The Highlander’s Healer (Blood of Duncliffe Series) Read online

  “So,” Alexander shrugged lightly. “We are ready, I think. Thanks.”

  He cleared his throat uncomfortably and briskly headed down the stairs.

  Prudence, he reckoned, was probably already there. In the inns, he had noticed, she always rose first, as if she had some sort of affinity with the dawn. A country lass likely did.

  I do wonder about her story, he thought curiously.

  He would simply have to ask her later, at first opportunity. The enigma of her history had only been enforced by their time here.

  The earl and countess knew her well.

  He appeared in the dining room, following the sound of china and cutlery. In the doorway, he blinked, surprised to notice he was not the first one up. Also, Prudence wasn't sitting.

  “Good morning, Lord Alexander,” Lord Douglas said, looking up as he entered. Douglas was sitting with his back to the long, arched windows, leaning back comfortably, wearing a lace-edged neck-cloth that Alexander suddenly envied. It loaned Douglas a debonair quality he wished he had.

  Foolish man! You seek to impress Prudence with baubles? Unlikely!

  “You slept well, I trust?” Marguerite asked, waving him to take the seat beside her, across from Douglas.

  Alexander sat down graciously. “Thanks,” he said. He looked around the breakfast table, trying – and finally failing – to ignore the rise in his gullet that signaled acute hunger. “I did.”

  “It's a cool morning,” Marguerite continued, reaching for a slice of bread. They breakfasted here, Alexander noticed, like in most courtly houses, with a mix of Scottish and English traditions. There was porridge to be had, and eggs and bread and jam. He felt his stomach lurch and didn't know if he could quite manage porridge.

  “You will ride out later?” Douglas asked, generously spooning salt over an egg from a silver plate.

  “I hope to,” Alexander agreed, wondering where Prudence had gone to. He was used to her being early for breakfast. He didn't want to seem over-eager for her company – that would shame her, he decided – so he held back his quick inquiry.

  “Well, I have Lonmure giving them a looking-over as we speak,” Douglas explained. “He's my chief overseer of such things, and the local fellow – who can be mustered, when necessary – all know him. I asked for ten of the strongest fellows, and ten riders.”

  “That sounds perfect,” Alexander said, impressed. He buttered a slice of bread, breaking off a piece to chew, albeit absently. He hadn't realized Duncliffe had the ability to command so many men. He would have suggested it reckoned into strategy much earlier, if he had known that.

  “We don't usually summon them,” Marguerite said, almost as if she guessed his thought. “Only in time of greatest demand.”

  “I appreciate it,” Alexander said, inclining his head. He wondered to what he owed this unusual favor.

  “We knew if Prudence was involved, it was a matter of the heart, not some frippery of other men's war,” Marguerite said firmly.

  “Oh?” Alexander stared, surprised. He had not – absolutely not – guessed of the loyalty such gentlefolk felt toward Prudence. He had known she was something of a healer – a good one, he adjudged, considering his wounding – but the care these people had for her went beyond such everyday things.

  He cleared his throat, about to ask how they knew her.

  “Where is Prudence?” Douglas mused, reaching for a piece of crust, which he chewed, absently.

  As if she had heard him, she appeared in the doorway.

  “Forgive me, Lord Douglas, milady,” she murmured, looking at her feet – encased in day-shoes, Alexander noted, not boots – her hands at her sides, discomforted. “I was late rising. I'll not...I feel tired, and would prefer to spend the morning mending clothes.”

  Marguerite and Douglas exchanged a glance. Marguerite pushed back her chair, a frown on her brow. “Prudence, you feel poorly?”

  Prudence shook her head. “Just weary. Please, milady. I must rest.”

  With that she turned and practically fled from the room. Alexander looked after her, pushing his chair back. He felt distressed.

  Prudence, who ordered him about as if he was a char-fellow! Prudence was not the sort of person to be deferential, shy, or hesitant. Something was drastically afoot.

  “I think she really is weary,” Douglas said. He looked at Alexander gravely, and he bridled at the reproach, lightly done, in the dark stare.

