Wild Highland Magic (The Celtic Legends Series Book 3)(14)
The doctor stopped fussing. He swiveled on his heel and fixed his gaze upon Lachlan. Lachlan forcibly tamped down his excitement at the thought of being alone with the green-eyed beauty. It was unworthy to let his thoughts drift in that direction, and disrespectful to both her and the healer. And considering the many obligations he’d left behind in Loch Fyfe, he should know better.
“When I am back with my father,” Lachlan said, “I assure you that my gratitude will be matched in coin—”
“Don’t speak to me of coin.”
The doctor yanked open a drawer and seized what lay within. He loosed the string of a rawhide sack and, with one violent sweep of his hand, hurled the contents across the floor.
Coins clattered around Lachlan’s feet, coins with the imprint of strange faces upon them, coins of sizes and shapes that he’d never seen, all of them minted of gold finer than much of the jewelry his Stuart stepmother loved to wear.
Suddenly the healer loomed over him. “There are things you are too young to understand, boy. And there are secrets I’m unwilling to share.” The doctor leaned in so that there was no way Lachlan could avoid looking him in the eye. “The only treasure in the world is one’s wife, one’s children, and one’s family. All the gold from Persia to Arabia wouldn’t meet the worth of a single hair on their heads.”
The physician’s blue eyes blazed with a fierce light. Lachlan no longer doubted what he’d come to suspect: This healer had once been a knight, a warrior, perhaps even a chieftain. In all ways, a formidable opponent.
“The last time a foreign warrior came to Inishmaan,” the doctor said, “he stole away my eldest daughter.”
An expression rippled through the fury on the doctor’s face, an expression of grief and unbearable loss.
“If you want to repay me,” the healer said, “then swear not to do the same.”
CHAPTER SIX
“The selkie?” Dairine’s gray eyes widened. “He’s coming here?!”
Kneeling by the hearth in the kitchen, Cairenn tugged at the soaked laces of her ten-year-old sister’s pampooties, sensing Dairine’s mental squeal of excitement and anticipation. It was good to know that Cairenn wasn’t the only one who felt those things when considering their mysterious stranger.
“Aye,” Cairenn said, as the sound of thunder rumbled through the thatch, louder than the babbling of their brothers and sisters in the room. “With this storm brewing, am I to leave our guest all alone under a separate roof?”
“But we haven’t found his skin yet.” Dairine gripped the edge of the stool and leaned forward so no one else in the room could hear. “With the rain coming and the fog sweeping in, he’s sure to realize he doesn’t belong. He’ll rush to the strand and find his skin and go away and then he can’t come back for seven years.”
She caught an image in Dairine’s mind of the young girl’s frantic search for sealskin on the strand, dangerous forays below the waterline, and squealing races away from the pounding surf. Cairenn knew she should scold her sister for recklessness, but no harm had come of her antics. Dairine’s gift seemed to be that she always had an angel watching over her.
“This selkie thinks he’s a normal man, remember that.” Cairenn slipped one of the wet booties off and tipped it to pour rainwater upon the hearth. “If you say nothing, he’ll act just like any other man.”
“Like Da and Niall?”
“Aye,” she said, then leaned in and whispered, “but with less brooding and dreaming.”
As Dairine giggled, thunder cracked overhead, shivering the rushes of the roof. A drop slipped through the thatch and hit the back of Cairenn’s neck. Flames jumped under the two pots burbling over the peat fire.
“Speaking of our guest,” her mother said, twirling a wooden stake in the soup. “You’d best fetch him now, Cairenn, before you can’t get across the yard.”
Cairenn put the booties beside the hearth to dry and gave her sister a tweak on the nose. Clambering to her feet, she avoided her brother Niall’s eye though she heard his thoughts clearly enough. The moment her da had announced he was off to the mainland and that it was Cairenn’s responsibility to see to Lachlan, Niall’s mind had it up with mischief. Now her brother was mentally dancing in glee, his thoughts running with ideas for love-match songs to sing once the so-called selkie swept into their presence.
She gave her brother a sharp kick as she passed. He jumped, but then grinned and thrummed a chord on his willow-bark harp.
Outside, the rain fell slantwise. It was hours before sunset, but the world had gone gray. Black-bellied clouds boiled in the sky above. It was an angry summer storm, and she’d seen enough of those to know it would be full of harsh wind and biting rain and earth-shaking thunder and lightning that would brighten the whole sky. The heavenly fire might even touch down, here and there, leaving ashy spots upon the heights.
It would be a breach of courtesy to leave a stranger alone in his room to weather such gales, wondering if the end of days had come. At least, with her family around, she’d be less likely to make a fool of herself as she had yesterday sitting on the peat-pile.
She ran across the courtyard and flung herself into the surgery, pressing the door shut against the wind. Scraping her hand through her hair to clear it from her eyes, she blinked into the room and saw him standing with his back to her, outlined by the red glow of the fire.