“I’m sure no one meant to kill me,” Mairin said in a bleary voice. “ ’Twas an accident, that’s all. You may tell your men I forgive them.”
“What do you want me to do, Ewan?” Caelen asked, his features drawn into a tight line.
“Remain with me. I’ll need help holding her.”
Cormac rushed in, his arms full and his fingers clamped tight around a flask of ale. Ewan took the items from Cormac and set them next to the bed.
He didn’t want anyone touching Mairin, but he also recognized the impossibility of him being able to do everything. If he was going to do the stitching—and if the healer wasn’t able to, no one else was going to do it but him—then he’d need one of the others to hold her steady and make sure he didn’t do more damage than good.
He looked up at Cormac. “Go make sure the children are all right. Make sure that Crispen is attended to. He’ll worry when he hears what happened to Mairin. Have Maddie and the other women keep him below stairs until I am done.”
Cormac bowed and hurried from the chamber, leaving Ewan and Caelen with Mairin.
Taking the flask in hand, Ewan sat on the bed close to Mairin’s head and trailed a finger over her cheek.
“Lass, I need you to open your eyes and drink this.”
Her eyelids fluttered and her unfocused eyes found his. He helped her lean up enough so that she could put her lips to the opening. As soon as the liquid hit her mouth, she flinched away, her face drawn into an expression of intense dislike.
“Are you poisoning me?” she demanded.
He held back the chuckle and put the flask close to her mouth again. “ ’Tis ale. You’ll need it to help relax you. It will also help the pain.”
She bit her lips and turned worried eyes back to him.
“Pain?”
He sighed. “Aye, lass. Pain. I wish it weren’t so, but the stitching up will cause you pain. If you drink this down, you won’t feel as much. I promise.”
“You likely won’t feel anything at all after a good taste of that stuff,” Caelen muttered.
She wrinkled up her nose and sighed fatalistically as she allowed Ewan to put the ale to her mouth again. To her credit, she drank it down with only minimal gagging and choking. When he lowered the flask, her skin had a greenish hue that made him worry the ale would come back up with the least provocation.
“Deep breaths,” he said. “In through your nose. Let it settle.”
She flopped back onto the pillow and promptly let out a very unladylike belch followed by a series of hiccups.
“You didn’t hear that,” she said.
Caelen arched an eyebrow and shot Ewan a look of amusement. “Hear what?”
“You’re a good man, Caelen,” she said dramatically. “You aren’t near as fierce as you look, though if you’d smile on occasion, you’d be quite handsome.”
Caelen scowled at that.
Ewan waited several minutes and then leaned over to stare down at Mairin. “How do you feel, lass?”
“Wonderful. Ewan, why are there two of you? I can assure you that one is entirely enough.”
Ewan smiled. “You’re ready.”
“Am I? What am I ready for?”
Ewan dipped one of the cloths into a basin of warm water that Cormac had prepared. After wringing it out, he carefully wiped the now drying blood from Mairin’s side. It was only a graze, and in fact, it looked as though the arrow went right between her arm and her side as there was a bloody crease on the inside of her arm as well.
The arrow cut through more of her side, and it was that flesh that needed stitching.
He motioned for Caelen to take position on Mairin’s other side. Caelen walked around the bed and carefully pulled her arm away so that her side was bared to Ewan.
“You’ll have to hold her,” Ewan said patiently. “I don’t want her moving when I put the needle to her flesh.”
Reluctantly, Caelen anchored her more firmly against his body and held her wrist so that she couldn’t flail her arm.
Mairin roused and stared dumbly up at Caelen. “Caelen, your laird will not be pleased to find you in his bed.”
Caelen rolled his eyes. “I think he’ll understand this time.”
“Well, I don’t,” she said crossly. “It isn’t decent. No one should see me in bed except the laird. Do you know what I told him?”
Ewan raised one eyebrow. “Perhaps ’tis best if you keep such matters to yourself, lass.”
She ignored him and rambled on. “I told him that he was unskilled at loving. I don’t think he was pleased with that statement.”
Despite Ewan’s glare, Caelen burst into laughter.
