Page 78 of Sweet Home Highlander
However, Aisla hurt everywhere—her brain, her body, her heart. Or perhaps she was in hell and was meant to suffer an eternity of torment. She breathed in a ragged breath and shuddered. Why on earth did hell smell like fresh-baked bread?
Confused, she fought her way to the surface of the gloom, her eyes pricking open. Light penetrated slowly, but it was light all the same. The edges of her vision were dark, but a single lamp flickered. Her aching body felt swaddled in softness. She was on a bed, she realized. In a house.
Shewasn’tfighting for her life in a mine shaft underground.
Was she dreaming?
Aisla lifted a hand and groaned as her fingers appeared, blurry at first. Elation broke through her and then the purest, sweetest joy. She was alive! How was this even possible? She wasalive,and she had to tell Niall how she felt. She also had to tell Julien that she didn’t want to leave, not ever. Her home and her heart were here. In Scotland. With the man she loved. Everything was so startlingly clear now, even if she couldn’t see more than the gloom of a darkened room. It was nighttime, she realized. How long had she been unconscious?
Aisla parted dry, chapped lips, uncaring of the sting and the burn that accompanied the action. “Hullo,” she croaked aloud. “I need…to tell…”
A looming shadow filled her fogged vision, blocking the light of the lamp for a second as a cup of water was gently pressed to her mouth. She took a grateful sip before all her strength was sapped from her and she sank into the softness of the bed beneath her. Gentle fingers brushed her cheek and stroked her damp hair off her brow. Her eyes fluttered closed. But no, she meant to stay awake. She had something important to say.
“Julien, please…” She trailed off, her words fumbling and deserting her, even though she knew exactly how shefelt. “Oh, Jules, I love…I love…”
“I’ll get him for ye,” a man’s soft voice said, the familiar sound of it making her heart leap for a moment, but it was lost in the sweet embrace of oblivion that claimed her once more.
She dreamed of the Highlands in the throes of summer. Of the vibrant green knolls of undulating fields and hills, purple heather springing from the craggy rocks littering the land. Clear skies and sweet meadow grass that went on and on, without end. And Niall. She was with her husband and she could hear his laughter, feel his warm breath as he kissed her temple and held her close.
When Aisla’s eyes cracked open once more, the summer scene was gone, replaced instead by a soft, sunlit bedchamber. And Niall wasn’t there. Firm fingers were prodding her ribs and moving her stiff limbs into place. She should have felt shock, but she was too relieved not to feel more pain upon waking, as she had every time she’d found consciousness.
A man blurred into her immediate vision, including a pair of twinkling brown eyes set in a weathered face. “Welcome back, Lady Maclaren,” he said. “How are you feeling?”
“Not dead.” Aisla gave her attention to the man in front of her. “Where am I?”
“Safe at Maclaren.”
A gasp made her eyes connect with Pauline’s who stood near the door, her own face fraught with emotion. She managed a weak smile, her own eyes welling at the sight of the unabashed tears pouring down her maid’s cheeks.
“Come now, Pauline,” she said, her voice a husky rasp, her jaw a bit sore. “It’s not as bad as all that, is it?”
“Oh, my lady,” she cried, “you had me worried to death.”
“So itisas bad as all that,” Aisla replied, striving for a dash of levity to lift her maid’s distress, to which Pauline answered by weeping openly, dabbing at her cheeks with a handkerchief. Aisla dimly noticed the other people entering the room, hovering at the edges near the door. She recognized Julien, and behind him an unhurt Makenna. Aisla heaved a sigh of relief that she was home, and didn’t appear to have been ill treated. Lady Dunrannoch and Ronan, Niall’s eldest brother, were also there.
The duchess stepped forward, her own eyes suspiciously wet. She indicated the man standing at Aisla’s side. “This is Doctor Stewart. He’s been tending you since…since…” Her voice broke as she covered her mouth to hide a sob.
Ronan put a hand around his mother’s shoulders. “Since ye fell.”
Aisla blinked, the events coming back to her in a rush. Dougal Buchanan had been behind it all. He had chased her into the tower house, and he had shot Fenella.Oh, God.
“Where is Fenella?” she whispered. “Is she here?”
Julien clasped her hand and squeezed. “No,chérie. She died, but not before she told the laird where you were. It was how he was able to find you. And also to learn of Dougal Buchanan’s part in it.”
A tear slipped down her cheek. Fenella had not been a friend, but she had not deserved to die. Aisla swallowed, her throat clogged. She needed Niall. Where was he?
“Ronan,” she said urgently. “That coward put explosives near the mines where I fell. He was behind all of it. All the accidents. You have to tell Niall at once.” Black spots filled her vision for a moment.
“We know, Aisla,” Ronan said in a low voice. “The mines are clear, and Dougal Buchanan has been dealt with.”
Dealt with.That sounded ominous, though not nearly enough. It was less than the man deserved after shooting a woman he’d been intimate with. If Aisla had had a pistol in her possession instead of a meager dagger, the outcome would have been much different. Instead, she’d fallen into a mine shaft, where she’d remained for an indeterminate number of hours. Miraculously, however, she’d been found, though try as she did, she couldn’t recall anything specific about the rescue. Niall had been the one to rescue her, she was sure of it. Or had she imagined him, too?
“How long have I been here?”
“Four days,” Makenna said, moving to stand beside Julien. “We thought ye may never wake.”
Aisla drew a shallow breath, astounded that she’d been unconscious for so long. No wonder Pauline had been sobbing. Aisla made a brave face to the doctor, who had stepped aside when she’d been speaking to the duchess and Ronan. “Exactly how bad is it then?”
