Page 52 of The Cruel Highlander's Healer
“Why did ye lie?” he whispered to her, keeping his voice low so there was no chance that Marissa would overhear.
“I dinnae lie,” Eliza argued, and he shot her a pointed look. “Alright, I did lie. But she dinnae need to ken that ye kidnapped me. Otherwise, she may flay ye alive. And then where would the bairns be?”
Conall nodded. “Well, thank ye for nae tellin’ her.”
Eliza’s response was cut off by Marissa’s return. The woman was marching up to them, her forceful presence immediately pervading the space.
“Arsenic,” she announced when she was within earshot, prompting Eliza to nod. “Ye made the tonic?”
Another nod from Eliza.
“Eliza is quite the healer,” Conall complimented, trying his best to keep his tone amicable.
Those grey eyes cut to him again, flashing.
“I ken, I’m the one that taught her.”
There was something about the woman before him that reminded him of a storm. She was quick as a flash of lightning, she could cut, she could destroy. But just like the rain she could heal; she could give life.
She, just like Eliza, was a force carved by God himself.
“We are grateful to her,” Conall continued to explain. “She’ll be stayin’ with us for a bit longer to tend to the patients, but then she’ll be comin’ home.”
“Ye’ll be stayin’ here another night?” Marissa asked expectantly. “So ye can watch after yer patients?”
A look of doubt crossed Eliza’s face. Conall had intended to ride out with her today, had delayed their leaving only so that he could show her the gardens. But it wasn’t hard to see that Marissa would think that leaving was a mistake.
“Aye,” Conall interjected, saving Eliza from having to make a decision on whether or not to lie to her mother again. “We’re stayin’ at the Thistlewood Inn tonight and will be headin’ back to the castle tomorrow mornin’. She was adamant that she stays to make sure everyone is healin’ as expected.”
Marissa nodded, clearly pleased with this answer.
“Have ye trained any of the locals?” she asked, prompting Eliza to nod.
“Aye,” she said quickly, her words coming out in an anxious rush. “Two women and a girl of near sixteen. They seem to be natural at it.”
Marissa paused, a thought clearly just occurring to her. She whirled on Conall.
“Why did ye seek out Eliza?” she hurled the question at him. “There are healers in other towns much closer than our hut. Why did ye come all that way for her?”
Conall’s mind whirled. He wasn’t sure why, but the approval of the woman before him seemed to matter quite a lot.
He knew he could say whatever he wanted, and she was a mere healer. She wouldn’t be able to question his authority or even demand that her daughter be brought back to their home.
But he didn’t want Eliza’s adopted mother to resent him.
So did he answer her with flattery? Did he tell her that he’d heard about how adept they were at healing and knew that if anyone could help the children of his lands, it was them?
Conall rejected the idea almost immediately. He had a feeling that Marissa was a woman who valued honesty. And he would not insult her intelligence by lying to her again, not when her daughter had already lied to her once.
“No other healer would help,” he answered honestly. “They dinnae think me people were worth helpin’.”
“Why would they think that?”
There was a glint in Marissa’s eyes, one which told him the old woman knew exactly why other healers would have rejected him. What he couldn’t tell, though, was whether or not she agreed with him.
“Because they’re me people,” he explained, leading with truth once again. “I am a laird; it is a title I hold with pride. I am fiercely protective of me lands and the people that live within them. And that fierceness has led to… sometimes violent consequences.”
Marissa stared at him, her grey eyes cool and unreadable. Her eyes swept from his boot to his brow, studying every single inch of him.
