The Highlander's Promise Read online

  The layout of the new lodge was much the same as the lodge that had burned down in an attempt to murder his sister-in-law, Murine, two years earlier. He'd had it built a little larger though, and had two bedrooms put on the upper floor rather than just the one. Despite that spare room, Aulay carried the lass to his bedchamber. It was the nicer of the two, and larger. It was also the only one properly set up with furniture just yet. The other held only a small bed, while his room had a larger one with bedside tables, and a small dining table and chairs set up by the fire.

  Pausing beside the bed, he peered down at the woman in his arms and hesitated. She was still soaking wet, her gown dripping on the floor with each step he took. He really should have thought to remove the dress before bringing her inside, he supposed. It would have saved his having to clean up the mess he'd just trailed through the house.

  Grimacing, Aulay turned and carried her to the table instead and sat her on it. Supporting her back with one hand so that she remained upright, he began to tug at her gown with the other, and soon realized that was not going to work. Wet as it was, the damned thing was clinging to her like a second skin, and, apparently, he had lost all dexterity at undressing a woman. There was a time he would have made short work of it. He used to get a lot of practice, but that had stopped some years ago.

  Pushing the thought away, Aulay pulled out his dirk, slipped it carefully under the neckline of the gown and quickly sliced the front wide open. A surprised grunt slid from his lips when the dress gaped, leaving a display of pale flesh. The lass was white as a swan and covered in goose bumps from her time in the ocean and the wet clothes. The only splashes of color he noted were the two round, cinnamon nipples that were presently puckered and hard, also from being cold. Although he imagined they would look much the same from passion too.

  Swallowing, Aulay forced his gaze away from her body and peered at her face as he began to work the gown off first one arm and then the other.

  "My apologies, lass, but there are no ladies here to tend ye at the moment," he murmured, working quickly at her sleeves. Much to his relief, they came off relatively quickly and the top of the gown dropped away to gather around her waist. That was when he saw the bruising that started just below her breasts and continued down to disappear under the gown. They were marks left by the rope that had bound her to the mast. The dark lines ran around her stomach and sides, while her back was one large bruise, he saw when he leaned forward to look at it. A result of being cast about on the ocean waves while tied to the mast, he supposed. Grasping her by the waist just above the cloth of her ruined gown, he lifted her off the table. The tattered dress dropped off at once to land on the floor with a wet slap.

  "There, that was no' so bad, was it? I expected more o' a fight to get it off and--Oh, Christ," Aulay ended on a mutter as he turned his attention from the wet cloth on the floor to the woman he held and noted that he'd lifted her high enough that her breasts were now directly in front of his mouth. Aulay closed his eyes at once and counted to ten . . . twice . . . and then again. It had been far too long since he'd enjoyed the company of a woman and this was just . . . well, it was like a starving man having the finest ale waved before his nose.

  "Control yerself, ye idjit," he muttered to himself. "Just put her in the bed."

  Aulay peeked one eye open to look around to see where the bed was in relation to where they stood. He then started toward it, still with just the one eye open. He had crossed half the distance when it occurred to him that he could lower the woman and remove the temptation presently waving in front of his salivating mouth. She was nearly a foot shorter than him after all, and he was presently holding her a good two feet off the floor. He didn't need to hold her that high.

  Rolling his eyes at his own stupidity, Aulay lowered her several inches and then allowed his second eye to open as he navigated his way to the bed. He quickly laid her in it, and tried not to look at her as he swiftly pulled the linen and furs up to cover her.

  "There!" he said, straightening with relief once he'd finished the task. Aulay then looked down at her with a satisfaction that quickly turned to a frown as he noted her perfect white and bare shoulders above the fur. Bending, he pulled the furs all the way to her chin and straightened again, but then considered the lass. Rory would want to examine her, of course. He'd come in, pull the furs down and--

  Muttering under his breath, Aulay hurried to his chest and retrieved the spare white linen shirt he'd brought with him. It was a little wrinkled, but freshly laundered. Returning with it to the bed, he reached for the furs and then hesitated. As ashamed as he was to admit it, Aulay didn't think he could look at all that perfect white flesh and those hard nipples again without touching and possibly tasting them as he dressed her. There was only so much temptation a man could handle and the devil in him was already arguing that it would not hurt to just give them a quick lick or suckle. She'd never know.