  “I know,” he murmured. “She did take it slowly, with the riding. I ensured this...”

  “You are not to blame for her weariness, Alexander.”

  He shot Marguerite a flashing smile. At least someone was in his encampment! “Thanks, milady,” he said, and sank into wary silence, finishing his bread.

  After some more bread, eggs and cheese, taken rapidly, he pushed back his chair and stood. “I would like to check my horse, and stretch my legs, if we've time?”

  Douglas raised his shoulders in a shrug, expansive. “Of course, Alexander. We're still assembling the soldiers. We should be ready by ten of the clock. If we can ride then, and fast?”

  “I'll be ready.”

  Alexander walked briskly from the room. He looked quickly into the parlor – which was next door, looking as if it must, long ago, have been a single room, the castle-solar – and saw no signs of her.

  I hope I didn't upset her, he thought, heart giving a thump. She'd been odd since yesterday.

  He hurried up the hallway, trying to check every room as he passed. Eventually, near the gallery, on the third floor, he stopped. He caught sight of a white dress, and heard someone step back, very quietly, into the shade.

  “Prudence?” he called.

  Her face peeped round the edge of the alcove. To his shock, he noticed she'd been crying. He felt his heart crimp in surprise.

  “Prudence?” he asked, heart thumping with sudden alarm. “What happened? Has anyone...” He instantly imagined all the dangers she could have faced, unbeknownst to him, while he slept in lofts.

  “I'm fine,” she sniffed. “Go away, Lord Alexander.”

  Alexander raised a brow. She'd never used his title. Of all people he knew, she was the one person who never made use of it. He hadn't given it to her to use, for it sounded so wrong in her lips. To her, he must be simply himself. “Prudence,” he said gently. “What is it? Why so formal? You know we shan't...”

  He was going to comment that they need not to stand on ceremony with each other, not now or ever hence, but she gave a bitter grin.

  “I know that you are Lord Alexander, Earl of Tillmore,” she said. Her voice was hard, icy. “And you know by now what I am.”

  Alexander stared at her, surprised. “No,” he said softly. “I have no idea. Prudence, I do know you are a mystery. A beguiling mystery. One I wished for so long to solve, we...”

  “I was a maidservant.”

  Alexander stared. The idea was so incongruous that he felt his lips twist. He saw her expression change from one of sadness to one of shame. “Prudence, no! I wasn't laughing...”

  But it was too late to say anything, for she had already fled the room.

  Leaving him alone.

  CONVERSATION IN A HALLWAY

  Prudence held down the linen of her wide, flared skirt with one hand while she ran. She didn't want to make a scene, didn't want a sound to announce her. She wanted to escape.

  I can't believe I let myself make such a fool of me.

  She bit her lip, tears slaking her cheeks, though she wept soundlessly. She sniffed, trying not to make any whisper.

  He couldn't have found out harder.

  She shivered. She hadn't thought she would ever have to tell him. The way she planned it, she realized, they would have exchanged farewells at the fort, and she'd have stayed on for a while. She knew, now, that her heart was not pleased with it.

  “I wanted to stay.”

  She had wanted to stay by his side, follow him in all things, especially in the dangers he was facing. She ha
dn't wanted him to be wounded, she'd told herself firmly. She'd said she wanted to be his nurse. To support him. Really, she realized now, she had simply wanted to be near him.

  She shuddered and looked down at her hands. Worn and bony, she realized now how obvious it must have been to him that she was nowhere near his status.

  He must have found it amusing, she realized, to be ordered by myself.

  She felt a profound sense of shame. How had she let herself be played with that way? Let him laugh at her; gently sneer at her behind her back? She knew now that he didn't really feel the way he seemed.

  It must have all been some sort of play.

  She shivered. She couldn't imagine that. It didn't seem possible that her heart could be so bitterly uninspired. She had felt the sense of longing in his kisses, felt real care in his touch.

  All that must be wrong, then, all imagination. He thought she was a funny, arrogant farce.

  “Prudence?” a voice called. She tensed, withdrawing into a curtained space. She stood still in the alcove, hearing his feet thud past in the lower corridor. He was calling her, and he sounded frantic.

