Chapter Eleven

Jeannie stirred uneasily on the narrow straw pallet and reached for sleep that would not come. Aggie had insisted on giving Jeannie her bed in the loft and now slept in a nest of blankets on the floor alongside, but neither Jeannie’s mind nor emotions would still.

Might as well try to sleep while a wolf prowled below; Finnan MacAllister remained at large in the cottage, watching over his servant and supposedly guarding the place.

She could hear every step he took, soft padding very much like the wolf she envisioned. He had added fuel to the fire and been in and out of her bedroom, tending Danny. Outside, the world lay still, the hush of the summer night seemingly complete. She counted Aggie’s quiet breaths; she caught the murmur of Finnan’s voice, if not his words, every time he spoke to the lad.

Was Danny awake, then? Better? Worse? How long could she lie here wondering? How long till dawn?

She knew she should stay where she was, difficult as that might be. She needed to keep well away from Finnan MacAllister and the danger he represented to her peace of mind. But lying there staring at the beams of the loft by the dim firelight that sifted up the ladder, she acknowledged keeping away served very little purpose. He already occupied a place in her head, and she could virtually see him moving about, those tattoos writhing above the muscles of his chest and arms, hair hanging down his back like the mane on a wild pony.

How might it feel to run her fingers through that hair, tangle them in the rough tresses? How might it feel to press herself against his hard body? To taste him?

Forbidden thoughts, wicked thoughts. It was as if she had caught them from him.

She groaned softly and rolled over, desperate to supplant him in her mind, but other thoughts, like sleep, would not come.

What sort of man was he? For weeks, Aggie had been bringing home whispers of him, gossip from the servants at Avrie House and others in the glen. Murderer, betrayer, mercenary. He had fought at Culloden—as had Geordie—and survived, but no one seemed sure on which side of that conflict he had raised his sword.

Her best source of information about Finnan MacAllister was now dead. Geordie had not liked to talk about his past. Even when in his cups he threw out only a few words before falling into brooding silence.

Indeed, Geordie MacWherter had spoken of his good friend, Finnan, seldom enough. He had mentioned him in passing, and also when telling Jeannie about the residence here in Glen Rowan his good friend had gifted him.

“Paradise on earth,” he had claimed, his eyes hazy and distant with the drink. “A home at last, for I have never had one.”

“Why do you not go there, then?” Jeannie had asked, nodding at the letter, covered with black script, Geordie held in his hand.

Geordie had gazed at her with wistful eyes that retained that childlike innocence despite all he must have seen. “I would not go there alone, Jeannie Robertson. Will you marry me?”

She had refused him then, attributing the offer to the drink, of which he obviously had a skin full, and also later when he proposed a second time. She knew to her soul he deserved better, someone who could give him her whole heart.

But still later, after her father died and her situation worsened, Jeannie found herself in need of the protection the big, sandy-haired highlander offered. Marrying him had not been an honorable thing to do. Yet she’d been as honest with Geordie as she could. And he had taken her on her terms.

She had not made him happy. She’d known that on some level, even if she had not been aware he had written letters to his good friend, MacAllister. Complaining of her, apparently—for the proof of what Geordie must have told Finnan lay in Finnan’s anger with her at their initial meeting.

But now—now he claimed Geordie’s ghost had come to him and asked for his protection and forbearance on Jeannie’s behalf. Finnan would have Jeannie believe his attitude toward her had changed. Did she believe it? Lying there with her eyes stretched wide in the darkness, she could not tell.

She heard Finnan murmur again, then followed his soft footsteps as they went to the fire, heard the splash as he poured water. With a sigh she sat up and slid from the cot.

She had gone to bed fully clothed, unwilling to undress with that man in the house. She seized a shawl and wound it about her shoulders before going down the ladder.

No one in the main room. The fire burned steadily, and the kettle simmered, hot. She went to the door of her bedroom and peered in. One glance told her Danny had taken a turn for the worse. Finnan bent over the bed, on which the lad tossed and muttered words to which she heard Finnan reply.

“There, now, lad. Try to lie quietly. You’ll tear open that wound.”

“But they are coming for us! They will hang us for traitors. We must away!”

“Whisht now, Danny lad, you are safe. Did I no’ promise to keep you safe?” The tenderness in Finnan MacAllister’s voice, so much at odds with anything Jeannie had heard from him, went straight to her heart. Oh, but he had a beautiful voice when he did not threaten or beguile.

But Danny, if he heard, took no comfort. “They will put us all to death! Cut out my heart…”

“Easy, Danny. You know I will fight to the very death for you.”

An avenging highland angel was he, standing between this lad and all harm with a drawn sword? Cursed if Jeannie was not convinced. She stirred in the doorway, and Finnan’s senses, ever alert, detected the movement. He looked at her and straightened from the bed.

“Mistress, I hope we did not disturb your rest.”

Jeannie answered with another question. “What is it, is he worse?”

“Fever has set in; he is out of his head.” Slowly, moving with that powerful grace, Finnan approached her. “It often happens with this kind of wound, but I confess I hoped for better.”

“Of what does he speak? Whom does he fear?”

Finnan gave a wry smile. “Whom does a man not fear when caught in a fever? I have bathed his head and done my best to reassure him, but I do no’ think he hears.”

“Perhaps willow tea.”

“Have you any?”

“I will brew some.”

Jeannie turned away to the fire and expected Finnan to remain at Danny’s side, but he followed her instead.

“I apologize again for this intrusion,” he murmured. “I have turned your life on its head.”

She glanced at him as she took the jar of willow bark from the shelf, trying to measure his mood. She began to suspect she could take at face value nothing this man presented.

“It cannot be helped,” she returned. But yes, he had turned her world upside down, and yes, she found it difficult even to think clearly in his presence.

“I would like to say we will clear out of here come morning, but I cannot make that promise, with Danny this way.”

“And, as you say, you always keep your promises?”

“Always.” He spoke the word passionately, an absolute.

Jeannie nodded toward the lad in the other room. “Has Danny been with you a long while?”

“Ever since Culloden.” Finnan fell silent for a moment, and his expression turned bleak. “He never should ha’ been there, a mere lad. I found him lying beneath a number of his fellows, all dead, bleeding from the wound where his arm had been. I only heard him because he sobbed for his ma.”

Jeannie’s throat tightened. So Finnan MacAllister truly did have a heart beneath all those tattoos.

“Given such a dire injury, however did you keep him alive?”

Finnan shook his head. “Last evening was not the first time I ha’ stitched him up. Thought sure we’d lose him after Culloden. Geordie and I…” He stopped speaking abruptly.

Jeannie, curious, looked into his face. It had closed as if a shutter had come down.

Yes, and that matched the look she remembered seeing in Geordie’s eyes whenever that battle came up: tight, arrested, fierce with pain.

Finnan sucked in a breath. “But, mistress, I will not sully your ears with such talk. ’Tis not something I would inflict on my worst enemy.”

Secrets, Jeannie decided, lay behind those tawny brown eyes—some she did not want to know.

“Well, then,” she said, “let us see if this tea can soothe young Danny’s pain.”