  It really had been a long time since he'd lain with a woman. Too long if he was having thoughts like this, Aulay decided with self-disgust.

  Setting his jaw, he bent to reach for the top of the furs again, and then paused as he had an idea. Smiling at his own cleverness, he left the furs where they were for now and instead worked at getting her head into the shirt, a much more difficult task than you'd think. Or perhaps he did it wrong. He started with the hem, lifting her up slightly, furs and all, and pulling the hem of the shirt over her head and then tugging and tugging the material down until her head finally cleared the neck hole.

  Easing her back to lay flat again, Aulay carefully withdrew one of her arms from under the furs and then the other. Leaving them lying on the furs that now reached just to her armpits, he quickly found one of the sleeves and then stuck the nearer arm into it, feeding the limb in with one hand, and pulling it out with the other. After doing the same with the other arm, he grasped the hem of the shirt in both hands, then gathered the top of the furs in each as well with the cloth and simply pulled downward, covering her with the linen shirt even as he withdrew the furs.

  Aulay was just congratulating himself for his ingenuity and was pulling the furs back up when he noticed that the shirt was backward on her. Even worse, while the cloth on top covered her from neck to past her knees, the back was still up by her shoulders, leaving the shirt covering only most of her. He briefly considered righting the shirt and making sure the back went all the way down too, but then shook his head and pulled the furs up to her chin again. Nay. He'd managed to strip and dress the woman without doing anything to shame himself, and wasn't risking mucking it up now.

  Sighing, Aulay straightened to peer at her. His mouth tightened when he noted the blood on the pillow. From her head wound, he realized, and there was a lot of it. He'd meant to take a look and clean away the blood while he waited for Rory, but had forgotten all about it after getting her gown off.

  Turning, Aulay hurried from the room to fetch water and fresh linens to cut into bandages. Within moments he had her upright, slumped against his chest as he leaned over her and gently cleaned the wounds on the back of her head. It was a difficult task with her hair in the way. Aulay could barely see what he was trying to clean through the long, thick strands, and what he could see looked pretty nasty. So he was more than relieved when he heard the pounding of horse hooves approaching the lodge.

  After easing her back onto the bed, Aulay balled up the scrap of linen with which he'd been trying to clean away the blood. Tossing it into the bowl of now red water on the bedside table, he then stood to walk to the window.

  "Thank God," Aulay muttered when he spotted his uncle and brothers riding up to the lodge. He watched them dismount and tether their horses before he moved out of the room to watch from the landing as they entered below.

  "Aulay," Rory said, sounding relieved when he spotted him. "Alick scared the devil out of us. He rushed us all out here without even slowing long enough to explain what was amiss. I thought ye must be direly wounded or some such to account for th
e urgency."

  "Me too," Conran said grimly, glowering at their youngest brother.

  "Ye said no' to let anyone else ken what was happening, and they were in the practice field at Buchanan with soldiers everywhere," Alick explained when Aulay glanced to him. "Each one o' them was fighting a Buchanan soldier, and I did no' think I should take the time to take each one o' them aside to explain what had happened. The lass looked to need help quickly."

  "Aye," Aulay agreed solemnly.

  "Lass?" Uncle Acair asked, glancing curiously from Alick to Aulay.

  Turning away from the rail, Aulay merely waved for them to ascend and moved back into the room where the woman rested. The lodge was immediately filled with the sound of pounding feet as his brothers and uncle rushed upstairs to join him. When the sound stopped abruptly, Aulay glanced back to see that Uncle Acair and Rory had stumbled to a halt just inside the door as they spotted the woman in his bed. They were presently preventing everyone else from entering.

