Page 27 of Highland Spy

Murdoch winked and was gone before Connor could sit back in his chair.

His friend was right. It’d been too long since he’d gone to see Cora. And he’d have hell to pay.

• • •

Two months had done little to ease the threat of death from Liv’s features. Ariana smoothed the hair from her friend’s pale cheek.

While Liv had at least stopped retching, the nausea kept her from gaining much weight.

Ariana had had no issues gaining weight. After mornings of training, she was ravenous and had maintained a healthy consumption of all the foods she hadn’t been able to afford in over a year.

Thick, crusty bread, fine cheese that stuck in her back teeth, and various game with roasted golden skin and tender, juicy meat.

When Ariana saw her reflection now, no longer were her cheeks gaunt and her chest sunken—no, she had a rosiness to her face and everything had plumped rather nicely.

She felt like a woman.

One who was healthy and strong and capable.

She wanted that for Liv too.

When Ariana trained, in the many moments when her body trembled with exhaustion and she felt she could no longer go on, she would think of Liv upstairs, trapped in the torment of her own body. And she would push that much harder—not for herself, but for Liv. As if making herself stronger might somehow be enough for the both of them.

Liv tilted back the cup of Percy’s special tea and set it on her bedside table. Various glass bottles crowded the narrow surface.

Liv’s skin had taken on a gray pallor and her gleaming copper waves seemed to have faded to a muddy, sallow brown.

Seeing her thus squeezed Ariana’s heart.

She wished she could give some of the vitality of her body to her friend, to share the burning power, the incredible energy she’d never dreamed possible.

The best she’d been able to do was share stories of what she’d been going through with her training and the silly class on seduction. Omitting, of course, the imagined kiss with Connor.

“You don’t have to look at me like that.” Liv’s lips barely moved as she spoke.

Ariana forced her face into an expression of impassivity. “Like what?”

“Like you’re so worried.” Liv pulled the shawl of blankets around her more tightly. Her fingers were thin white twigs against the dark fabric. “Everyone is so worried. I see it in their faces when they tell me everything will be fine.” Tears glossed her dull eyes. “But it’s not fine. I can feel it. I can’t stand for you of all people to look at me thus too.”

Liv’s hands cupped the sad little mound of her stomach, where her child fought to live with more desperation than its mother.

Sympathy clogged Ariana’s throat. “We worry because we care.”

Liv gave a subtle shake of her head, stopped, and clenched her jaw.

Ariana reached over the rumpled sheets and gripped Liv’s hand. Her palm was cold and damp, her fingers limp.

An ache settled in Ariana’s shoulder from where Sylvi had slammed into her that morning, but she did not move. Liv did not like to be touched. Her accepting the small semblance of comfort was indicative of the closeness of their bond and it warmed Ariana’s heart.

“Wesley, my beloved.” Liv’s eyelids slid lower. Percy’s tea was starting to take effect. “He’s dead. And he never knew…”

She pulled her hand from Ariana’s and curled her arms around her stomach once more.

Wesley? Ariana had never heard of him during their long discussions at night when they traveled.

“We all care for you,” Ariana said. “This will pass and you’ll be stronger. We’re spies together, right?”

It was a pathetic comfort in light of the burden her friend carried, but it was all she could think to offer.