Page 10 of Winter Longing
Ailsa spoke quickly, hoping to cut off Dersey before he could make any damning statements about the stranger. “Anwen and I found this poor man on the road. He collapsed nae long after, but nae before pleading for our help.” She moved closer to Father Gilbert, clutching the sleeve of his woolen tunic in a gesture of desperation. “Dersey insists he should be taken straightaway to the gaol, but Father Gilbert, that’s as good as a death sentence for a man who’s likely committed nae crime.Though it appears he might be English, he seems lost more than dangerous. Ye won’t let him suffer for that, will ye?” She paused, her gaze searching his face. “The chapel chambers, the empty ones, would be far better suited for an innocent man, aye? Ye’ll see to him, won’t ye?” she asked, trusting him to take on the role of caretaker as he so often did in Torr Cinnteag, where they lacked a formal healer.
“Your brother and I travel to Torwechwhy tomorrow, lass,” Father Gilbert reminded her gently, “where we hope to make progress in the peace talks with the MacLaes.”
Sweet Mother Mary, how could she have forgotten? She had been dreading these talks, knowing they would likely include some discussion of marriage—namely hers, to the younger MacLae son, Alastair.
Behind her, Dersey grumbled. “The laird willna go for it, nae that it’s the priest’s decision to make,” he muttered.
Ailsa turned, shushing him sharply. “It’s nae your decision either, Dersey.”
The captain scowled, but Father Gilbert merely raised a hand to restore calm. “Fear not, lass,” he said, his voice gentle. “Our departure does not mean we abandon all goodwill. Naturally, the man should be housed in the rectory. Margaret and Mary from the household can tend to him—but not you, Ailsa,” he added pointedly. “Your brother will object as it is, but he can be placated knowing you’ll have no contact with the stranger. English, you say?”
Ailsa nodded, feeling the weight of defeat settle. “We believe so, from the few words he spoke.”
Father Gilbert nodded thoughtfully. “All the more reason, then, to keep your distance. And perhaps,” he added, his gaze shifting meaningfully to Dersey, “the captain and the laird might be further appeased by stationing a few guards around the chapel. A simple precaution.”
Managing to contain the heavy sigh of disappointment that wanted to come, Ailsa nodded again, conceding to Father Gilbert’s suggestion. At least the man would receive some care, even if it did not directly involve her. “If you will supervise the transport of the man to the rectory, I will summon Margaret and Mary to attend him.”
“I will,” Father Gilbert assured her.
“And I’ll be alerting yer brother of the situation,” Dersey advised at the same time.
The urge to stick out her tongue at the captain was strong but Ailsa resisted. “Ye do that, Dersey,” she snapped. Her skirts twirled around her as she spun and marched toward the keep.
***
Cole woke to the unsettling sensation of being poked and prodded. Blinking against a dim, flickering light, he registered two young women standing over him, both intently focused on his arms and shoulders. They were dressed in old-fashioned, modest clothing that reminded him of the Amish he’d seen back home—high-necked dresses, thick wool aprons, and linen caps covering their hair. One girl, likely no more than sixteen, had a round, freckled face, while the other looked older, maybe in her early twenties, with a dull expression on her long face.
Neither of them, he noted with a flash of disappointment, was the striking woman he’d encountered earlier in the snow.
As the girls continued their inspection of him, muttering to each other, Cole snapped out of his groggy confusion. He jerked his arm away when the older one reached out to touch him.
“What the hell? Who are you?” His words came out sharper than intended, and both girls froze, wide-eyed as he sat up.
It was then that he realized that he was in a bed made up with heavy furs and that he was shirtless, his bare chest exposedto the chilly air in the stone-walled room. Frowning, he lifted the fur blankets, discovering that he’d been stripped down to his boxer briefs. Horrified, he spotted his clothes draped over the arm of the younger girl—his jeans, shirt and sweater, and coat clutched tightly to her chest.
Cole extended his hand, alarmed now by how weak he felt. “My clothes,” he demanded angrily, wondering why they’d felt the need to undress him.
At his barked command, the girls backed toward the door, the younger one glancing nervously at her companion, who tugged at her sleeve to hurry her along. Within seconds, they were gone, leaving Cole alone and pissed, painfully aware of how vulnerable he was, practically naked in a strange room.
As the door closed with a faint thud, Cole let out an exasperated breath, glancing around the small, dim chamber. It was more of a cell, with rough stone walls and barely any furniture—the narrow cot under him, a small wooden table and stool, and a heavy iron candlestick on a ledge in the wall.
He saw no vents, no radiator, no source of heat at all beyond the furs draped over him and a small fireplace, where coals burned but no flames blazed. The only hint of the outside world came from a sliver of a window high up in the wall, just wide enough to let in a thin stream of cold air. The opening had no glass, and through it, he could see that daylight was gone, as there was only the grayness of an evening sky visible.
"Great," he muttered to himself, slumping back against the thin pillows, feeling an unwelcome wave of dizziness. His mouth was dry, and his head ached—symptoms he knew probably meant he was dehydrated. He strained to remember how many days he’d been out there, separated from Tank. At least two, he thought, though it was hard to tell. He hadn’t eaten or drunk anything substantial since then, save for a few freezing gulps of stream water.
Minutes passed, stretching into what felt like an eternity in the cold, quiet room. For a while, he watched the candle slowly burn down, noting how much shorter it had become. He wondered if it might be possible to track the passing hours by watching its progress, but he had no sense of how much time an inch of melted wax might represent—was it an hour? More than that?
He was just beginning to nod off, despite the cold discomfort and unnerving weakness, when the door creaked open again. He tensed instinctively, eyes darting toward the movement.
He wasn’t sure how he knew, certainly when the figure remained in the shadow of the open door, the hall beyond pitch black, that this was the woman he’d met earlier, the gorgeous one with the unforgettable face.
She crept carefully into the room, now cast in the warm, flickering light of the lone candle, hardly more than a shadowy figure. Earlier—today still?—he’d been almost instantly captivated by her, how ethereal she’d seemed, so vibrant with life and color against the backdrop of white snow everywhere. A wild mane of dark hair had blown round her face, dramatic against the pale skin dusted generously with freckles and her soft, full, pink-red lips. Her nose had been pink as well, an effect of the cold, but it had been her eyes that had truly struck him—clear and piercing, a startling bright blue that had somehow reached him across the snowy distance. Now, in the candlelight, that blue vividness was subdued, softened to a glimmer beneath her long lashes. What had been bright and intense by daylight was now tempered, her gaze shaded by curiosity and a guarded caution, where earlier there had been more an unfiltered interest.
Feeling an unexpected surge of hope at the sight of her, though he didn’t fully understand why, Cole slowly sat up as she cautiously stepped further into the room, leaving the door open.
Like this afternoon, and like those two girls who’d swiped his clothes, she was dressed in a long gown, one that fell all the way to the floor. He wasn’t exactly an expert on fabrics—or women’s fashion, for that matter—but he could tell her clothes were finer than the others. The fabric looked heavier and more tailored, with a subtle pattern woven into it that he thought might be some kind of plaid or tartan, and her sleeves flared in a way that struck him as... old-fashioned? Definitely not something he’d ever seen outside of a period drama on a movie screen.
The other girls had worn simpler, rougher-looking clothes, like work uniforms in an Amish community or something you'd see at a Renaissance fair, with plain aprons over basic linen dresses. But this one... her dress seemed more elaborate, like it was designed to be worn by someone important.
