Seduction of a Highland Lass

CHAPTER 37

For three days Alaric never left Keeley’s side. She never regained consciousness no matter how much Alaric tried to rouse her. He begged, bullied, coerced. He promised her the moon. All to no avail. He worried that she wasn’t taking in any sustenance, and after so much blood loss she surely needed every bit she could get.

And then the fever set in. Her flesh was dry and hot, so very hot. She twisted restlessly in her sleep and demons seemed to plague her without mercy. Alaric held and soothed her. He bathed her and at one point sat in a tub of water, holding her in an attempt to cool the raging fever.

A week after it all began, Alaric was losing hope. She grew weaker by the day and she lay so still, it was as if she’d already passed on but her body had refused to shut down.

On the seventh day, Ewan and Caelen came for him. Alaric’s rage was a sight to behold. It took the combined efforts of his brothers as well as Gannon and Cormac to force him from Keeley’s chamber.

Rionna and Maddie took Alaric’s place as the men ushered Alaric outside the keep.

“Where do you take me?” Alaric snarled as he fought against their hold.

His brothers said naught but carried him to the loch and tossed him in.

The water was a shock. He sunk below the surface, all the air leaving his lungs in a rush of bubbles. How easy it would be to just breathe in and join Keeley. It killed him to think of her alone and afraid in some dark place, dead but not dead.

As the cold settled in, the instinct to live kicked in and he fought his way to the surface. He came above and gasped a deep mouthful of air.

“Glad you decided to stay with us,” Ewan snapped from the shore.

Alaric treaded water for a moment and glared at his brothers. “What the hell was that for?”

“You’re wasting away for nothing. You haven’t left Keeley’s chamber in a week. You won’t eat. You haven’t bathed. You haven’t even changed clothing. If the injury doesn’t kill her, ’tis likely your smell will,” Caelen snarled.

Alaric swam to the shore and trudged out, shaking the water from his long hair. He bared his teeth just a moment before he leveled Caelen with a tackle.

The two men hit the ground with a thump and Caelen grunted as the breath was knocked from his chest. He recovered quickly and rolled, thrusting his arm over Alaric’s neck.

Alaric slammed his fist into Caelen’s jaw and Caelen reeled back. Before Alaric could jump to his feet, Ewan hit him hard, driving his shoulder into his belly.

“God’s teeth, are you all trying to kill me?” Alaric demanded as Ewan pinned him to the ground.

“Just trying to knock some sense into your thick head,” Ewan growled. “Are you ready to listen?”

Alaric head-butted Ewan in the nose and then rolled until he was atop his older brother. “You’re getting to be an old man,” Alaric taunted.

Caelen leaped back onto Alaric and the three men rolled, fists and curses flying. God but it felt good to beat the living hell out of something.

Several long minutes later, the three men lay sprawled on the ground breathing heavily.

“Ah damn,” Ewan groaned.

Alaric looked over to see Mairin standing over her husband, her hands on her hips.

“You should be resting,” Ewan growled.

“And you should be doing something other than beating each other into pulps!” Mairin snapped. “ ’Tis disgraceful!”

“I don’t know. It felt pretty damn good,” Caelen offered from his position on the ground.

Alaric slowly picked himself up. “Is there any change with Keeley?”

Mairin’s expression softened. “Nay, she sleeps still.”

Alaric closed his eyes and then turned back toward the loch. Maybe a good swim would clear his head and he could bathe while he was at it. Ewan was right. Rotting next to Keeley did no one any good.

“Ewan, the king and all the lairds grow restless,” Mairin said. “They want to know what is to be done.”

“I know it well, Mairin.” There was reproach in Ewan’s voice, as if he had no liking for her bringing up the topic in front of Alaric.

Alaric ignored them both and waded back into the frigid water. He well knew that the king and the lairds waited for Keeley to die so that he could marry Rionna and seal the alliance.

Gannon tossed him a bar of soap and waited on the banks while Alaric completed his bath. Ewan and Caelen returned with Mairin, leaving Cormac behind with Gannon to see to Alaric.

He hadn’t gone mad with grief yet. Yet, being the operative word.

When he returned to the keep a half hour later, Rionna greeted him, her eyes red and swollen. His heartbeat tripped and sped up, hammering against his chest. “What is it?” he demanded.

“You must come. She is calling for you. ’Tis bad, Alaric. I fear she’ll not last the hour. She is so weak she cannot hold her eyes open, and the fever rages so high that she’s delirious.”

