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“I looked in on him a while ago and he was sleeping like a baby,” Lexie said. “Perhaps the pain woke him up.”
“I don’t care!” Evanna fumed as she poured water into a pot to steep the tea. “I am so sick of him!”
Lexie laughed inwardly. She knew that Evanna would miss Fraser when he was gone, in spite of her complaints. A young man had affected her own future for the better, and she had an inkling that Fraser was going to do the same for Evanna.
Evanna finished making the tea and took it upstairs, where she found Fraser still awake and grimacing with pain. “Be still, ye silly man,” she ordered as she held his head and tipped the tea into his mouth sip by tiny sip.
Fraser did as he was told, and despite the bitter unappetizing taste of the liquid, he soon found that his pain was easing somewhat. At last, it was finished, and he lay back with his head on the pillow, his eyes closed. His thoughts were still troubled, however.
“Go tae sleep,” Evanna said gently. “Sleep heals. I will be here if ye need me.”
“Ye are the one who has been sleeping beside me?” he asked, astonished.
“Yes, I am,” Evanna replied. “Yer enemies must not know ye are here, so ye have tae be kept away from everyone else. I don’t want them breakin’ intae the tavern tae find ye. Lexie an’ I are the only ones who can walk in an’ out o’ here without anyone bein’ suspicious, so I have tae stay wi’ ye. Now for the hundredth time, go tae sleep!”
* * *
It took Evanna less than a minute to fall asleep, but Fraser lay awake for a long time thinking over what to do next. He could do nothing until his injury healed, of course, so it seemed that, for the moment, he was imprisoned. Then he looked down at Evanna sleeping in peace on her pallet on the floor. He smiled as he thought that if he had to be incarcerated, there were far worse prisons than this one. Many men would pay just to watch Evanna sleep.
He had much to think about. Rowan had surely found out by now that he was not dead, and he wondered what his cousin’s next plan would be. Had he managed to win over Laird Gilchrist and convince him that Fraser was his real enemy? Or had he simply let the laird think he had run away and deserted his company?
Rowan was eaten up by jealousy, he knew that. He had always hated Fraser, but although he knew it, Fraser had vastly underestimated the strength of Rowan’s jealousy. Up until Rowan had shown his hand, he had thought that it was something that he could deal with. He would never in a million years have thought him capable of murder, but he had been wrong.
Then he thought back to a conversation they had had a few weeks before the attempt on his life, when he had brought up the subject of the Mulhollands.
“There were a few sheep poached on auld Tom Nugent’s farm a wee while ago,” Rowan had said, a deep frown creasing his face. “Our lads tried tae find them but nobody was talkin’. I heard that Tam Dalziel’s prize plow horse was taken too. I hope there is no’ a gang workin’ in our estate because if there is, it can only be the Mulhollands. There has been a couple o’ other problems—barns burnt, things like that.”
“I don't think it is worth our while tae start a war over a few livestock,” Fraser had answered drily. “Anyway, why does it have tae be the Mulhollands? There are bandits everywhere, and we fight wi’ them a’ the time. We are no’ here tae fight wi’ our neighbors because they are from a different clan, an’ if there is a problem then let the lairds sort it out. They are the ones in charge o’ matters, an’ it is better tae talk tae each other an’ make a plan tae deal wi’ it than tae spill blood.”
“They were enemies in the past,” Rowan pointed out mulishly.
“That was a hundred years ago!” Fraser protested. “They have made peace now, an’ I’ll wager they both want tae keep it that way.”
“Ye want tae marry his daughter, do ye no’?” Rowan asked, his eyes narrowed, his voice suspicious. “She is a very beautiful lady, is she no’?”
“Do not be so stupid!” Fraser said scathingly. “Jeannette is a lovely lass, but she is no’ for me. Anyway, I am a warrior, a head o’ one of the companies o’ the guard. One o’ these days I might be captain o’ the guard, but that is as much as I can hope for. Maybe I can marry a farmer’s daughter, but a laird’s?” His voice was high with disbelief. “Jeannette is a lady and used tae the luxuries o’ life. She would never look twice at the likes o’ me—or any o’ us, for that matter. We are no’ in her class.” He scowled at Rowan and turned away.
He had no idea that Rowan was watching him walking away, his face dark with rage. Fraser McLachlan was everything he was not. He was tall, well-built, and handsome. Ladies liked him, and men respected him. As well as that, he had integrity and intelligence, two qualities Rowan could never hope to aspire to.
As he thought back on their conversation, Fraser knew that this hatred had been growing within his cousin ever since they were children. Fraser had always been the bigger and stronger of the two of them and had beaten his cousin in every kind of physical contest, whether it was wrestling, racing, or archery. He could even win most of their chess matches.
Now he realized, with the clarity of hindsight, that he should have given way to Rowan more. It would have been charitable to let him win now and again, but he was only a child, then a youth without the maturity to realize how badly Rowan’s hatred was building toward him.
He sighed into the darkness and then felt a pleasant drowsiness creeping over him. In a few more moments, he was asleep.
* * *
Evanna woke up and looked at Fraser as the first grey light of dawn seeped into the room under the shutters. He was still asleep, although he was twitching and moaning in pain. Perhaps it was time for something stronger than willow bark tea, she thought, but she was hesitant to procure milk of the poppy since it was said to be habit-forming. She would have to ask Lexie, although laying her hands on milk of the poppy might cause unnecessary and unwanted questions.
She went to wash herself at the washstand, facing away from Fraser, but some sixth sense told her that she was being watched, and she whipped around to see Fraser observing her with half-open eyes.
She gave a little squeal of fright and hastily turned away, but the light was still dim and the shadows were deep, so it was unlikely that he had seen anything inappropriate. However, just in case, Evanna covered up her exposed neck and the top of her chest, which she had been laving with a scrap of linen. Damn. This was incredibly embarrassing!
Evanna decided that for the moment she would ignore him since she had to clean the bedroom and make herself presentable if she could, even though it would be impossible to change clothes with a man in the chamber. She settled for pinning her hair up and dabbing herself with a little lavender water.
Then she set about brushing his clothes down with a wet brush. Ideally, they should have been washed, but bringing bags of laundry into the kitchen would have invited questions from Donna and Flora.
All the time Evanna was working, she felt Fraser’s eyes on her, although he said nothing as the light broadened and the darkness changed to daylight, merely continuing to watch her every movement. Her skin prickled, and from time to time she glanced at him, but he was silent, although his face still occasionally twitched with pain.
