martha’s inability to answer a direct question with a direct answer was familiar too. But why?

“Drink the herbs, m’lady. Then we’ll get ye sorted with a dry shift. I placed one in front of the fire to warm for ye.”

Evie sniffed the cup and recoiled. The muck smelled like a heap of rotting vegetables that even a starving possum wouldn’t eat. She scooted to a sitting position and stretched to set the cup on the bedside table. “No, thank you. I don’t want to risk feeling better by drinking that. Sorry, but it smells like a swamp.”

The old woman’s eyes narrowed. “Ye need it, m’lady. More than ye know.” She picked up the cup and tried to hand it back to Evie. “Drink. I implore ye.”

Images of the wicked stepmother in disguise, handing Snow White a poisoned apple, flitted through Evie’s thoughts. She pushed the cup back toward Mistress Martha. “You taste it first to show me it’s not…questionable.”

The healer barely smiled, then agreed with a faint tilt of her head. “As ye wish, m’lady.” She accepted the cup, took a sip of the greenish-brown muck, then handed it back to Evie while licking her lips. “There ye be. Yer turn.”

Still not all that keen on drinking the concoction, Evie stared at the unappealing glop and swallowed hard. “Well…a deal is a deal.” Holding her breath, she downed it fast, then gagged while trying blindly to find the table for the empty cup.

Mistress Martha sprang to take it and set it aside, moving with surprising spryness. “Now, then. Here’s some water to rinse yer mouth.”

Evie took that cup without hesitation, swished a mouthful of the water, then spat it in a ceramic bowl that looked like a large soup tureen.

“We’ll keep this chamber pot beside the bed, and I’ll order another placed in the close stool behind the divider.”

Chamber pot. Evie almost gagged again. The year 1326 had no such thing as plumbing. Lovely.

With her knobby, arthritic fingers laced together, the healer smiled. “After a moment or two for the herbal to get good and settled, we’ll get ye bathed and into yer shift. Soon ye’ll be finer than fine.”

Finer than fine. Evie stared at the crone, who suddenly seemed strangely out of focus. Or maybe not exactly out of focus, but…something. She blinked to clear the annoying distortion of her vision. The view of the old, stoop-shouldered woman was overlaid on the image of a much younger, more vibrant female. It was like looking at a picture with double exposures. “Finer than fine,” she repeated slowly. “Morganna!”

Mistress Martha recoiled with a start, then backed away. She nervously patted her chest. “I be Mistress Martha, m’lady. Remember?”