Alaric took the steps at a run and rushed down the hall, barreling past countless people. When he burst into Keeley’s chamber, his heart seized.

She lay still, so still he feared he was too late. But then her lips twisted ever so slightly and she whispered his name.

He rushed to her side and knelt beside the bed. “I’m here, Keeley. I’m here, love.”

He stroked his hand over her face, wanting her to feel his touch, wanting to reassure her that she wasn’t alone.

She was so fragile, so very precious against his hands, so very breakable. He couldn’t accept that she could be taken from him at any moment.

“Alaric?” she whispered again.

“Aye, love, I’m here.”

“So cold. Don’t hurt anymore. Just cold.”

Alarm prickled up his spine.

She turned as if seeking his face. Her eyes opened to mere slits but she didn’t focus on him. Her gaze was sightless as if she looked into a dark void.

“I’m afraid.”

The admission gutted him. He gathered her in his arms and tears burned his eyelids. That a woman who’d feared nothing was now afraid was more than he could bear.

“I’m with you, Keeley. Do not be afraid. I’ll not leave you. I swear it.”

“Take me …” she broke off, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Take you where, sweeting?”

“To place … where we said … good-bye. Where you last … kissed me.”

He buried his face against her neck and wept.

“Please.”

Oh, God, he didn’t want her to beg. The pleading in her voice completely undid him.

“Aye, Keeley, I’ll take you. I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”

She smiled faintly and her eyes closed, as if the few words she’d spoken had completely spent her.

He gently gathered her in his arms and lifted her. He held her against his chest and pressed his lips to the top of her head. Tears slipped unchecked down his cheeks as he strode down the hall. No one tried to stop him. Mairin and Rionna openly wept as he passed. Maddie wore a stricken look and Gannon bowed his head in grief. At the top of the staircase, Caelen stood, his fingers curled into tight fists at his sides.

Then slowly he put his hand out to touch Keeley’s hair and let his fingers slide over her cheek. He leaned down and brushed his lips over her forehead in a tender gesture. It was the first time Alaric had seen him show any open affection or regard for a woman since the woman he’d loved betrayed him so many years ago.

“Be at peace,” Caelen whispered.

Then he backed up and strode away, his jaw clenched tight.

The entire clan gathered as Alaric bore Keeley through the courtyard and around to where the loch spread out to the east. He walked through the trees where he’d waited for her just a week earlier. He stopped at the water’s edge and lowered himself to sit on one of the boulders.

“We’re here, Keeley. Can you feel the breeze on your face? Can you smell the fresh air?”

Her eyelids fluttered weakly and she took in a deep breath. The action caused her immediate pain and a wicked spasm crossed her face. For several long moments she lay in his arms, her chest working up and down with exertion.

“Aye,” she said finally. “ ’Tis wondrous to feel the sun on my skin. I’m tired, Alaric. I’ve tried so hard to fight.”

He could hear the ache in her voice, the grief over the knowledge that she was dying.

“I want you to know that I’ll die happy. All … all I ever wanted … was to be yours. Your … wife. Even if for a while. You are mine and I am yours.”

Alaric stared up at the sky, sorrow crushing down on him with the weight of a boulder. “You’ve always been mine, Keeley. From the moment you took me into your cottage. There’s never been another woman who captured me, body and soul, the way you did. There’ll never be another. I should have been willing to give you what was rightly yours before now. I tried to do what was right and in the end, none of it matters if I lose you.”

“Hold me,” she whispered. “Stay here with me and hold me until the time has come for me to go away. I can feel myself growing weaker. I don’t think ’tis a long time.”

A raw, gut-wrenching sound of agony ripped from Alaric’s throat. His chest burned as if he’d swallowed fire. His hands shook so badly that he worried he’d let her fall.

“Aye, I’ll hold you, Keeley. I won’t let you go alone. We’ll stay here together and watch the sun go down over the loch and I’ll tell you every dream I ever had of our life together.”

She smiled and shivered against him. She went completely limp in his arms as if she’d expended all her remaining strength to say what she needed. For a long moment she lay there until she roused herself, seeming to have one last thing that she needed him to hear.

“You’re my dream, Alaric McCabe. And I love you. I’ve loved you from the moment your horse dumped you at my cottage. I spent so much time being resentful and lamenting the circumstances of my life, but ’tis true that I wouldn’t change a single thing because then I would have never known your love.”

