Chapter Three
Close your eyes and visualize magic
in whatever way you may conceiveth it...
—Charm o’ Healing
Intending to rub more salve on the knight’s chest, Skena stepped to the side of the wooden tub. She jerked upright as her gaze collided and locked with the handsome stranger. The stupor lifting, the silver eyes were clear, aware, piercing. They watched her with a feral intensity. Big cats or wolves had that same focus, the ability to single out prey and track it without blinking. The pale eyes robbed her of the capacity even to breathe, held her spellbound with their ascendancy. Never had she seen such dominant eyes, as if this man held the craft to look inside her deepest heart and ken her secrets, her longings—things she dare not admit even to herself.
Noel de Servian rattled her in ways she scarcely understood, aside from the myriad of questions summoned by his presence in the vale. Knights did not journey through Scotland alone; especially English ones. These were treacherous times. His horse and his armor were worth a king’s ransom. So, why had this beautiful warrior been found in her small glen with nary a soul about him for support? Knights of the nobility had squires, men-at-arms, servants, and yet this man traveled with none? Skena shivered, from the chill of being out in the storm, true, but also from fear. His arrival heralded a foreshadowing of change ahead for Craigendan, and mayhap not a good one.
No fool she, Skena was aware the frisson was also provoked by those enthralling eyes, aware no male before caused this fluttering in her chest. Barely able to remember why she held the pot of salve, she dipped her shaky fingers into the silky ointment again, and then smeared it across the other side of his chest.
De Servian glanced down at her hand stroking his skin. His expression bemused, he asked, “Pray tell, what are you doing, Lady Skena?”
“The salve…’tis special,” she stammered out. “Oils protect the skin from cold-burn, salve to speed the healing. Also, the herbs calm pains your flesh feels from the heat of the water.”
“My chest is above the water.” The weak, crooked smile he offered her faded when a shudder wracked his body, so severe he seemed to lose what little strength he had regained. Eyelids half-closing, he slumped.
Panicked that he was not shedding the chill from his body quickly enough, she snatched up one of the cloths soaking in the pail of hot water. She spread it across the plane of his broad chest. When he flinched, she jumped.
“God’s wounds!” His lids flew up, battling, as he grabbed hold of the cloth and tried to fling it away.
Skena caught his wrist and stopped him. So odd, her strength did little to restrain this knight. Even in his weakened state, she felt the fearful might of his strong arm―his sword arm. It was her touch, naught more, which stilled him. His eyes looked to her hand where it gripped his wrist, then traveled slowly up to her face.
“Please, Sir Noel, you needs must allow me to place hot cloths upon your chest…to warm your heart.”
“Noel,” he corrected.
“’Tis what I said.” Skena relaxed when she felt resistance leave him.
“Nay, you called me Sir Noel. I wouldst have you address me in the familiar.” He spoke as granting leave, yet she did not miss the tone held the ring of a command to it.
She offered him a shy smile, trying to hide the fact she still found it hard to draw air around him. “As you wish. I shall call you by your given name―provided you permit me to tend you without fashing. I promise, all I do is necessary to speed haste to your recovery. You shall sicken with ague, mayhap chilblains…or worse, shouldst I no’ care for you in a timely fashion.”
His lids fluttered lower once more, as if his mind was slipping away, but he finally nodded. Skena carefully spread the cloth over his chest. Satisfied that he remained quiet, she laid another on top of that one. His jaw flexed and he ground his teeth, but they were his only reactions.
“Curse, if you wish,” she suggested, reaching for a third rag. “Men seem to find comfort and release in such words.”
“Too much...effort...” He paused as another shudder shook his body, and then faintly recoiled when she put the rag to his chest. “I am having trouble keeping my thoughts together...so explain—why do you scald me? Surely, this serves some purpose other than torture?”
