Page 8 of Highlander's Sinless Nymph
Even if they’d spent the entire mornin’ gettin’ themselves ready, I doubt that there’d be a one that could hold a candle to this lass.
The flawless pale skin, the eyes as blue as the finest lapis lazuli, full lips that reminded him somehow of summertime fruit, and dark, wild hair that seemed to encapsulate the very Highlands in its untamable perfection.
“Ach!” Edward sucked his thumb where he had burned it. Whilst he had been gazing at Charlotte from the corner of his eye, he had not been concentrating on what he had been doing, and a tongue of flame from the kindled wood had given him a friendly lick.
“Oh my goodness,” Charlotte said, taking an uncertain step towards him, “did you burn yourself? Are you all right?”
Edward gazed up at the woman, silhouetted against the fading sky.
“Aye,” he said, “I’m grand. Never better.”
He realized he was grinning like an idiot. He cleared his throat and tried to get his face back under control.
“Ye on the other hand, Miss Charlotte, have sustained a grievous wound!” He smiled kindly at her, holding out his hand once again.
“You’re teasing me,” Charlotte said in her crisp English accent.
Edward nodded. “Oh, aye. I told ye that ye were a lass with plenty of arrows in yer quiver, did I nae?”
Charlotte opened her mouth to say something, but Edward beat her to it.
“Reminds me o’ somethin’ that the wee Blue Men might have been attributed to.”
“The wee Blue Men?” Charlotte asked, incredulously.
Edward, as a lad, had been more keen-eared for tales of mythical creatures and the great deeds of heroes, rather than those concerning the workings of nature that his mother often liked to tell him before bed. One of his favored ones, that he could still recall perfectly, was the story of the Blue Men of Minch.
“Do not tell me ye havenae heard o’ the Blue Men of Minch in England?” he said.
“Never,” Charlotte said.
“These Blue Men were said to live between the waters that separated the Isle of Lewis from mainland Scotland,” he started, just as his mother used to do. His mother had described them as wicked, crafty and dangerous folk and so, of course, were of the utmost interest to a young lad whose nature contained none of those elements.
“These wee blue-skinned rascals––also known as Storm Kelpies––were said to swim constantly around and about this area, just under the surface, which is why the sea was never still,” Edward continued. “They lay in wait for unsuspecting sailors to drown and, sometimes, could be seen waving their long gray-skinned arms in the air and performing tricks by jumping up and out of the restless waves.”
Edward smiled at the memory of his mother attempting to tell him these scarier tales. No matter how hard she tried, her grizzly faces always turned into smiles. Her dramatic, ghostly moans were always prone to dissolve into snorts of laughter.
“Folk would often blame wee injuries and mishaps they suffered by runnin’ water on the Blue Men, thinkin’ that they must have swam up the rivers. Injuries the likes that ye have.”
To his quiet delight, the faintest hint of a smile played around the corners of Charlotte’s lips, though she tried to hide it.
“Foolishness,” she said.
“Ah, maybe, but it made ye forget the pain fer a while, did it nae?”
“You have many stories about magical creatures, don’t you?” Charlotte replied.
“Did ye nae ken? Scotland is a land built on tall tales,” Edward said.
Charlotte’s little smile broadened a touch.
“Now, come here so I can take a wee look at that wound of yers, Charlotte,” he said, emboldened enough by that slight show of humor so that her name did not trip so awkwardly off his tongue, as it had before. “I do not imagine it will be so bad, but it’s best to clean a scrape like this as quick as maybe so that it does nae fester.”
Slowly, the young woman padded to the fire. Night was quickly descending now, as it was wont to do, and with the darkness came the chill. The dell was sheltered from the wind by the depression and the blackthorn hedges, but still the odd breeze managed to cut its way through at times.
Charlotte came and sat down next to Edward on the only thing that passed for a seat, a split log. By the light of the young fire, Edward carefully took the young woman’s arm in his hands and examined it.
“Hm,” he said, and that was all for the time being. Using a little water from a skin, he carefully wet the cloth of her sleeve so that he could peel it away from the four matching cuts on her forearm. He rolled the ruined sleeve up Charlotte’s arm.