  "Move, man! The lass needs help," Aulay growled impatiently, and the words had Rory continuing forward again at once.

  "What's wrong with her?" Rory asked as he hurried around the bed.

  "The back o' her head took a terrible beating," Aulay explained as Rory sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over her to lift her eyelids.

  "Who is she?"

  "Who beat her?"

  "Is that blood?"

  "What happened to her dress?"

  Aulay turned at those questions from his brothers and uncle as they fanned out in the room, examining anything and everything they could find, including the woman in the bed.

  When he noted the way his uncle was scowling as he examined the wet dress he'd picked up, Aulay ignored the other questions and answered his first. "I had to cut off her dress."

  "Is that blood?" Geordie asked again, moving closer to the bed to get a better look.

  "Aye," Aulay grunted, noting that blood now stained both the pillow and linens. "She took some terrible injuries to her head. I suspect from it bouncing off the mast we found her strapped to when we headed out fishing. The storm last night was fierce."

  "Did she wake again after I left?" Alick asked as he stepped up beside him to peer down at her pale face.

  Aulay shook his head.

  "So we do no' ken who she is?" Alick asked.

  "Nay," he admitted, watching Rory pull the furs down so that he could turn the woman onto her side away from them. The position made it much easier for him to examine her head, Aulay noted, and shook his head at himself for not thinking to do that himself when he was trying to clean the wound.

  "She was awake when ye found her?" Rory asked sharply, his gaze moving from Aulay to Alick and back.

  "Aye," they answered together, and then Aulay rumbled, "She spoke a bit ere passing out."

  Shaking his head, Rory turned to poke and prod at the back of the lass's head. "I am amazed she was awake, let alone spoke. Dear God, she took a beating."

  "Aye," Aulay agreed. What he'd been able to see had seemed bad.

  "And this is from her head hitting the mast?" Rory asked with disbelief.

  "As far as we ken," Aulay answered.

  "It was a pretty bad storm here," Alick said, and then told Aulay, "Apparently, it mostly bypassed Buchanan keep. All they got there was a bit o' wind and some drizzle."

  Aulay merely nodded. That happened sometimes.

  "It must have been more than pretty bad for her to take this much damage," Rory said grimly.

  Aulay grunted. "The mast was probably bobbing around on the water like a cork in rapids."

  "What the devil was she doing strapped to a mast?" Uncle Acair asked with disgust, moving up on the other side of the bed to peer at her.

  "Mayhap to keep her from falling overboard in the storm," Alick said, repeating his earlier suggestion.

  "Making her stay below deck would ha'e done the job just as well, and wouldn't have left her bobbing around the ocean with her head pounding on the wood over and over," Geordie pointed out with displeasure.

  "Ye say she spoke when ye first found her?" Uncle Acair asked.

  Aulay merely nodded. It was Alick who told them, "Aye, Aulay asked her name and said he'd send word to her family, but she did no' like that idea at all. She started jabbering on about cats and white ladies and someone trying to kill her. Aulay had to promise he would no' find her family until she was healthy and well again just to calm her."

  That wasn't exactly true, but it was close enough for now, so Aulay didn't comment and simply shifted his attention to Rory as the man sighed and straightened.

  "Well?" Aulay barked, not liking the grim expression on his brother's face. He'd seen it before, usually when Rory didn't expect a patient to survive whatever wound they'd taken.

  "She's in a bad way, Aulay, but I'll do me best to help her," he said solemnly. "I'll need to cut away her hair to better see and clean the wound, and then I need boiled water, clean linens, and my medicinals."

  "Did ye no' bring them?" Aulay asked with alarm.

  "Aye, but I set them down on the table below when I saw ye were well. I did no' ken about the lass here."

  "I'll get yer medicinals," Alick said, leaving the room.

  "I'll start some water boiling and find some clean linens fer ye to use," Geordie offered, following Alick.

  Silence fell in the room briefly, and then Uncle Acair glanced to him and commented, "So we've another lass on our hands with someone trying to kill her?"

