Page 31 of The Cruel Highlander's Healer
I was plenty warm with the Laird right behind me.
Her cheeks flared with heat as the thought wound its way through her. Shaking her head, Eliza banished the words from her mind. She tried to distract herself by pacing back and forth, always within view of the two guards who were looking out for her.
The Laird returned, his steps confident as he strode across the town square back towards them. Councilman Aulds walked at his side, and the two were caught in a conversation she could not hear as they approached.
Eliza watched the Laird as he approached, studying his face and the way emotion flickered across it as he spoke with the Councilman. His scar was stark on his cheek, stretching taut across his skin as his mouth moved.
There was something primal about it. Something feral. Her fingertips tingled with the desire to trail across it, imagining the smoothness of it beneath her skin.
Enough of that.
She shook her head, banishing the thoughts as the Laird and the Councilman grew near. Their conversation died out once they were within earshot, their attention diverted from one another to Eliza.
She raised her brows.
“How many more have fallen ill?” she asked.
The Councilman’s one word answer sent chills down her spine.
“Many.”
“And the symptoms?” Eliza prodded. “All the same.”
The councilman nodded, not going into any further detail before The Laird began speaking.
“I’ve instructed the Councilman that we’ll set up in the square,” he said, his voice calm and in control.
She nodded, her own sense of calm washing over her.
“We’ll have them bring out cots and begin movin’ the sick,” the Laird continued. “And ye said ye have a tent?”
The councilman grunted his agreement. “Aye, a few large ones. They should all fit in the square. It’ll hold ‘em.”
The Laird considered this, pausing for a moment as he looked around the space. Then he whirled on them, immediately barking out orders to Alistair and Dougal, pointing and instructing on exactly where everything was to be set up.
A few of the village men who had not yet fallen ill came to help them, the large men making quick work of clearing the square so they could get set up.
If the symptoms are the same, could they have been poisoned too?
She didn’t voice the thought to anyone else, not as she spun on her heel and looked around her.
Eliza’s mind worked, each thought stumbling over the next one as she tried to analyze every single possibility. She was caught off guard when the Laird whirled on her, brown eyes flashing.
“I’d start makin’ that tonic, lass,” he growled. “Ye’re in for a very long day.”
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
“Ye sure I’m grindin’ it right?” Conall asked, moving the pestle Eliza had given him in a mimicry of the motion she’d tried to teach him.
Eliza watched for a moment, staring over his shoulder. The hairs along the back of Conall’s neck rose on end as he felt her creeping closer. The heat of her tickled against him, making him hyperaware of her presence.
“It’s actually like this,” she murmured, leaning over him to help guide his hands in the correct movement.
The moment her hands came down to touch his, laying atop his palms so that she could move his hand for him, his skin was ignited with the heat of a sun. He wanted to flip over that hand, to run his fingers along the palm of it. He wanted to watch the way she squirmed while he touched her.
He wondered what that hand would look like wrapped around him. He tried to drive the image from his mind, but he was bombarded with another instead.
It was Eliza, brown doe eyes wild and wide the moments after their kiss a few nights prior. Her lips had been swollen, her cheeks flushed with desire.
