4

How quickly the angel became the devil. As the warrior’s fever raged throughout

the next day, he alternated cursing Keeley as the devil’s handmaiden sent to drag him into

the bowels of hell and believing she was the sweetest of angels.

She was exhausted and was never quite sure from one moment to the next if he’d

try to kiss her senseless or try to cast her as far from his side as he was able. She could

only give thanks to God that he was so weakened from his injury and the fever that he

wasn’t able to do much more than flail his arm at her.

She felt bad for him. She truly did. She soothed. She wiped his brow. She

murmured over and over, stroking his hair and even pressing kisses to his brow. He liked

the kisses.

Once he moved his mouth up and caught hers in a hot, lusty kiss that stole her

breath completely away. The man surely had a hearty appetite for loving because when

he wasn’t cursing her, he spent all his time trying to kiss her senseless.

To her shame, she didn’t try to dissuade him. He was, after all, a very sick man.

That was the excuse she used, and she refused to countenance any other reason for her

tolerance of his affections.

As the afternoon got on, she separated some broth from the venison stew she

prepared. She’d been extremely pleased when a grateful recipient of her healing had left

half of a venison carcass at her door. It would feed her for days to come and feed her

well.

Carrying the broth in a small cracked cup, she knelt by the warrior’s side and

went about the arduous task of getting him to sip the warm liquid.

Thankfully he wasn’t in a combative mood and was back to thinking her the

sweetest of angels. He sipped the offering as if it were ambrosia offered by God himself.

And maybe in the warrior’s fever-riddled mind it was.

She nearly spilt the broth all over his chin when a knock sounded at her door. Fear

gripped her stomach as she hastily looked around for some way to hide the warrior. Hide

such a man? He took up her entire floor.

She laid the cup aside and put a soothing hand on the warrior’s forehead, hoping

he wouldn’t choose now to start muttering blasphemies. Then she rose and hurried

toward the door.

She opened it just a crack and peered out. It was nearly sunset. The sun was

barely visible over the distant mountaintop. She shivered as the wretched cold wind blew

over her.

She breathed a little easier when she saw it was simply a neighboring crofter. That

is, until she remembered the warrior’s huge horse that had taken up residence on the side

of her cottage.

She stepped outside with a smile and glanced left and right, frowning when she

saw no sign of the animal. Where had the beast gone? The warrior surely wouldn’t be

pleased if he’d lost such a fine animal. Perhaps the horse had even been stolen. It wasn’t

as if all her attention hadn’t been consumed by caring for the warrior. Guarding a

contrary animal wasn’t part of her duties.

“I’m sorry to be bothering you, Keeley, on such a cold day at that,” Jane McNab

began.

Keeley snapped her attention back to Jane and forced a smile to her lips. “ ’Tis no

problem at all. I just ask you keep your distance. I find I’m ailing, and I wouldn’t want

you to be similarly plagued.”

The other woman’s eyes rounded and she took a hasty step back. At least now she

wouldn’t expect Keeley to invite her inside her cottage.

“I wondered if I could trouble you for some salve for Angus’s chest. He’s

coughing something fierce. Happens every time there’s a turn in the weather.”

“Of course,” Keeley said. “I made a fresh batch just two days ago. Wait here and

I’ll fetch it.”

She hurried inside and rummaged in the corner where she kept her mixtures and

potions. She’d made an extra supply of the thick paste Angus used because she had

several regulars who suffered the same affliction. Using one of her cracked cups, she

portioned out enough of the concoction to last a week and then brought it back out to

where Jane shivered in the cold.

“Thank you, Keeley. I’ll pray you are back to rights soon,” Jane said. She pressed

a coin into Keeley’s palm and before Keeley could protest, Jane turned and hurried off.

With a shrug, Keeley went back inside and secured the coin in the knotted piece

of linen where she kept the rest of her meager funds. With the coming winter, she’d have

need of all the coin she could rummage for when the food supplies ran low.

Her warrior was quiet and seemed to be resting even if fitfully. He twitched and

stirred in his sleep, but he’d ceased his ramblings. She heaved a sigh of relief. ’Twas the

truth she hadn’t had to fake the weary, half-sick look to convince Jane that she was ailing.

She was exhausted. Probably looked on the verge of death herself, and she’d give

anything for a restful night.

She knelt by the warrior and laid her palm over his brow, frowning at how dry

and hot his skin was to the touch. He gave a light shiver and his muscles coiled and

tensed as if trying to ward off the cold.

She eyed the hearth and knew she’d have to venture out once more to replenish

the wood stock for the night ahead. Already the wind howled and whistled by her

window, ruffling the skin covering the opening.

Knowing it was better to have done with it so she could spend the rest of the night

in the warmth of her cottage, she pulled her shawl around her tightly and ventured out to

collect another armful of wood.

By the time she returned, her shawl had ripped away from her and blew in the

wind, held only by one corner. She shoved inside, dumped the wood on the floor by the

hearth, and set about stoking the fire until the blaze licked high up the chimney.

She was hungry but was simply too tired to eat. All she wanted was to lie down

and close her eyes. She surveyed the sleeping warrior and pondered the likelihood of

getting a sleeping draught down his throat.

Thrashing about did his injury no good, and neither of them got much-needed rest

when he flopped around in the throes of God knew what kind of delusion.

Wondering if she’d ever take her bed this night, she mixed the draught and knelt

back down, curling her arm underneath the warrior’s neck. She hoisted him as far up as

she could muster and held the cup to his lips.

“Drink now,” she said in a soothing voice. “ ’Twill set things to right for this

night. You have need of a peaceful sleep.”

And so do I.

He drank it down docilely, grimacing only as the last washed down his throat.

Blowing out her breath, she lowered him back down, arranged a fur over him to keep him

warm, and then settled beside him, her head resting in the crook of his arm.

It wasn’t the most modest of accommodations. If anyone saw her, they’d be

scandalized and she’d be labeled a whore all over again. But no one was here to judge

her, and she’d be damned if she allowed it under her own roof. She’d given up her warm

bedding for the warrior. The least he could do was share his body heat.

Some of this trembling eased as she melded closer to his body. He even gave a

sigh of contentment and turned blindly, his arm sliding over her waist. He smoothed his

hand up her back until his palm was splayed wide between her shoulder blades. Then he

simply tucked her into the shelter of his body and pulled her head into the hollow of his

neck.

It was like being surrounded by a blazing fire. Heat seeped into her flesh until her

muscles were bathed in it. She was careful not to touch his side, though she longed to

throw her own arm possessively over his side as he was holding her. She contented

herself instead with tucking her hand between their chests, feeling his heart thud against

her palm.

“You are a beautiful man, warrior,” she whispered. “I know not where you hail

from or whether you are friend or foe, but you are the most beautiful man I’ve ever

encountered.”

As she drifted into a blissful sleep, warmth surrounding her like a blanket, the

warrior smiled in the darkness.