Page 69 of Keeping Kate
Chapter 19
Click, clack, click-click.
He lay, eyes closed, half-dreaming on a warm and comfortable bed, the pain in his arm improved.Click, clack, click-click.
A few days and nights—he had not counted—in this deep pillow of a bed curtained in green damask, warm coverlets, soft linens. Quiet whispers, gentle hands, hot soup and cool cloths, the pungent aromas of ointment and hot compresses.
Click-click-click.
He knew he had struggled with blood loss and fever, the wound on his arm not simple at all, turning fierce, taking him down, though he fought the weakness. Someone had cleaned the wound, sewed it up, cleaned it again. Someone had poured whisky in a burning path down his throat. Skirts. Plaids. Male and female voices. He remembered a searing cautery iron and oblivion. Lost days. Two? Three?
Through it all, Kate was there, a dear and familiar face among the others. He was aware of a plump dark-haired woman with kind, firm hands and others. He saw the Highland twins who had tried to kill him. A lovely woman was there who looked like Kate, though she was with child. Was she real, or Kate in his fevered dream, life as he wished it could be?
Click, clack, click-click.
Kate’s presence was safety, love, and he watched her when he had only the strength to open his eyes, and lacked the breath to tell her he was grateful, tell her he loved her. She could have run away so easily this time. He wondered why she stayed.
Yet he would have stayed for her. His feelings were clear as a mountain loch now, hope and want burned clean by fever. Why had he not seen it before? It was so simple. He loved her.
Now he turned his head. She sat by the fire, haloed in its low golden light, head lowered, attention on some task. Her hands moved quickly, busily, over a small pillow in her lap. The light tapping sounded again.Click, click-click.
Thread bobbins. Those made the sound. A fine-spun web covered the little pillow, and her fingers formed a web of thread. Tiny pins gleamed in firelight, fixing the design, pale threads weaving tightly on an arrangement of slender bobbins, some of which dangled over the pillow’s slopes. She moved the bobbins back and forth, plaiting and twisting, fingers graceful, adept.
“So you weave fairy spells on a silken pillow,” he said. His voice was hoarse.
She looked up, smiled. His heart ached to see it. “It is lace,” she said. “I love you.”
At least he thought she said that before he slipped back into slumber. Fairy magic or dream, he was in her thrall.
“We will letyour brother decide what’s to be done with him,” Neill Murray said. The older man was her brother’s friend, a cousin to Connor MacPherson, and a man who spoke his mind freely.
Allan MacCarran, Kate’s cousin, stood by, nodding. “Rob may send him away.”
“He cannot do that,” Kate said quickly. “Captain Fraser could die if we move him now. Two days he fought fever and blood loss from that cut on his arm. He is still weak. Your wife Mary helped nurse him back to the living, Neill Murray. She will not let him go now either.”
She stood by Alec’s bed as he slept again—they all did now, talking quietly. Dipping a cloth in a bowl of rose water, she dabbed at his brow. The fever had broken and he slept deeply, but she knew that the fever with such wounds could return without warning. “He has had a serious wound and must recover.”
“What about my wound?” Neill said, touching his shoulder.
“Mary told us was a deep scratch and would heal,” Kate said. “How is it now?”
“Pains me,” Neill said.
“He is fine,” Allan said. “Tough as rock, Neill is, but whines like an old woman when he takes a little hurt.”
“Small! Cut me quick, that Fraser did. He has a fierce sword arm, for all he is a king’s man,” Neill said. “And he should not be here. Red soldiers have no place here.”
“What of Highland hospitality?” Kate asked. “I, for one, am glad he is here.”
“Ah, she would be,” Neill remarked, glancing at Allan.
“What is this?” Allan asked her. “You, caring about an officer, when you cannot wait to shake free of each one you meet, and with good reason?”
“Have you no eyes in your head, lad?” Neill grumbled.
Kate set down the cloth. Smoothing the coverlet over Alec’s chest as he slept, she noticed him stirring. She beckoned the others to follow her into the corridor, the space stone-lined, cool and shadowed.
“You know that I wish no harm to any man, regardless of the color of his coat or the slant of his politics. There is nothing particular about that officer.”