Skena slowly poured warmer water into the tub. “For those left out in a storm too long, ’tis important to warm them in steps. Auld Bessa—a great healer—sayeth blood thickens and will freeze, same as ice forms in water. Blood must be warmed to stave off chilblains, but foremost, you must heat the heart. She cautioned a body can be taken in seizure if care is no’ used in doing this. Cloths applied to your chest shall set you on the path to it beating right. Then, I can raise the water’s heat gradually to thaw the rest of you. The tansy you drank will ease the pains which come. It will also make you sleepy. Once the warming be done, I will dry you, apply the salve to your skin, then put you in bed with heating stones―and pray you are no’ seized with lung sickness.”
“So, you do this to heat my blood, and you are not truly a Highland witch planning on cooking me…eating me.” He chuckled, a smirk tugging at one corner of his sensual mouth, though she was unsure why.
“Och, what a horrid thing to say!” Skena paused to consider this Sasunnach. “Is that what you Englishmen speak about Scotswomen?”
“They talk of a pagan land with ancient ways, ways the church frowns upon. They say Auld Gods lurk in the shadows, calling Scots back to their heathen rituals, and warn of witches with strange powers that spellbind a man ’til he forgets his name.” His right hand reached out and lifted her long hair away from her neck and shoulder, exposing her throat. The pale eyes moved over her body, watching her with that predator’s intensity, which set off an alarm she failed to understand. “’Tis warned Scotswomen have blue and green scales upon their belly and breasts. Tell me, Skena, do they speak truth?”
“Englishmen!” she said in scorn. “Bloody fools who believe tales meant for wee bairns.”
“Mayhap a man believes such things because he is tempted to search out the answers for himself.” Fingering the long strand of her dark auburn hair, a fire lit his unearthly eyes. “I always imagined a witch as a hag with black or grey hair. I suppose they might be young, fair and with hair the shade of fire.”
“Fire, indeed,” she scoffed, using it as a shield against the wildly skittering emotions ignited by his close scrutiny.
“’Tis truth your hair is dark. Only, the light from the flames play around your tresses lending it a fiery glow.” His words held a husky cant. “Your eyes lower when I look at you. Why is that, Skena?” He stroked the back of his hand against her throat, watching the shiver he conjured ripple along her skin.
Skena raised her shoulders in a faint shrug. “Because of the way you look at me, my lord. ’Tis very direct.”
“You are a beautiful woman, Skena. Surely, men watch you all the time.” He curled his fingers to cup her chin, then he brushed the pad of his thumb back and forth along her jaw. Applying the gentlest of pressure, he forced her to look up and meet his stare.
Skena blushed as heat flooded her face. “A fright, ’tis what I be. For you to say such things only tells me your blood is still slow and clouds your mind. Any lackwit can see my hair is caked with wolf’s blood.”
“What I see is a lady of valor who stood over me...saved my life. Not many women could have faced the charge of a wolf as resolute. Blood is my lady’s badge of courage. It serves you well. Your attention in warming me speaks that you are a good woman, Skena. A caring woman.” Noel de Servian dragged his thumb slowly over her cheek. “Howbeit, there are other ways for a woman to warm a man’s blood. Faster ways...”
De Servian leaned forward, his mouth softly covering hers. Shocked, she tried to gasp oh, but that merely gave him an opening to deepen the kiss. Trembling, she was lost to the flood of wild sensations. Left terrified by this dark magic he wielded so ruthlessly.
Though married, and given birth to her children, she had rarely been kissed. In truth, for so long, she had avoided kissing. Angus was a decent man, reasonably kind in his treatment, but he had failed to elicit any desire in her. She assumed such was the way between men and women ’til she overheard servants talking about having relations with their husbands or men they fancied, heard their bawdy laughter, their joy. Then, she wondered in guilt if there was something wrong with her. Oddly, she had lain in the dark and done her wifely duty to give Angus an heir, yet kissing him had seemed to ask for something she was unwilling to surrender to the man who had been her lord husband.
