Page 82 of Warrior’s Lady

She swallowed convulsively as he encouraged her to take the entire contents of the cup. He would leave nothing to chance. Not where this woman was concerned. He returned her head to the pillow and with tenderness stroked her hair.

He slowly unlaced her dress until he could slide it up over her head. Her chemise followed, until she lay bare before his eyes. Camden felt his throat grow heavy and thick at the sight of the egg-size boils that marked the skin beneath her arms, and the red rash that dotted her neck.

The woman before him was as brave as any warrior he had taken with him into battle. Her body was marred by disease, her mind battered by the fatigue and suffering. He saw not her battered and ravaged body, but under her rash the delicate peach skin of her cheeks, her halo of golden hair, and the gentleness in her soul. And he knew that he loved her no matter what her lineage.

He'd always known love would be a passionate and powerful emotion, but he'd had no idea that it would also leave his nerves raw, his stomach churning, and his spirits so high he felt as though he could fly.

He immediately sobered. Would he get the chance to tell her he loved her? Wretchedness moved through him, and he did something he hadn't done for the last ten years. He prayed.

Please, don't take her from me when I've only just realized what a gift you have given to me.

Humbled by his own sense of desperation, he left her briefly to retrieve a clean length of linen. He dipped the linen in the bucket of ale, then with a gentle caress, bathed each deep purple boil.

As though by magic, each boil slowly vanished, leaving her flesh unmarked.

He dipped the cloth over and over again as he had seen her doing when he'd arrived at the castle, treating her entire body. "Thank you," he said, his throat aching under the intensity of his gratitude. He had never expected his prayers to be answered so swiftly. Perhaps it was not God who had deserted him all those years ago, but he who had abandoned his faith.

"Forgive me," he whispered.

"I forgive you," Rhiannon whispered in return.

Darkness surrounded him, lurking, waiting to close in. Camden tensed in the grip of a dream. His chamber faded, the walls of the keep vanished, and he was back in the Holy Land, standing on the rocky shoreline of a foreign land on the day of his release.

He and Orrin had survived the horrors of bondage and war. And yet now that they were free to return home with the wealth they had acquired, home seemed more like the foreign land.

Silence surrounded him, the kind of silence that comes upon the sea just before a storm. For seven years he had lived in a world of torment and pain. Only Orrin could understand what each life he had claimed had done to his soul.

The darkness crept closer as he thought back to all the things he had done to survive. Yet now at this moment of judgment, could he live with those choices, could he move past them? Or should he allow the darkness to overtake him, to swallow what remained of his life?

Or could he allow himself to live? To fight for those things that were worth risking his very soul— the protection of family, of country, of those he loved?

Memories of battles swirled in his head. They tumbled over each other, melded together, and separated yet again. So many battles. So much death.

Camden pressed against the barriers of his mind until he stood not on foreign soil, but on the fertile shores of Scotland.

Home.

What kind of honor justified war and destruction? Was protecting those one loved enough?

The dream shifted to Lee Castle, to the family who awaited him there. The emptiness inside him vanished, filled now with hope and love. He knew that the battle he struggled with now was his most important — and the most difficult. The prize was the future, and the possession of his soul.

He breathed in a deep, heather-scented breath of Scottish air, held it, allowing it to flow down to his center, to the place of his despair. Slowly, breath by breath, he found himself healing. His thoughts focused, crystallized. There were things worth fighting for, worth killing or dying for. All a man could do was choose his battles carefully and follow the path his heart told him was right.

Camden startled awake. He stared into the afternoon light and pulled the woman beside him more firmly against his body. For the first time since his return to Scotland he felt his burdens lighten.

Because now he knew what path was right for him.