Page 39 of Duncan

“I’m not your lady. I don’t belong here or with you. Not now, not ever—and this.” Righteous fury darkened her pretty face as she jerked on the manacles, slamming the cuffs into each other. “You put me in chains because I won’t let you order me around—was that meant for me, too? Is that why your father brought me here, for you to treat me like this?”

Her outrage made her look even more beautiful. “When we first kissed you wanted me. Aye, and wished do anything I asked of you.”

“Yes, you can arouse me, and maybe even seduce me. You’re handsome and I’m lonely. But we were never supposed to meet. I won’t even be born for another nine hundred years.” Her throat moved as she swallowed. “I want to go home.”

Duncan left his chamber quickly before her pitiful words moved him to release her. As he walked along the passage he imagined with every step turning back so he could go and free her. His heart grew so heavy that by the time he reached the infirmary he thought he might boak. Inside he found Nyall and a wounded patroller waiting for him.

“Gustin took a tumble out on the ridges,” the captain told him, “and we need talk about Mistress Fairburn.”

He closed his eyes briefly before going to the patroller and inspecting his minor gashes and scrapes. “Soak in a hot bath before bed, and scrub the dirt from your wounds before you use the pain salve I’ll give you. Any limbs you cannae use, lad?”

“I cannae walk without a limp, Healer.” Gustin pulled up the torn shreds of his trews leg to show a badly distorted knee.

“Grab him from behind,” he told Nyall, and once the captain had the man in a secure hold he extended the lower part of the leg, and placed one hand on the edge of the kneecap bone, gently but firmly pressing it back into place. He then propped the leg with a stool before wrapping the knee snugly and presenting Gustin with a crutch and the wound salve.

“Spend a night on your back, and then come see me in the morn,” Duncan told him.

“My thanks, Healer.” The patroller gingerly tested his leg, nodding before he used the crutch and limped out of the infirmary.

“Anything more?” he asked the captain as the first pain shot through his own leg.

“Aye.” Nyall shut the door behind him and leaned back against it. “Tell me why you’ve confined Mistress Fairburn to your bedchamber.”

“You didnae expect we should become lovers?” he countered, and then saw the captain’s expression. “Fack me. Never tell me you stood outside eavesdropping?”

“The two guards I bid follow the lady did. Once they heard enough, they came and reported you’d manacled her in your bed.” Nyall folded his arms. “We never imprison our guests, Healer. Nor do we place our lovers in chains. What possessed you do such?”

“You should ken. You wished toss Lady Valerie in the dungeons when she first came, didnae you?” He limped over to his shelves and took down a pain tincture. “And then attempted bed her so she’d no’ trifle with the laird. I reckon I shall soon call Nicole my lover, and then she shall plague me no more.”

“You wouldnae violate her against her will.” The captain came over to him, and took the tincture out of his shaking hands. “How many drops, three?” When he nodded he added the proper amount to a cup and filled it halfway with water. “After you’ve treated your mortal weakness, you’ll return and free her.”

“From the manacles, aye.” He took the cup and drank down the bitter remedy. “She’ll remain locked in my chamber for now while I persuade her cease her foolishness. She cannae separate a hybrid back into two creatures. ’Twill rend her in half.”

Nyall sighed. “I shall place guards outside your bed chamber, and speak with Connal and his lady. Only take good care, Brother, for I believe Mistress Fairburn’s broken heart is the one wound you may never heal.”

Once the captain left, dizziness caused by the tincture forced Duncan to retreat to his pallet, where he eased down on his back and gritted his teeth before extending his throbbing leg. After a few minutes the pain ebbed, shrinking to a tolerable unpleasantness. Since the day he’d agreed to serve as the clan’s healer Duncan had never regretted his decision, but he sometimes wondered what his long life might have been if he’d stayed away from the druids that had taught him their secrets and instead became a watcher or a patroller. Prince Mar himself had put the notion in his head that his weakness could be of use to him if he chose to use it for the clan and their vassals.

You shall make a fine healer, lad, only never tell your brothers of what you suffer. They shall coddle you, and that, ’tisnae what you need.

Duncan still wondered what his sire had meant by that. He’d always been one of the most learned, serious men of the clan, and had never wasted his youth trifling with females or pursuing aimless pastimes. When they had rescued and sheltered druids fleeing from the Romans, and he asked them to teach him what they knew of healing, they had accepted him and revealed their secrets as if he’d been born to their tribe. Even later, when he’d taken a lover, none of the women who shared his bed had ever warmed his heart.

Someday, Duncan, you shall serve all mankind, the prince had told him. Only remember that love shall prove your own salvation.

Chapter Ten

Nicole stared up at the ceiling, knowing that making any noise was probably as useless as Duncan had warned, but wanting to scream her head off anyway. Hudson clubbing her over the head and tossing her into the ocean hadn’t made her this angry. No, she was being ridiculous now, of course her brother had done worse to her. Why was she so furious?

All the other women from the future had met MacMar men who loved, protected and supported them. She’d bet not one of them had ever been chained to a bed by their lovers.

How could Duncan do this to her? He might have a twelfth century mentality, but he’d always seemed calm and reasonable. He’d listened to her, and treated her with gentleness right up until the moment he’d put cold steel cuffs around her wrists and ankles. She couldn’t believe he’d behave like such a caveman. Was he out of his mind? Did anyone else in the clan know what the wretched man was doing? How could she have been so stupid?

Never trust anyone except our family, Aunt Merry had said. It’s too dangerous to let any strangers get close to you.

That was why she’d gotten herself into this mess, Nicole thought, because she had liked the healer from the very first time they’d spoken. That and her loneliness had prompted her to make that idiot wish. She knew nothing about him, and still she had lowered her guard and opened her heart to him.

She had even trusted him the way she would a doctor in her time. Only Duncan wasn’t a real doctor. He’d never gone to medical school. At best he could be called a homeopath, at worst a quack. He and his clan and their island existed because of his Fae father, his evidently inexhaustible need for sons, and his dangerous enchantments.

The terrible attack that had resulted in her coming here had happened because she had trusted Hudson not to hurt her. When would she ever learn?