awareness settled into place. I could see that Christie was asleep in her own bed; she didn’t stir. I eased myself from the warm cocoon of my furs and went to the door of Wilkie’s private chambers. It was unlocked. No one was with him, and his chambers were quiet. I entered and closed the door behind me. Wilkie lay in his bed, his eyes closed, but he was writhing slightly, murmuring. His hair was in disarray and damp from his own sweat.
I went to him and held my hand to his forehead. Still feverish.
At the touch of my hand to his skin, his eyelids fluttered but did not open. He groaned softly in a spoken word. “Roses.”
“Here I am, warrior,” I whispered to him, leaning close. Wilkie’s room was dark save the flickering light of a fire that had been loaded with wood, to keep the room warm for him. But it was too warm, I thought. He was overheated. I pulled the furs down from his chest, draping them back over his bandaged side, to his waist.
I went to Effie’s tray, which had been left on a table next to his bed, and I poured a goblet of cooled medicinal tea. When I climbed up next to him to try to revive him enough to drink some of the liquid, I was surprised to see that his eyes were open, blazing in their sudden blueness, still bright and slightly bloodshot from his fever. He drank willingly when I offered him the cup. It was only then that I realized I was clad only in my brief underclothing.
I made a move to leave him, to go and cover myself.
His hand clasped my wrist with surprising strength. “Stay,” he said, his voice deep and rasped from lack of use. Not a command, a request. The grasp of his hand loosened almost immediately, his fingers feathering the light downy hairs on my arm.
“Let me go, warrior. I’ll dress. Then I’ll return to you.”
“Stay,” he said again. “I’ll not look at you.” But his eyes were already on me, burning into me.
My thin shift did little to hide my body, but then again this warrior had already seen me, and much more than that. He had, in fact, tasted me, pulling sensuously with his hot mouth, biting with his teeth. The thought sent a hot flush to my cheeks and to my breasts as I remembered the feel of him. I hoped he couldn’t detect my heat in the dim light. Or my secret, rising desire for more of his tantalizing touches.
“I might look at you just a little,” he amended, watching as my body responded to him, as my nipples grew tighter. A hint of a smile played at the corners of his mouth, and his eyes were light against the dark rims of his eyelashes. He’s breathtaking, I thought.
“I’m dreaming,” he said, as though speaking to himself. “She can’t be real.”
“I’m real, warrior,” I said, drawing my finger across the back of his hand to convince him, so he could feel my touch.
“Are you?” he whispered.
“Aye.”
He paused, allowing the reality to settle. “And you’re here, in my chambers with me.” He laughed softly. “My brothers are truly good to me when I’m ill.”
“You fairly insisted on it,” I said gently.
His slow smile offered a brief dazzling flash. “Aye. I remember. I want you as close as you can be. Let me feel you, lass.”
His fingertips drew soft lines up my arm, and he reached to stroke the long strands of my hair, smoothing it carefully against my arms and my breasts, as though disbelieving the solidity of me. His touch was possessive and sure, leaving trails of warmth wherever his fingers had lingered.
“My dreams were so vivid,” he mused. “You appeared to me, a golden angel. I have never seen a beauty equal to yours. You were the sun, burning me with your golden light. Burning me as I’ve never burned. When you left me, all was dark. I followed you for days so I could feel again your voice, your warmth and your fair hair, touching me like a feathery wing.”
I knew Wilkie’s delirium remained; it was clear that he perceived me as a vision, perhaps, or an apparition. I suspected he was associating me with some kind of life force that had led him from the darkness of death and into a healing light. In his weakened state, he was seeing me as his savior.
I didn’t know if his desire to keep me close was real, or just a side effect of Wilkie’s instinct to survive. What I did know, though, was that I wanted to save him. I wanted his attachment to me to last. I knew that this desire was too intense and too quick. That I should feel such wild affection for him, when we had spent so little time together and knew so little about each other, was, perhaps, inappropriate. Yet it didn’t feel inappropriate. It felt important. It felt as if I finally had something to lose.
I leaned closer to him. “I’ll tend to you again, warrior,” I whispered. “Whatever you need.”
His lingering smile speared me with intense awareness. His hand stole back to my hair, which he wrapped around his hands, then let fall in fanning designs, as though spellbound by its texture and the play of the light. It was true I didn’t know Wilkie Mackenzie beyond a heart-pounding chase, a quick but savage fight and two astonishingly beautiful kisses. His presence, his face and the brush of his hair against my skin now felt familiar to me after brief and close-strung embraces against his bare chest. But his subdued, almost-wakeful energy was new to me and unfathomably intriguing. We were strangers whose mouths had touched intimately, yet the thoughts behind his eyes were wild and unknowable.
“You healed me,” he said.
“I sewed up a wound that was inflicted by my own hand,” I reminded him softly.
“And what of your wound, inflicted by my own hand?” He helped himself to an inspection of my bandage.
“’Tis nearly healed already,” I said.
His hand continued its lazy exploration of my body as his eyes held mine.
“Come closer, Roses,” he said. “Breathe on me. Breathe on my mouth. I want to feel your breath on me.”
I wanted to comfort him, to do as he asked of me. And I wanted to grant him his wishes. His wishes felt as if they were my own wishes, as if they were one and the same. I leaned over him. My breasts pressed against his bare chest through the thin fabric of my night clothing. I blew softly onto his lips as he parted them to inhale the air of my lungs. He breathed deeply.
“Ahhh,” he exhaled. “You heal me well, lass. I intend to take of you all your remedies.”
“Which remedies?” I began to sit up. “I can fetch—”
He pulled me back to him, quite forcibly, so I was pressed up against him once more. His body was remarkably hard against my softness. “This remedy,” he said, and he fit his hand around the base of my skull, to pull my face to his as he lifted his head. “A kiss, Roses. Kiss me like you kissed me in my dreams.”
* * *
“AYE, WARRIOR. I’LL KISS YOU. Now be still. You’ll overtax yourself.”
He obeyed, and his body relaxed. I touched my hands to his shoulders, to relax him further. I ran my fingers along his jaw. I touched his hair and smoothed its thick silk layers. I traced one finger across his lips. His breath was hot against my fingers. I leaned farther over him, breathing his breath, and when my hair brushed
