Page 12 of Highlander's Sinless Nymph
Oddly, in that instance, Charlotte didn’t feel any immediate fear. She knew that she would be foolish not to be vigilant, but her instincts told her that this man was not the sort to lay hands on a female.
He might have good cause to be upset with the English army, but surely he has the sense to realize that I have no direct part in anything that they do?
Tentatively, she knelt on the ground by him and extended her arm.
“What in God’s name were ye even doin’ out here?”
“I was reading a book,” she mumbled. “A book on herbs and healing.”
She stiffened slightly and held her breath as Edward took her arm in his once more.
“Aye?” he prompted, scooping some of the salve up with two fingers.
“Well, I’ve always found the healing arts interesting,” Charlotte said. “I suppose it might have something to do with being the daughter of an army man.”
She saw the muscle in Edward’s temple twitch again and she braced herself for a hard word or a hard hand. However, when he smeared the poultice over the first claw gash, his touch was surprisingly gentle.
Not at all what I had been expecting from such a masterful and capable-looking man.
Edward ran his fingers smoothly down the back of her forearm, applying the salve in one smooth motion that sent a pleasant shiver running down her spine.
“Yes, I––I find it interesting, you see,” she said, having to resist the urge to close her eyes under the Highlander’s touch. “Seeing men brought in injured and sick in the camp, it seems to me that there are few things more rewarding or crucial than the healing of another person. The gratitude that exudes from them, it’s something that is beyond words.”
Edward applied a fresh layer of the unguent on the next cut, leaning forward so that he could see more clearly what he was doing by the inconsistent light of the fire. This time, Charlotte could feel his breath on her bared skin, and the shiver she felt was most certainlynotdown her spine…
She blinked, realized that she had been staring unseeingly into the flames of the campfire.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” she said, in a brave voice that belied how timid she felt, “why is it that you hate us English so?”
Edward looked up at her briefly as he smeared more of the paste down her arm, then growled, “Ye seem a smart lass, Charlotte. Surely, I do not need to paint ye a picture o’ what the English army has done to many Scottish families and folk whose only crime was to live too close to the border.”
“No, no, I suppose not,” Charlotte said, quickly looking away from the fierce expression that had overtaken Edward’s face.
“Good, because it’d be a picture painted in blood and fire,” he said.
He scraped up the last of the poultice and rubbed it evenly across the final cut, taking his time to make sure that it was spread quite consistently across the wound. To her bafflement, Charlotte found that she did not want him to stop in his ministrations.
“You knew my father,” she suddenly blurted out, not knowing how else to prolong their conversation. “Or else you have heard of him?”
Edward’s fingers slowed in their movements and then stopped. His brown eyes under the serious brows looked to be staring far away, to another place or to another world.
“I ken him, in a way,” he said, after a long moment. His hands still held her arm, but Charlotte made no attempt to pull away. “I ken that he’s the sort o’ crooked dastard who could swallow a nail and spit out a horseshoe. The sort of conniving, cunning, tricky man whose tracks ye could look at and nae ken whether he was comin’ or goin’.”
Edward’s face jerked up and stared her full in the face. Charlotte stared back, held captivated by the bottomless well of hurt that flickered in the depths of his eyes.
“I––I know what kind of man my father is,” she said in a hoarse voice. “Better than most I imagine.” She touched at her cheek absentmindedly, at the place where she would so often feel the dull ache of a bruise. She was seized by a sudden fear, that this Scotsman had suffered at her father’s hand and was even now planning to do away with her.
“Please,” she said, “do not blame me for the actions of one who comes from the same family tree as me.”
Edward snorted softly, as if he could read plainly the thoughts running through her mind. “Aye, I’d wager there’s more than a few nooses hangin’ in that family tree o’ yours,” he said.
Charlotte did not know what to say to that.
Edward reached back into the leather packet and extracted a fairly clean length of cloth. Charlotte watched him as he began to wind the cloth around her forearm, taking as much care as he had when putting on the unguent.
When he had finished, he tied the end of the cloth in a simple but competent knot and looked up at her.
How old would he be, I wonder? In his middle twenties, perhaps, though he has the cares of someone older wrapped around his heart like a shawl. Only a few years older than myself.
