Page 20 of The Falcon Laird
But it seemed that the priest and the knight expected her to die. She squeezed her eyes shut in anguish. Her will to live was strong. Did they not see that?
She had to survive. Her daughter needed her. She sent up a prayer to the angels and saints, asking for healing, asking them to watch over her daughter until she was strong again.
Gavin woke witha start, in darkness, and sat upright on his narrow bed. Soft rain pattered against the outer walls. Across the small chamber, on a floor pallet, John snored deeply.
Vivid dreams had rolled through his mind, the last one jarring him awake. He had climbed a steep slope in moonlight to a castle gate. Inside, the castle was dark and deserted. But he moved toward one chamber that glowed with light from hundreds of candles. White doves flew overhead, settling on the rafters, cooing.
At the center of the room, Lady Christian waited for him. With a glad cry she came into his arms. He wrapped her into his embrace and kissed her, and a sense of relief flooded through him when he realized that she was well and healed. He felt as if he knew her, and this place, well, and truly belonged here with her.
The dream had been rich with love and profound joy. The love he felt when he held Lady Christian felt sustaining and utterly real.
Now, awake in the cold darkness, he clenched his fists. He would give anything, his very soul, to have that feeling, the passion and strength of two bonded hearts, in his life. He sighed. Implausible. Impossible.
Just hours ago, he had sat with Christian, smoothing a wet cloth over her fevered face and holding her hand. She had slept through it, unaware. He remembered doing the same for Jehanne, endless days and nights of tending to her, sitting by her bed. He never thought to find himself doing this again.
Yet the tableau had repeated itself. Rather than leave the girl in the monastery for the monks to perform her deathwatch and eventual burial, Gavin wanted to stay. He felt a strong need to be with her. Perhaps he wanted to try to help, knowing what Jehanne went through. Perhaps just that.
He wanted desperately to see her. He did not know how much time she had left. Rising from the bed, he yanked his tunic over his head, pulled on his boots, and left the room.
Dominy opened thedoor at his soft knock. Her eyes were foggy with sleep. “Go to the little chamber where your son sleeps, and rest,” Gavin whispered. “I will stay with the lady.” She nodded and left, closing the door quietly.
In the flickering glow of a single candle, Christian slept, her face fragile and serene. Her long, gleaming hair spread over thepillow like a midnight shadow. He sat on the edge of the bed and touched her brow gently.
Her skin still felt fevered. He touched her upper chest. Through the blanket, he could feel the shallow, labored rise of each breath. Carefully he lifted her enough to lean her over his arm. Then he put his ear to her back, her linen shift and her body warm against his cheek. A Saracen physician, whose fee had been exorbitant but his knowledge valuable, had taught him the listening technique for Jehanne.
He heard a soft, distant bubbling in her lungs. A subtle, insidious, dangerous sound.
She moaned softly, murmuring in Gaelic, airy, gentle sounds, like breathing out music. He laid her back against the pillows and she turned her head back and forth, restless and fevered.
Soothing a hand over her brow, he felt again the intense yearning, the warm connection, that he had felt in his dream. In the cool stillness before dawn, reality and dreams seemed to blend, and he felt a wash of pure, vibrant love for this woman.
He closed his eyes, caught in a resonance, a flood of feeling, as if the girl was part of his soul, essential to him. He would do anything to help her. Wrapping his hand around hers, he felt the gentle press of her returned touch. She gave a blurred little moan.
“Christian,” he whispered, “I am here.”
He had health and vital life, an abundance of it, yet hers was slipping away. Seeing her pale and weak, hearing the rasp in her breathing, touched the old grief, the pain that lingered in him. He did not want to witness the death of another woman—that he loved. For a moment, it felt true.
Sighing, he released her hand and rested his fingers on her upper chest. Her breathing was too rapid, too shallow. The elusive magic of his dream faded against the hard edges of whatwas real. Unless the fever subsided, unless her lungs cleared, she would die.
There was a way to help her, but when he had tried that for Jehanne, it had made no difference. He felt more cursed than blessed by the potential that ran through his blood from generations of healers. Because he lacked the gift in the depth that he needed just now. His mother had possessed a fine, sweet hand for miracles, but she was gone. And what he could do paled by comparison.
Chapter Five
“How does thelady?” Dominy asked. She had knocked on the door of the chamber and stuck in her head. “I thought ye would send for me if she grew more ill.”
“She has been coughing, but now she sleeps, and seems a bit more comfortable,” Gavin answered softly. He sat on the edge of the bed, his hand on Christian’s bare shoulder. She lay half-turned on her side. He could hear the whine of each breath.
Dominy came into the room. “Still fevered?” she whispered.
He felt Christian’s head. “Aye.”
Christian coughed, and Gavin leaned forward, lifting the silky, warm mass of her hair. Lowering his head, he placed his ear against her bare back. A sound like the crackle of a low fire, or like the rustling of parchment sheets, accompanied each shallow, rapid breath and filled the silences between.
Frowning, he looked at Dominy. “We must clear her breathing as best we can,” he said. “We will need hot water and clean linen. The hour is late, but there will be monks awakening in shifts to pray in the chapel. Find someone to show you to the kitchens. Tell them it is urgent. Tell them I sent you, and that my wife needs hot water and linens.”
“But my lord, it is not proper for me to—”
“Go! And bring another candle back with you, for God’s sake. That one has burned down. It is black as the devil’s soul in here.”