Her reactions to this stranger were startling. First instinct had been to pull back from him, thinking him too bold, too reckless. When he sensed her resistance, his hand moved to clasp the back of her neck and allow her no retreat from him. With the gentlest of pressure, he held her captive and taught her that she knew nothing about kissing. His lips were cool, but soft, slowly forming hers, encouraging Skena to follow his lead. Her struggles faded as she found her will yielding to his tender assault.
Mayhap she should be vexed that this stranger dared such advances when he barely knew her name. Her mind failed to summon the outrage befitting a lady. Instead, she found herself leaning toward him, giving over to the wondrous flood of sensations. How his lips were warmer now, how his tongue brushed against the seam of hers, almost teasing them to open. Heat rushed through her body as if her blood boiled. A hard cramp lodged in the pit of her belly, twisting with a need so strong it was almost blinding. Flames licked at her mind, making her lightheaded. Her hands clutched the back of his arms, her fingers desperately curling around the smooth skin and hard muscles.
De Servian shivered, then a deeper quake wracked his body, and his hand dropped from her neck. He leaned back and gave her an exhausted smile. “I give thanks...for helping warm me, Skena.” His head tilted to one side, as though he found it too hard to keep upright.
When his lids started to close, she scooped up water and rubbed some on his cheeks. “Please stay awake, Sir Noel, for a wee bit longer. I needs must see you warmed, dried and in bed.”
“Noel,” he corrected again. “Call me Noel. I gave you leave to use my name.”
“Aye, you did. ’Tis a lovely name, too.” Suiting a man with lovely eyes, she thought. Skena swallowed back that bit of folly. If she encouraged him to talk he might not drift off to sleep, thus she prodded him about things he had spoken of before. “You said you were trying to reach the Lord Challon at Glenrogha? You be kin to the mighty Black Dragon?”
“Brothers...after a fashion. I believe you Scots wouldst call us foster brothers. When I was five, my father was killed in a tournament. A terrible accident. A lance splintered, and a long shard found way through the ocularium and was driven into his skull. The duke took our family’s holding and gave it to another lord. Unable to face existence without my father, my mother...took her own life...drowned herself in the lake.”
Skena’s heart squeezed at the thought of Noel de Servian, a child of five, smaller than Andrew, losing both his father and mother. How any mother could have left her beautiful son to deal with life alone was more than she could comprehend. “I sorrow that you faced such heartbreak when you were so young.”
“’Tis a long time ago. Fortunately, Earl Michael took me in and gave me a home. I served as page at Castle Challon, and was raised with Julian, his brothers—Guillaume, Christian, Darian, and Destain—their cousins—Damian and Fletcher St. Giles—and another ward, Redam Maignart. When I was age eleven, we were sent to be squires for King Edward, and then later served as his knights.”
He leaned his head back and shut his eyes, so he failed to see her still at the words. Dread crept into her heart. This was no ordinary English knight. He had very powerful friends. Though not through blood, he was bound to these men of Challon deeply. Scots knew foster brothers were often more devoted than true sons of the same blood. There was a chance he was merely coming to pay visit to the new overlord of Glen Shane. A chance. One she doubted. Well, no use begging for troubles. She took a steadying breath and turned to pick up another rag from the pail, adding it atop the others. He flinched slightly, but offered no further complaint.
“I sorrow to cause you distress. ’Tis important the warming be done in the right way.” Skena took up another rag and wiped his face and neck. “You come to visit your foster brothers?”
His head gave a small shake no, his hands gripping the sides of the tub to keep himself upright. “How long does a proper warming take, my lady? I find I weary and wish to sleep. Mayhap if you were to kiss me again it shall speed haste to your methods.”
“My lord, ’tis unseemly a woman permits a stranger to kiss her whilst they are alone in a bedchamber. I should no’ have allowed you to do so the first time. You caught me unawares.” Skena bit the corner of her mouth, telling herself she did not want him to kiss her again. Nay, a thousand times nay.