He cupped her face in his hands and lowered his mouth to hers. Their tears mingled and the salt slipped onto their tongues as Alaric tenderly kissed her lips.

He closed his eyes and rocked her back and forth in his arms. The day faded to dusk and the evening grew colder. Gannon came out with furs and quietly wrapped them around Alaric and Keeley before leaving the two alone again.

The keep was already preparing to mourn. No one expected Keeley to live through the night.

Alaric settled into the furs and made himself as comfortable as possible on the face of the rock where he sat. He began to tell Keeley of all the things he loved most about her. How she made him laugh with her temper and her sharp wit. How she didn’t back down from either of his brothers.

He told her of his dreams of their children and how he wanted girls as beautiful and as fierce as she was and boys with her fire and courage.

Night settled in and the stars popped overhead. The moon splashed onto the loch, illuminating the pair as Alaric hung on tightly, willing Keeley not to slip away from him.

She grew quieter. He could literally feel the change in her as she grew weaker. The pain was too much for him to bear.

He laid his head atop hers and closed his eyes, wanting a brief moment of peace. When next he opened his eyes, the sky had paled with dawn’s imminent approach.

Panic stabbed through his chest. How long had he slept? He was afraid to look down. He was afraid to focus in on Keeley. What if she’d died in his arms while he slept? How could he ever forgive himself?

“Keeley?” he whispered as he shifted on the rock.

To his amazement, she moaned and moved fretfully against him. Her forehead gleamed with … sweat. With shaking fingers he touched her clammy skin and felt the sticky moisture that signaled the end of her fever.

Oh, God, he couldn’t function. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t process. He should get her back to the keep so that Ewan could look at her, but ’Twas God’s truth if he tried to stand now, he’d fall flat on his face.

He touched her face, her cheek, her eyelids even. “Keeley, Keeley, lass, wake up and look at me. Say something. Anything.”

Her lips parted the barest amount and it was obvious she tried to say something but lacked the strength. Her eyes opened a crack but she couldn’t keep them open.

“It doesn’t matter,” he soothed. “Your fever has broken. Do you hear me? Your fever has broken. ’Tis a good sign, Keeley. You’ll not die on me now, do you hear? You’ve fought this hard and long and I refuse to let you die now that you’ve given me hope.”

She whispered something he couldn’t hear. He leaned down and placed his ear next to her lips. “What did you say?”

“Brute,” she muttered.

He closed his eyes and laughed helplessly. ’Twas such a wonderful, exquisite feeling that he threw back his head and laughed until tears of relief streamed down his cheeks.

“Alaric, what is it?” Ewan demanded as he ran toward his brother.

Alaric turned to see his brother halt a few steps away, his expression wary and sorrowful. He glanced down at Keeley’s still figure and then back up to the tears streaming down Alaric’s cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Alaric. I’m so damn sorry.”

Alaric grinned broadly. “She lives, Ewan. She lives! Her fever has broken and she just called me a brute. Surely ’tis a sign she has no intention of dying.”

A broad smile split Ewan’s face. “Aye, ’tis a good sign to be sure. Any lass who can muster the gumption to be contrary is surely not to die.”

“I can’t lift her, Ewan,” Alaric admitted. “ ’Tis God’s truth I’m so poleaxed that I lack the strength to stand.”

Ewan hurried forward and lifted Keeley from his arms. It took Alaric a moment, but he was able to rise on shaking legs and walk alongside his brother back to the keep.

“They all think she’s dead,” Ewan explained. “Word went through the keep that you brought her to the loch to die.”

“ ’Tis a miracle, Ewan. A miracle I can’t explain but I’m so damn grateful for. She was dying. I could feel her dying in my arms. I held her through the night and I talked to her endlessly, telling her of my dreams and the children we’d have. I went to sleep and when I awoke, her fever was gone and she was bathed in a sweat. She’s still weak as a kitten but the fever has left her.”

“I’ll have a look at her wound as soon as we get her to bed,” Ewan promised. “Then we must address the issue of what is to be done about the alliance with the McDonalds. The king awaits as do the lairds of the clans who gathered here for your wedding. We cannot hold them off any longer.”

Alaric looked at his brother with all the dread in his heart. Then he nodded, knowing he must face this issue or the result could be disaster for his clan.

“As soon as Keeley is settled, I’ll go with you to meet with our king,” Alaric said quietly.