Hugh muttered something obscene under his breath, and shot Alex a stony glance. “As ye wish.”
Ignoring him, Alex said, “Do ye know the story of the spring? The one the old woman used to tell when we were lads?”
“The healer?” Gilchrist said.
“Aye, the same.”
“Go on—tell it.”
Alex drew his mount closer. “Dinna ye remember? ’Tis said three outlanders wrecked and murdered a Scots maiden on the very spot. ’Twas brutally done, and all wept for the loss. And when the girl’s father lifted her body in his arms, a spring flowed from ’neath the soft pillow of heather where rested her head.”
Gilchrist had heard the tale, but not for many a year. “I remember this story.”
“And the rest of it?” Hugh quipped. “Some say the waters have the power to heal.”
Alex smirked. “I think not. Nonetheless, for years after, women who were ill used or who’d compromised their virtue bathed in the waters as a means to restore their purity. There’s many who still believe in it.”
Gilchrist snorted. “The virgin’s spring—nonsense.”
“Mayhap not,” Hugh said, then laughed. “Alex, ’tis said your mother frequented the place often before ye were born.”
Alex kicked his mount forward, his face contorting in rage. Hugh’s hand moved like lightning to the hilt of his dirk.
“Enough!” Gilchrist shouted. The two warriors froze. “Get to work—the both of you. I’ll return on the morrow.” Hugh’s behavior was fair testing his patience.
Alex and Hugh turned their steeds, gazes locked like two feral predators, and made their way stiffly along the path to the clearing. The girl, Arlys, scrambled down from the burnt stump and ran toward them, waving at Alex, her face alight with surprise and pleasure.
Hugh nodded at her, then called back over his shoulder, “Laird, will ye do it?”
“Do what?” Gilchrist shouted.
Hugh nodded again toward the girl. “Marry!”
Alex’s eyes widened. He looked from Gilchrist to Arlys, his expression unreadable.
“I’ll think on it,” Gilchrist said and spurred his mount up the hill into the wood.
Thunderheads massed, full to bursting, the air chill and heavy with the scent of rain. Lightning flashed in the distance against an ominous sky. Gilchrist reined his stallion to a halt and listened. Any moment now…
Ah, there it was—the low, crackling rumble. He looked skyward and breathed deep. Winter was not yet ready to relinquish her hold, and he was glad. He favored the cool, dreary days and long nights.
The first few drops took him by surprise. Before he could react, the clouds burst and he was caught in the downpour. “Ah, well, no matter.” He proceeded to strip to the waist. His movements were slow, methodical; he gritted his teeth against the inevitable pain. “Bluidy hell.”
He was saved a pummeling by the thick canopy of larch and laurel that choked this part of the Highland wood. All the same, the rain stung his newly healed skin. God’s truth, he welcomed it in some perverse way.
He’d grown used to the pain. ’Twas almost comforting now, in a way he couldn’t fathom. Constant, true, something he could count on. It was what it was, and never deceived.
His stomach soured at the memory of the pretty, lying eyes of the woman he once thought to wed.
He spurred the stallion up a steep embankment. The horse protested, his hooves sinking deep into the mud, but Gilchrist urged him on with firm commands. They topped a ridge and turned south. ’Twasn’t far now.
He looked forward to his visits to the spring. They afforded him time alone, time to think. Aye, he’d done a lot of that of late.
Hugh’s words gnawed at him. He was right—the clan needed a strong laird, especially now. Gilchrist flexed the muscles in his ravaged arm and slowly opened the claw-like hand. Once, there had been no question he was that man. And now?
After the fire, when he lay near death, Alex had stepped easily into the role of leader. He was a good man, well liked by the elders and the clan. Mayhap ’twas all for the best. ’Twould be easy for Gilchrist to step down and fade neatly into the background.
As for those who loved him…What would they think of such a thing? He barely remembered his father and those early years before his death. ’Twas his uncle, Alistair Davidson, who’d raised him, God rest his soul, and his own brother, Iain. What would they expect of him now?
What did he expect of himself?
Gilchrist knew the answer. He was laird and must protect his position, do what was right for the clan. He ran his good hand through his dripping hair, pushing it off his forehead. Water streamed down his face. He tipped his chin high and closed his eyes for a moment.
Aye, he’d do it.
He’d wed and be done with it. A Davidson, a Macphearson, mayhap, it didn’t matter who. Arlys was a good choice. He knew he could never love her, and that suited him fine. A marriage to appease the clan—but just that. Never again would he lose his heart to a woman. Never. He glanced at his burns. Besides, who could love him now…like this?
The stallion emerged from the cover of the trees as a bolt of lightning split the sky, startling and brilliant, above them. Thunder boomed in deafening response. The horse reared.
Gilchrist held fast and reined the beast into submission, soothing him with soft words. The air was thick with a sharp, metallic odor; all the hairs on his body stood on end.
“We must get to cover!”
He spurred his mount forward, toward the spring. A good-size cave where he’d spent many a night lay just beyond it. ’Twould serve to protect both him and the horse.
Halfway there lightning flashed again, this time closer. He slipped from the stallion’s back and threw his shirt over the beast’s head, covering his eyes. The rain whipped at him in stinging, horizontal sheets, the wind a maelstrom of some vengeful god.
Just a few more steps and—there it was! The virgin’s spring, near overflowing from the torrential rains. But what’s that, near the edge? A body?
He raced to the cave and tethered his stallion just inside the opening, then turned and wiped the water from his eyes. It was a body—a woman.
He stepped from the cave. Another flash lit up the roiling sky and he quickly stepped back again. “Well, ’tis a good thing she’s already dead. She’d no last another minute out there in this.”
He studied the prone figure from the safety of the cave while the storm raged outside. She was most certainly dead, sprawled at the edge of the spring, limbs splayed, as if she’d fallen from some height—from a horse, mayhap.
Even from this distance, he could see she was soaked to the skin. Water pooled fast around her. Hmph. What if she wasn’t dead? He stood for a moment, glancing from the body of the woman to the dry interior of the cave.
“Of all the bluidy nuisance—”
He waited for the next flash, then bolted toward her as a clap of thunder split the air. Reaching her in a half-dozen strides, he knelt beside her in the trampled heather.
She wore naught but a shift, thin and soaking, near translucent as it clung to her limp body. Her feet were bare. On impulse he reached out and touched one foot—cold as ice. Her hair was a raven-black mass plastered to her head. He could not see her face, and there was no time to check her for signs of life.
With his good arm he lifted her up and half dragged her, half carried her, back to the safety of the cave. In minutes he’d built a small fire—a task he loathed—and