She frowned. She never used to lie, but with the passing days mendacity came too easily to her lips. Lies to her people about how precarious their situation was―a fortress with nary a male over ten-and-four summers or under three score to man the ramparts or to hunt for meat, more deceit covering how the drought left them with little in the way of supplies. All Craigendan’s people looked to her for reassurances they would come through this winter without their bellies rubbing their backbones.
So the lies came.
Now, there would be more untruths, she feared. Lies to this man. Lies to her people about what his coming meant. So tired and hungry, she just wanted to curl up in bed and sleep, only she had a way to go this night before she could rest assured about his condition.
Skena misliked how he kept trying to fall asleep. Yes, the potion was relaxing him, pushing him to be drowsy. Only, he was too alert one breath, then slipping away from his thoughts the next. Scared, she wished Auld Bessa was here to guide her.
“But we are not strangers, Skena. I have given permission for you to address me as Noel. May I call you Skena?”
She chuckled. “I believe you already do. We Scots hold little keeping in the use of titles. Most call me Skena of Craigendan or Skena MacIain.”
His eyelids lifting, a cautious glimmer flickered in his unusual eyes. “You do not call yourself Skena Fadden?” There almost seemed to be a guarded tone to the question, yet she could not gather why.
For some reason, that he knew of her husband, knew his name, caused her heart to slow. “Did you ken Angus?”
“Know him? No...I did not know him.” An odd flatness was held in his tone, but mayhap it was simply the tansy making him sleepy. “So, you do not take his name as your own?”
“Nay. I keep the name of my father’s Clan. My mother’s family was of Clan Ogilvie. I bore her name in the Highland way until I was ten-and-six, then I assumed my father’s name in order to inherit this holding from his clan. Scots do not put much stock in a woman taking a husband’s name as theirs, but to lead the MacIain’s I had to take the name.”
“Skena. ’Tis a beautiful name. Does it have a meaning?”
Skena folded a cloth thrice lengthwise and then wrapped it across the back of his neck. “No’ that I ken. Some say it comes from Skene—a place near the coast, far to the east.”
“’Tis still beautiful,” he managed to say just before a big yawn hit him.
“Methinks you use that word too much. When a word be overused, it loses power.” She stepped to the end of the tub. “Give me your foot.”
“My foot? Why ever for? They are not beautiful.” He chuckled lowly.
She had to smile. “Men’s feet are ne’er beautiful. Even so, I wish to see it.” When he failed to move, she reached into the tub and lifted his leg. Holding it up by the back of the ankle with her left hand, she pinched his big toe.
“Oww...that hurt,” he protested, his brow furrowing.
“Good.” Skena pinched the next toe, getting the same reaction. Then, the next.
Grabbing the side of the tub, he tried to lever himself out of the water, but could not because of his leg being up in the air. “God’s wounds, woman, why do you torment my toes? I tell you that you are beautiful, and you set to bedevil me. I thought women liked to hear such things.”
“Only when such words are spake in truth.” Skena stared at the handsome warrior, biting back the pain she felt for some inexplicable reason. Why did this man—a total stranger—find the way to wound her with simple words? Forcing down the lump in her throat, she finished checking his toes on his left foot, then allowed it to drop back into the water. “Other one, please.”
As another deep yawn hit him, he flexed his arms, stretching them straight out. His arms were beautiful. She frowned. Now she was using the bloody word! Well, they were. Strong, muscular, taut. She had seen many a man’s arms through the years; workers out in the fields would take off their shirts, or when they washed in the loch. Men training with swords or staffs oft removed their sarks. As she stared, she could not ever recall seeing anyone’s so prettily formed. They were long, matching his height; muscular, but not too bulky.
“Skena?” He called her name and wiggled his right foot before her, snapping her attention back to her chore. “Be done with your toe tweaks. This is a hard position for my back to hold.”