  He must wonder where I've gone. Mayhap he misses his amusing caregiver.

  She sniffed, furious at herself. The fury was like a goad, and it was one she used to get herself moving. She would leave at once. What circumstances could make her stay? She had her pride and it did not countenance being laughed at.

  “Prudence?”

  She stood further back, concealed in shadow.

  The feet went past.

  She came out again only after she had counted to twenty, and again backwards, down to one. In itself, that was a feat outside her station. Not many people who were servants were as numerate as her.

  Not that, she thought angrily, he'd notice something like that. Lords thought all servants were barely-human fools.

  Well, he'd had his amusement. Now she could leave.

  She shook her head, reaching into her pocket to take out a kerchief. The shoes and the under-linens she wore were all new, loaned to her courtesy of the estate.

  “Not all aristocrats are like he is,” she thought.

  Marguerite was not, nor, for that matter, was Douglas. Claudine wasn't. None of the noble men she knew would ever have behaved the way he did!

  “Thinking he can laugh like that…?”

  She felt as if she was whipping her sorrow into fury. Fury, at least, didn't hurt so much.

  Bristling with wounded rage, she headed downstairs.

  As she crossed the lower hall, ready to change staircases to the ones that went up, all the way to the third floor, she heard a voice.

  “Prudence? There you are. A word, please?”

  Prudence turned sharply to see Lady Marguerite on the threshold.

  Most of her anger dissolved instantly. She looked at that soft, caring face and felt it shrivel and fade. Marguerite looked at once concerned and confused.

  “Yes, milady?” she frowned, sensing something bothering her. “What is it?”

  “Prudence, I hate to avail myself of your healer-gift, but while you are here, I couldn't hesitate to ask it...” She trailed off, uncomfortably.

  “Of course,” Prudence said, anger gone now, replaced with a level calm. “What is so untoward?”

  “Oh, it's not me,” Marguerite shrugged uncomfortably. “Though I must admit I sometimes get a vague fluttering in my chest now and again. Nothing to be alarmed about,” she added dismissively, and Prudence realized she must be frowning. She relaxed her face.

  Never let anyone see you look worried.

  The last thing a worried patient needed was an uncertain expression.

  Grandma taught me that, and, later, other things.

  She had followed Dr. Masterton, the Estley physician, about too.

  “What is it?” she asked again.

  “It's Alexandra,” Marguerite said. “It's her teeth. I know very little about the cutting of teeth, and, since she is that age, when they grow in – so to speak – I was wondering if you would be so kind as to take a look?”

  Prudence raised a brow. “Of course, milady! I'd love to. Alexandra's a dear lass, and...”

  She trailed off, talking fondly to Marguerite of the child she remembered, sure she must have grown considerably since the last time she was there. They went upstairs to the room beside the new parlor, where the baby slept, guarded by a nursemaid.

  “Parrow?” Marguerite spoke to the maid quickly. “If you could leave us? I want the healer to have a look at Alexandra's teeth.”

  “Of course, milady,” the maid said, curtsying and leaving.

  Prudence went at once to the child, who was sitting in the crib, looking up at her with big eyes and a soft smile on her face. A toddler, beautiful as a doll, the child was blessed with pale skin, like her mother's, and her mother's fiery curls.

  “You are worried about the front one?” Prudence asked, as the child smiled at her. It seemed to protrude a little.

  “Yes, that's it!” Marguerite sounded relieved. The title and difference of birth meant nothing in that moment, Prudence noted. She was as concerned about her child's care as any mother might be.

  Prudence frowned. The teeth, she knew, did not have to stay in the place where they were as they formed, but could move about a little, if pushed with daily pressure. Also, she knew, the positioning of the first set of teeth mattered little. All that mattered was the second.

  “I think that tooth will straighten as it grows, milady,” she began. “If it worries you, perhaps Parrow – or yourself – might gently press it back with a finger, a little every day? It can move, slowly.”

  “Oh!” Marguerite looked quite relieved. “It doesn't matter?”