  "So it would seem," Aulay said with a shrug. It did appear to be becoming something of a habit with the Buchanan men. Two of his brothers now had married lasses whose lives had been in threat and whom they'd kept safe. He had to wonder if it would happen a third time, and if so, which brother would be lucky enough to win the beautiful lass in his bed. Shifting, he said, "'Twas hard to follow some o' what she said. But it sounded like she was being forced to marry someone who was no' her betrothed and who had killed his first wife, and she thought would kill her."

  "And the cat and white lady?" Conran asked.

  Aulay shrugged. "Mayhap her cat and a Lady White went down with the ship."

  The men nodded as if that made sense, and then glanced back to the lass.

  "If ye promised no' to find her family ere she was well again, we'll have to keep the promise," Uncle Acair said solemnly after a minute.

  "Aye," Aulay said firmly. That was the only thing he was clear on here.

  "But it should no' be too hard to find out what ship went down in the storm and learn who she is that way," Conran pointed out. "We need no' approach her family to find out at least that much."

  "True," Aulay agreed, and then added sternly, "but no one learns that she is here and alive until I say so."

  Conran nodded, and then they all glanced to the door as Alick rushed back in with Rory's bag o' weeds.

  "Thank ye, Alick." Rory took the bag and then ordered, "All but Aulay can leave now."

  When the other men nodded and turned to exit the room, Rory added, "Have Geordie bring the linens up with the water when 'tis boiled."

  "Aye," was the answer from all three men.

  Once they'd left, Aulay turned to Rory and raised his eyebrows. "What do ye want me to do?"

  "Ye're going to help me shave her head."

  He glanced to her beautiful black tresses with alarm.

  "Just the back. I need to see the injuries to clean them. It'll grow back," Rory said as he retrieved a wicked-looking knife from his medicinals bag. Turning back to the lass, he added under his breath, "if she survives."

  Aulay's chest tightened at that last part. It verified his earlier suspicion that Rory didn't think the lass had much of a chance. The thought made him turn his gaze to the wee, pale lass in the bed. She looked delicate and weak, but he was quite certain she wasn't. The pain she'd seemed to be suffering, and that she had withstood long enough to ensure he wouldn't deliver her to her family, suggested a woman with spirit and a good deal o
f inner strength. She'd survive, Aulay decided. He'd do everything in his power to make sure she did.

  Chapter 2

  She opened her eyes sleepily and peered curiously at the man who occupied the chair next to the bed. Her eyes felt dry and scratchy, her mouth was barren of any moisture, and her entire body felt achy and weak, but that was on the periphery of her mind at the moment. Mostly, her attention was on the man next to her. He seemed familiar to her, although she wasn't sure how. No name came to mind when she looked at him, but he was handsome, with long auburn hair and what would have been an almost too pretty face if not for the scar that ran from forehead to chin next to his nose, nearly cleaving it in half.

  Eyes narrowing, she examined the scar with interest. It looked like someone had taken an ax to his face. Or perhaps the tip of a sword. The scar was relatively straight, and it wasn't puckered or angry-looking; so must be five or six years old at least. She examined it for a moment longer, and then shifted her attention to the rest of the man. He was big, at least twice as wide as her in the shoulders. Truly, he had a beautiful chest from what she could see. He also had long, muscular legs, she noted as her gaze slid downward. The man wore a plaid that was presently in disarray and showing more leg than was absolutely proper.

  But then there was little that was proper about the man. He shouldn't be in her room at all . . . unless he was her father, brother or husband. The man was definitely too young to be her father. As for brother, she glanced from his chest to his legs and mentally shook her head. The feelings she was having were not very filial at the moment, so she was guessing he was not her brother. At least, she hoped not.

  That thought made her frown. Should she not know? It certainly seemed to her that she should know. But she didn't. She didn't even know her own name, she realized with sudden alarm and began searching her mind, trying to remember . . . something. Anything, really. But doing so merely made her head hurt. A lot.