The Intended

Chapter 7-1

7

“Is he dead?” Mary Howard’s whisper broke the momentary silence that had fallen inside the cell. Peeking into the open door, she froze at the site of the blood and the b****y wreck of the Scot’s body.

The physician cast an admonishing glance at the blanched face of the newcomer, and Jaime’s startled expression quickly changed to bewilderment at the appearance of her cousin.

“Did you come down here for a dance, Mistress Mary?” the physician asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Turning to Jaime, his gruffness returned as he barked, “Take her out of here at once, Mistress Jaime. The poor lad is barely hanging on as it is. We don’t need the entire household tramping through for a peek at his miserable carcass.”

“But...but we’re not finished with him,” Jaime argued. She had no desire to go just yet. “You need help with his dressings. I should try to clean the blood from his wounds.”

“I’ve done this for over thirty years,” Grave grumbled under his breath. “I can manage the rest just fine. As for the cleaning, I’ll do what I can and have one of the stable hands sleep in here. We don’t want any of the barn vermin getting at him during the night.”

The physician smiled wryly as Mary Howard paled again, looking as if she were about to be ill. He looked back at Jaime. Uncertainty showing on her face, she stood looking at him from her place beside the prisoner.

The lass had certainly been a great help, far better than his own hapless, shirker of an assistant. But the truth of it was that the physician needed a bit of time alone to regain his wits. What he’d just witnessed had frightened him. Something had passed between this woman and the wounded man, and he was struggling, even now, to square it in his mind. He could have sworn...no. There was no doubt. The Scot had died. He’d stopped breathing.

He was dead.

And then—Graves dared not think of it as magic—Jaime had brought him back to life. Back to life and back to a conscious state. The physician’s hackles rose again at the thought of the awakening. The Highlander’s chest had convulsed, his fists clenched and then opened, only to tighten into fists once more. And then the lad had opened his eyes, clear and alert and disbelieving. The Scot had just stared at her, anger quickly taking over, wrath eclipsing any other expression on his battered features. He’d silently drunk the entire potion then, never taking his eyes from her face. Then, cursing her by name, his swollen eyelids had drooped, and he’d fallen into a deep slumber.

Over a year ago, when Jaime Macpherson had first arrived, the word had gone about that she was niece to Anne Boleyn. He himself could see the family resemblance between her and the dead queen. In the back of his mind, now, resemblances of another type were pushing forward with an unpleasantness that Graves was trying to ignore. Aye, he’d heard the stories that Queen Anne was a witch—a sorceress of some kind who had cast a spell on the king. That is, until he’d had her beheaded. They’d said she could communicate with spirits. There was even talk that her ghost had been seen in the Tower of London and other places, as well.

But Graves had never believed such talk. He’d seen her before the king fell in love with her, and he’d seen her as queen. She hadn’t been an easy lass to like, in his opinion. Proud and vain. But hardly a witch, so far as he could see. Just talk begun by her enemies, by those who wanted her dead. And of course, he thought, it’s even easier to slander your enemies once they are dead.

But now! His eyes looked searchingly into Jaime’s face. Witnessing what had occurred here, what the lass had done. And she a niece to the dead queen! Graves pondered a moment. Nay, it couldn’t be, he decided, shaking his head. By Jesu, he was even starting to think like these damned English.