Page 51 of A Bride for the Kilted Beast

“He’s awake!” he heard Lillie exclaim. He looked at her, expecting her to lean down and kiss him. Instead, she gave him a furious glare and raised her hand, clearly about to slap his face. He closed his eyes and tensed for the blow to impact his aching head. But it never came.

He heard Ciarán’s laughter and opened his eyes.

“Never, ever dae anything tae frighten me like that again!” she shouted at him. To his surprise she seemed genuinely shaken and upset, as if she really cared that he was alive. For some reason, the thought warmed the region of his heart, and for a moment or two, his pain receded a little.

“Ye cannae slap a man when he’s down,” Ciarán was saying to Lillie laughingly.

“Och, after what he’s put us through, he deserves it!” she replied, taking Diarmaid’s hand and holding it while her eyes scanned his face, full of anxiety. Diarmaid lay looking up at them both as Finian continued his work cleaning up his face, grimacing now and then when the healer touched a particularly sore spot.

“I’m sorry,” he managed to mumble through his badly cut and swollen lips. He felt a great wave of love and affection for the pair standing over him, as though a bond had somehow sprung into existence between the three of them. His brother and his wife—they had no idea how important they were to him.

“Och, dinnae even try tae speak,” Lillie told him. When Finian went to change the water in the washing bowl, she leaned down and pressed her lips very gently to Diarmaid’s sore mouth in a sweet kiss. His heart somersaulted in his chest at her touch, and he was flooded with strange and powerful emotions he did not quite understand.

He tried to kiss her back, trying to convey through his intensity how much she really meant to him. Warmth spread through him when she responded with unexpected passion.

The lingering kiss broke when Finian returned to carry on cleaning up his wounds. Along with fresh water and clean rags, he also brought a small beaker containing a concoction which he asked Diarmaid to drink.

“This will relieve the worst of the pain and will help ye tae sleep, m’laird. Sleep is the best medicine in this case,” he said. Ciarán helped Diarmaid to sit up slightly, enough to drink the bitter tasting liquid. It hurt even to feel the cup on his lips.

“Now I ken ye’ll be all right, I’ll give the pair o’ ye some time tae yerselves,” Lillie said, gently stoking Diarmaid’s brow and nodding at Ciarán. “I’ll be back tae see ye presently,” she promised Diarmaid. Her eyes were soft as she smiled down upon him. He tried to smile back, but it was too painful. But to his great relief, it seemed as if the anger and tension that had divided them for days had completely vanished.

Maybe I should get beat up more often if this is how it makes her act!

As soon as Lillie had left them, Diarmaid waved Finian away for a moment.

“I just want tae have a word with me braither,” he mumbled, reaching up and pulling Ciarán down to him by his lapel.

“What is it, Braither? Ye need to let the healer dae his work,” Ciarán told him.

“Listen,” Diarmaid whispered urgently in reply. “I want ye tae make sure there are even more men guarding Lillie after this. It was Odhrán’s men who did this tae me.” He briefly explained what had happened and what the men had wanted when they had tortured him. “I dinnae think they will stop until they get her,” he finished. “Promise me ye’ll keep her safe.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Aye, ye ken I will, Diarmaid, dinnae fash yerself,” Ciarán assured him. He smiled slyly. “Ye have tae admit now that ye care about the lass more than ye’re lettin’ on. Ye have feelings fer her, eh?”

“Ach, dinnae be so foolish. I dinnae have feelings fer her,” Diarmaid said, shaking his head on the pillow and immediately regretting the sudden movement, for it sent shards of agony through his head. But despite his denial, he knew deep down he was lying. “I want her right enough. What man wouldnae want a lass so bonny? But feelings? Nay.”

He was shocked to see Ciarán frown, while his eyes appeared full of concern.

“I ken ye, Diarmaid, and I can see by the way ye look at Lillie that ’tis more than just lust. Ye care fer her, so why will ye nae just admit it?”

“There’s naething tae admit, I tell ye, now hush yer fussin’, will ye?”’ Diarmaid shot back, getting irritated by his brother’s insistence but too exhausted to fight. But it seemed Ciarán was not finished.

“I warn ye, Braither,” he said, his expression unusually serious. “Ye’re gonnae lose that lass if ye dinnae stop acting like this… like a jealous, overprotective brute.”

He straightened up. “I’ll leave ye tae think on that,” he added with a last look at Diarmaid. He turned to the healer, gesturing to him that he was done talking to his brother. “Tend him well,” was all he said before striding from the room.

Diarmaid laid back on the pillow. He was ruffled by Ciarán’s warning. Deep inside, he knew there was truth to what his brother had said, and it was frightening to him. To have one of those he loved cruelly snatched away again, as Lillie could be, was something he could not face. So, he hardened his heart against his wife.

I cannae, willnae let mesel’ care fer her and tae then lose her. I couldnae stand the pain.

While Finian continued to work on his face, Diarmaid felt his eyes growing heavier until he could hardly keep them open. The need for sleep was becoming overwhelming, and the pain was beginning to recede from his body. That concoction Finian had given him must have been starting to work, he supposed, gratefully closing his eyes and letting himself sink into peaceful sleep.

Whether it was because of the beating he had taken to his head or the painkilling concoctions Finian kept giving him to drink, the next few days took on a dreamlike quality for Diarmaid. In the first instance, his wife seemed to go through a transformation, revealing fully to him a part of herself he had only glimpsed in secret when she had saved little Hetty from choking.

While he lay in his sick bed in the healing room, Lillie stayed with him most of the time, leaving only to answer a call of nature or, he had to assume, when she was sleeping. The whole time, she talked to him, telling him stories about her childhood at, so she claimed, Castle MacDonald, as the youngest child of the laird.

She described the lands of her clan so vividly, he felt he had flown far above them like the golden eagles who populated the craggy mountain tops within, almost as if he had glided on the warm air currents across the valleys and forested glens all the way to the sea as the majestic creatures did.