Page 8 of Winter Longing
“Lass,” Anwen hissed a warning, yanking again at Ailsa’s cloak. “The laird’ll have yer—”
Anwen stopped speaking and both women gasped now as the man, large and seemingly invincible, slumped to the ground. He’d only just nodded his acceptance of Ailsa’s offer when he bared his teeth, as if fighting back the inevitable, before his blue eyes rolled back in his head and he dropped like a heavy rock, his legs buckling. He pitched forward onto his chest, his cheek smacking against the cold ground.
Ailsa didn’t think but ran to him, ignoring Anwen’s high-pitched warning to stay away. She slid to her knees at his side and tried to turn him over, needing every ounce of strength to do so.
“Jesu, he’s as big as a horse,” she grumbled, finally managing to shift his dead weight so that he was on his back.
With that done, she sat back, hesitant now to touch him, wondering if the stranger had just expired right before their eyes.
“Is he dead?” Anwen wondered the same thing, hovering over Ailsa’s shoulder.
“I...” she began, lifting her hand to touch him, pulling it back twice before she finally committed to making contact with him. She laid her hand against the soft fabric of his cloak. Beneath her fingers, beneath the smooth, cold material, his chest was rockhard. Staring at his unmoving face, Ailsa pressed down, waiting to feel the beat of his heart.
Beyond the swift beating of her own heart, it took her a moment to recognize signs of life in his. An unexpected burst of relief escaped her, breathed as a sigh, when she felt the slow but regular thud against her palm.
“He lives,” she said excitedly. But what to do for him?
She glanced over her shoulder. “Anwen, return to the keep and fetch a cart and a few men to lift him,” she instructed, lightly slapping at Anwen’s hand when the maid’s eyes widened with shock. “Dinna be like that. We canna leave him here. He is alive now but willna be for long if we simply abandon him.” She thought it prudent to advise, “Dinna say a word about him being English. He’ll be nae threat, nae in his condition. Anwen, promise me.”
“But lass, we canna—”
“We can and we will,” Ailsa demanded. “Simple human decency will see him made well. Let Tavis decide then what’s to be done with him, when he learns he’s English.”
“Playing with fire, ye are,” Anwen cautioned.
“And it will be my difficulty to manage with Tavis, but nae now. Go! Hurry, Anwen. Say only that we found him like this.”
“I willna be—”
“Ye will,” Ailsa ground out between her teeth, knowing precious moments were being wasted. “Now, Anwen. Go!”
'Twas rare that she employed so strict a tone with her maid, but it was occasionally needed to remind Anwen that Ailsa expected to be obeyed.
Ailsa watched Anwen only for a moment as she stomped away before turning her attention back to the unconscious man. She stared at him for quite a while as he slept, serenely unconscious of all the curiosity and concern in the watchful face bent over his.
She thought he might be possessed of bronzed skin but that it was pale now, disposed to his illness or his current frailty, which she determined distractedly was more authentic than Mallaig’s.
Believing herself useless at that moment, for doing nothing for his comfort, Ailsa picked up his closer hand, where it had fallen onto the snow-covered ground. His hand was large, nearly twice the size of her own, but so cold. She began to chafe his flesh between her warmer palms, first one hand and then reaching across his broad body to collect the other, warming it in the same fashion.
Though she shivered with the cold herself, she next removed her cloak and bundled it into a pillow shape, sliding it under his head to distance him from the cold earth.
Exposure to the elements, she prayed, was all that ailed him, and not anything far more serious. There was no visible wound or injury to the man, not that she could see.
Again and again, her gaze strayed to his face, ignoring the unusual garb and boots he wore.
Her brother and laird of the Sinclairs, Tavis, was deemed by many a tittering female to be a handsome man. Will Tulloch, whom Ailsa had been smitten with for quite some time when he’d visited from Clan MacGillewie a few years back, had a face worthy of a woman’s appreciation. Even Swanny, Torr Cinnteag’s robust farrier, had drawn admiring gazes before he’d chosen the smith’s daughter, Clara, to wed.
This man, though, put each of those men to shame with his beauty, Ailsa judged. How extraordinary he was—unconsciousness aside—with so noble a face. She wasn’t sure how he managed to appear so vital and virile in his present lifeless state, but she found she couldn’t take her eyes off him. Still, though, questions abounded about him, who he was, where he’d come from, how he managed to find himself on the very remote Sinclair land.
While she maintained a hold on his left hand, he stirred, causing her to pause her efforts to warm him.
Though his eyes remained closed, his lips moved and soft sounds emerged.
Ailsa bent over him, turning her ear toward his face.
“Don’t let me die,” he murmured weakly. “I need to get home.”
His weakness was evidently great but the desperation in his feeble words was palpable.
