Page 72 of Laird of Flint
He nodded. That was what he needed. Pain to distract him from lust.
Her fingers were surprisingly gentle as she unwrapped the linen bandage. She winced more than he did when exposing the greasy, blistered palm of his hand. But it appeared to be no worse than before.
“Perhaps ’twill hurt less if ye do this yourself,” she said, offering him a clean rag to wipe away the old balm. “Take care not to burst the blisters.”
After he was done, she dabbed a honey-butter mixture over his clean skin with a feather-light touch. Then she tenderly swaddled his hand in fresh linen.
Someone came to the door to deliver a bottle of wine. He watched as Carenza poured out a cup and carefully added three drops of the tincture.
Then he frowned.
What if Peris’s measurements hadn’t been an error? What if he meant to do Hew harm? Hew had made the man nervous with the questions about his monastery visits. At the time, he’d assumed it was because the physician was unused to being interrogated by a warrior. But perhaps it was something more.
“Do you think Peris is hiding something?”
“Hidin’ somethin’?” she said, swirling the cup of wine. “Hidin’ what?”
He shook his head. “He’s been acting uneasy ever since I questioned him that first day.”
She considered this for a moment and then asked, “Whydidye question him?”
He couldn’t tell her the truth. At least not all of it. “I…wanted to know what he does at the monastery. How often he goes. What kind of access he has.”
“Why?”
“Why?” he echoed.
He couldn’t divulge details about his investigation. So he had to invent something. Fast. Not an easy feat when one was indulging in regular doses of opium wine.
“Because if Kildunan wishes to hire their own physician, they’ll need to know such things.”
“Perhaps Peris is afraid ye mean to replace him.”
“Perhaps. But is that cause to poison me?”
“I do think it may have been an accident.”
He sighed. He wasn’t so sure. “I don’t trust him.”
She popped the stopper back into the bottle of wine and turned away to set it on the table. “Is that why ye were skulkin’ about the hills o’ Dunlop in the middle o’ the night?”
That he didn’t expect.
And he didn’t have an answer for her.
So he did what any clever adversary would do.
He created a distraction.
“Ahh!” he cried out suddenly, doubling up with a grimace of pain. He lifted his injured hand and gasped as if someone had just lopped it off.
It worked. With a look of horror, Carenza rushed toward him with the cup of wine.
“Here,” she said. “Drink this. Ye should feel better soon.”
He drank it down all at once while she paced, fretfully wringing her hands, distressed by his distress.
But the silence he’d purchased with his suffering couldn’t last forever.