“Sorry. I merely check your toes to make certain you have feeling in them.”
“So, you force me to scream out in misery to know I am well?” He laughed.
“Aye, if you did no’ cry out from hurt, then I would fear damage was done to the flesh.”
“Since I howl, you pronounce me fine? Enough with the pinching, Skena, I suffered no harm.”
She dropped the foot, and then stepped to remove a cloth on his chest, intending to apply a fresh one. “Your toes are unharmed. I have no’ judged the rest of you, though.”
He glanced down at her hand, suppressing a smug grin, and then lifted the long, black lashes on his pale eyes. “Tell me, lovely Skena, shall you go to pinching all of me to make certain my flesh is unscathed? We might be at this the whole of the night—if that be your intent.”
Placing two fingers against his neck where the blood pounded the strongest, she wanted to test how his heart beat. Nervous, she tried not to look into his eyes. He seemed to want her to meet them for he playfully wiggled his eyebrows. When she pretended not to see, his sensual mouth curved into a sly smirk. He leaned forward and kissed the inside of her wrist.
“Amadán. Sit still. I try to see how your heart works,” she fussed, flustered by his action and trying to guise it. “I test to see if you are warm enough.”
“Warm and getting warmer all the time.” Instead of obeying her, he reached out and placed two fingers on the pulse point at her throat. “What about you, Skena? Are you warm?”
“Methinks you too playful for one who was nearly an icicle a short while ago.” She dropped her hand. “Do you feel strong enough to stand, Sir Noel?”
“Noel. Remember? You spake Scots set no store in titles, so why do you keep using mine?” Taking the cloth from his neck, he used it to wipe his face. “You also did not answer my question―are you warm?”
“You have no’ answered mine, either.”
He countered, “My question first.”
“I worry about your condition. You are just being troublesome.”
“Troublesome?” He grinned, passing her the rag. “You have not begun to see how troublesome I can be.”
One by one, he removed the remaining cloths from his chest and tossed each to the floor, the whole time never taking that hungry predator’s stare from her. Putting his hands on the side of the tub, he hefted himself upward. Water sluiced off his naked body, fascinating to watch as the rivulets snaked down his chest, hips and thighs. Her lungs cried for air as she sucked in a ragged breath. Finally, reason returned, and she thought to snatch up the drying linen.
As Muriel had pointed out, taking in Noel de Servian in the all-together was hard on a lass. He was tall, taller than most of the Scotsmen that she was used to. Instead of their stockier build, oft with skin heavy with freckles, de Servian was lean and unblemished, save for a small pale line across his upper left arm. She bit back the word bubbling up inside her, because she had scolded him for overusing it. Yet, as he stepped from the tub, she could not help but believe she looked at the most comely of men her eyes had ever beheld.
“Here.” She held out the long sheet of linen cloth between them. De Servian merely lifted his arms and waited for her to wrap it about his waist. She had to lean in to him to drape it around his hips, which brought her too near to that wonderful expanse of his broad chest. Her heart jumped, and then painfully bounced against her ribs. She tried to step back, but he brought his arms down and encircled her.
De Servian gave her a half-smile. “I am weak. I need something to lean on.”
Standing in his embrace, Skena slowly lifted her gaze. He seemed strong enough to her. “You do no’ feel feeble to me, my lord,” she whispered as their stares met and held. But she did. She trembled in his arms, scared of what this man’s coming meant. Scared that he reached her as none other had. An outsider, yet something seemed so familiar about him.
“You have no inkling just how weak I am.” His words were slow, leaving her to assume the tansy was hitting him full force.
De Servian leaned forward slightly, so close she could not draw air. If she did, she would inhale that scent of pure male. Worse, there was nary space between them. That single draw of air would press her breast to his chest.
Dizziness swirled through her mind as she remained perfectly still, caught in the power of his embrace.