  “Where it is now? No,” Prudence queried, reassuring. “And she'll lose this set as she grows, remember. By age six, you'll never know it was a little offset.” She grinned.

  “Thank you,” Marguerite said, seeming heartened. “Now. Can I find you some tea? I think you had only time for a little breakfast.”

  Prudence, who had barely eaten anything, nodded briskly. The thought of breakfast had been bothering her. “Please, milady,” she said gratefully. “I would love some.”

  “Well, then,” Marguerite nodded, treating her with the same casual fondness as before. “We shall have some set in the small parlor. There, I can talk. I want news of my cousin.”

  Prudence nodded, smiling. Marguerite and Claudine, her former mistress, were first cousins, and the resemblance was strong.

  “Of course, milady,” she nodded fondly. “She would be dearly pleased of news from you, as well. And of her...niece? Cousin? Alexandra.”

  “I think a kind of cousin,” Marguerite said, frowning. “In any case, I know what to do. I shall write her a letter! That would be grand...I do wish she could have sent me one,” she added wistfully. “Well, no matter. This will do.”

  “Lady Claudine would be glad of a letter.”

  “I do miss her! Is she settling in so far north? I declare, it's quite wild up there! Oh! There you are, Lewis. Some tea, if you please. And do fetch up some of those cinnamon cakes – those were very good.”

  Prudence smiled fondly, watching Marguerite bustle about her home. She seemed far too comfortable a sort for a grand lady, but then, how would she know what a grand lady was supposed to be like?

  It's not as if I move in court circles. Not like Lord Alexander.

  She tried to wipe the sadness from her face as Marguerite settled herself down opposite her, a rapt expression on her pretty face.

  “Now! About my cousin. How is she finding Scotland?” Marguerite pressed.

  “Well, milady,” Prudence explained, and she went on to tell her some of Claudine and Brogan's news – her expected baby, her plans to redecorate, her happiness in Scotland. All things Prudence had to stretch her mind to recall, since it had been a while since she’d lived at the hall with them. She had her own place now.

  The thought of her cottage br
ought another pang of sorrow to her heart. Did it still exist? Her mind flashed an image of a burned-out shell, like so many other homes burned for sheltering the rebels, and her heart ached.

  Lady Claudine doesn't even know I wasn't home.

  That hurt even more. The sadness of the last few days washed over her suddenly, and it was all she could do not to start crying right there at the table.

  “And I think, maybe when the weather improves, we...Prudence! What happened?” Marguerite cried.

  “N...nothing, milady,” Prudence sniffed.

  “Nonsense!” Marguerite said, reaching for her pocket – sewn into the hem of her skirt where it joined the bodice – and producing a small handkerchief with elaborate laced trim. “Now, you dry your eyes...there, that's the way...and tell me what's wrong.”

  Prudence sniffed, dabbing her eyes with the handkerchief, scented with rose-oil. She shook her head, sighing. “It's n...nothing, milady. Just my home, and my work, and...Well,” she started and shrugged. “Why did I have to be born as me?”

  Marguerite frowned at her. “As you? My dear Prudence! Whatever do you mean by that? We're all very glad you were born as yourself. You have very little to complain about! Why… You have wit, charm, talents...I can think of many people who could wish they were you!”

  Prudence made a face. “I'm sorry, milady,” she said, for Marguerite sounded almost offended. “I didn't mean to sound ungrateful.”

  “I know,” Marguerite soothed. “But tell me. Something has worried you.”

  “It's nothing,” Prudence insisted softly. “Just...”

  “Just..?”

  She sighed. “I sometimes wish that, well...that I had lived another life. Either clearly master, or clearly servant. Not in this strange territory in-between.”

  “Prudence,” Marguerite said gently. “I think it's the way of things when you have talents such as yours. They would mark you as different no matter what state of life you held. You recall Merrick from when you were here last?”

  “Mrs. Merrick, the cook? Aye,” she said and nodded. “I do. Is she still...”

  Marguerite grinned, laughing. “Oh, Merrick's here, right enough! I think we would find Merrick still here if the castle burned to ashes and all fell down.”