Davie began probing and cutting at his shoulder again. Alex hissed through clenched teeth and shut his eyes, jaw locked.
"What is he doing?" Fayth asked, panic entering her voice.
"I jest," Alex said, not opening his eyes. "He"s trying to help me... since he cannot tell me what he"s doing, I can only guess. I think he"s cutting away the corrupted flesh before it poisons the good flesh."
"Oh..." Fayth"s pounding heart began to slow. He was in such pain. The veins stood out in his temple, the cords and muscles in his neck and arm were bunched and hard. Perhaps she could take his mind from it. She decided to satisfy her curiosity about him and Diana.
"Which one of Carlisle"s daughters did you offer for?"
His eyes opened and some of the tension visibly left him. "What?"
"You told me you tried to secure the deed for Gealach through marriage. Well, Carlisle has several daughters. Which one did you want?"
He eyed her suspiciously. "You don"t know?"
"Very well," Fayth said, caught. "Diana blathered on and on about you so that I stopped listening-but I do think she mentioned that you wanted to wed her."
"Well, I did. Why? As her future stepmother, are ye a.s.sessing me as a suitor? Mean ye to put in a good word wi" Carlisle?"
Stung by his unexpected sarcasm she said, "If I"m ever her stepmother I"ll warn her far away from the likes of you!"
He gave a soft laugh that ended on a choked groan. "She had a sharp tongue, that la.s.s, but nothing compared to your poison sniping."
Fayth"s lips clamped down hard. She hadn"t meant to snipe at him. That"s not why she came over. She began the labor of trying to stand.
"Wait, Fayth. Don"t go."
She paused, looking down at him haughtily.
He sighed dramatically. "Sit and I"ll tell ye."
She sat.
"I made the offer to Carlisle first, of course, after he"d refused to sell me the land. His reply was that he"d wed her to a Turk afore he"d wed her to me-which was no surprise, considering I"m a third son, but I had to try. I thought to myself, once the deed is done, surely he"ll come to accept me. So I began visiting Diana in secret. She thought it great sport at first, but when I asked her to marry me secretly..."
Davie had finished cutting at the wound and was now applying a poultice of herbs to the raw flesh. Fayth noticed that it had stopped draining pus and the blood that still trickled from it was bright red and clean.
"She said no?"
"She said she was destined for better than the wife of a landless outlaw. When I told her of Gealach, she reminded me that it belonged to her father and that it was a rotting pile of stones unfit for the likes of a gentlewoman." "Ah, love... Ain"t it sweet," Skelley said behind them.
Biddy sniffed at Alex, then leaned against Fayth, tongue lolling from her mouth. The dog had been rolling in something. She stunk of dead animals and the coppery odor of blood.
Alex smiled wryly at the older man, but there was darkness in his eyes. Love? Had he truly loved Diana Carlisle? This troubled Fayth inexplicably. Why should she care? She didn"t-not really. She was merely feeling grateful for all the care and kindness he had shown her. There was nothing more to it.
"Anyway," Alex continued, turning his attention to his shoulder as Davie wrapped clean linen around it. "When she realized my intent, she warned me that if I told her father about our... meetings, she"d claim I raped her."
Fayth stroked Biddy"s fur, matted with mud, leaves, and other unidentifiable substances. Fayth wasn"t quite sure what to say to Alex"s story. Diana Carlisle was a very stupid girl. It was true there was no love between the Maxwells and the Carlisles, but neither did they have a deadly long-standing blood feud, as the Grahams and the Maxwells did. In Fayth"s opinion, a la.s.s could do a lot worse than Alexander Maxwell. Unfortunately, he was a Scot and a Maxwell, but he was young and handsome, and it was clear he would never harm a woman. Naturally, his landless/t.i.tleless state was problematic for fathers and upward-minded daughters, but that was not Fayth. She had other standards for a potential mate, and though the ability to provide was one of them, Alex met that and more. Though he had yet to gain the deed for Gealach, his sheer determination weighed the scales in his favor. If he failed, as Fayth suspected he might, there were other lairds-allies of the Maxwells-who would sell him land. He must have the resources, otherwise he wouldn"t keep trying.
Yes, he would make an excellent husband.
Davie finished with Alex"s wound and turned to Fayth. Alex"s weary but relieved gaze rested thoughtfully on Fayth. Uncomfortable with the direction of her foolish thoughts, she watched Davie remove the dressing from her arm, trying to ignore the intensity of Alex"s gaze, though every fiber in her body burned with awareness.
"Mind you, la.s.s," Alex said. "I don"t fault her. I understand her desire to improve her station through marriage. After all, that"s exactly what I tried to do. I had hoped, however, that the softer... womanly emotions might override her common sense."
Fayth questioned that Diana had any common sense at all and suspected more than her emotions had gone soft.
Skelley scoffed. "He means, he"d hoped she"d fall in love with him and defy her father."
"As usual," Alex said with a self-deprecating, one-armed shrug, "I overestimated my charms."
Davie apparently found her wound mending well, because he merely wiped it clean, applied the same poultice he"d put on Alex"s wound, and rewrapped her dressings.
Skelley had been waiting for something; his tongue worked busily at the gaps where he was missing several teeth. He nudged Davie"s shoulder so the young man looked up. "Finished?"
Davie nodded.
"Good. Come wi" me then. I"ve downed a deer. I canna bring it back alone."
Davie quickly put his things away.
"You two rest here and we"ll have venison tonight."
And they were gone, Biddy loping along beside them.
Fayth wished she hadn"t moved from her rock, for the way she sat now it was impossible not to look at Alex and he would know if she purposely avoided eye contact. Why couldn"t she look at him? It was most troubling-she"d never before had a problem meeting a man"s eyes and yet when she met Alex"s all sorts of unnatural things occurred to her body. So she glanced at him several times, but he leaned his head back against a tree, the philter Davie had given him resting on his thigh, cupped between his palms. Fayth watched the steam rise from it.
"Where did you learn to train animals?" she asked.
"From Brother Gilbert."
When she didn"t respond, he raised his head. "No more questions?"
"You think I"m intrusive."
"Nay, though I vow you ask more questions than anyone I"ve ever met."
"I"m just curious," Fayth said defensively. "You"re some kind of hero to your men and I"m trying to understand it. And now you"re Saint Francis to the animals."
Alex laughed. "Saint Francis? Brother Gilbert would love that."
"Who is Brother Gilbert?"
Alex sighed, turning the cup in his hands, eyes fixed on the rising tendrils of steam. "Brother Gilbert was one of my teachers at Dunfermline Abbey, where I trained to be a priest."
Fayth gaped at him. The letter he"d given to Diana. He"d instructed her to give it to the abbot of Dunfermline should anything happen to him. So he had written it.
"Aye, my mother and father had big plans for me. I was to become archbishop, or at least a great abbot, one day." When she remained speechless, he raised his brows. "It"s not as if I was ordained, la.s.s. You can close your mouth. I took no vows."