“You will take me to where you saw her immediately!” The earl gave him no thanks.
“No,” the captain refused stubbornly. “If you die, who will protect her?”
Her father stopped arguing and let his shoulders sag with defeat, but only for a moment. “Take everyone. Find him before he gets here. Bring my daughter back to me alive and I will forgive you for letting her go and for letting the man who has come to kill me, live! Remedy this!”
The captain nodded and turned away. Jones, Watley, and Cavanaugh were there listening, watching. He had to tell them about the others. Ten of their brothers wiped out by the pestilence. Or were they? A spark of hope went through him. The earl’s brother was wrong about Rose. She was alive. Perhaps the men were alive, as well. He would find out, but first, he would find Rose and bring her home. This time, he would kill MacPherson.
He would bring Jones with him so they could cover more ground and leave Watley and Cav here to protect the earl.
This time, he would do what he had been told to do and kill one whom many considered a hero for bringing justice to silent victims (mostly women). He had to do it to save his friend.
And what of Rose? Had she become friends with a man on his way to kill her father? Unless she didn’t know who he was. Why would she? She was as innocent as a babe, kept hidden and safe from the cruel world outside. What was the killer doing with someone like her? Unless he was planning on using her to get to the earl.
Whatever the hell was going on, Rose was coming home, and MacPherson was finally going to die.
Chapter Eleven
Rose sat in a chair close to the side of Tristan’s bed. He’d been lost to a fever for the last pair of days. Eleanor, or Nel as her friends called her, assured Rose that he was not suffering from the plague, but rather, from an infection from his wound. Rose helped Nel in every way she could. She crushed leaves and boiled leaves and sat by his bed wetting his lips and his forehead and praying.
Most of the time, he didn’t wake up, save when he was suffering some delusion. Twice, he whispered her name, as if he were stuck somewhere and was trying to pull himself out by speaking her name.
She held his hand and stroked his cheek and jaw. She cleaned his wound and dressed it. She didn’t leave his side.
When he’d been shot, she thought she would lose her mind. The terror of him dying threatened to overtake her. She knew for certain that she loved him then. She also knew she could never stay with him if he killed her father. She couldn’t let him do it.
If she wasn’t in love with him, she could leave him and let him die. It would solve the problem for her father.
But she was in love with him. She would do everything in her power to see that he lived, and then she would talk him out of what he thought he needed to do.
“Any change?” Nel asked and smiled at her after knocking and stepping inside.
Rose shook her head. “I fear not.”
“I have been thinkin’,” the healer said, coming inside. “I once heard of a remedy for infection that might just work. It canna hurt to try.”
“Why did we not try it already?” Rose asked.
“Because I dinna have any bullocks gall, or cropleek.”
“Bullocks gall?” Rose asked, turning a little green. “Is that what I think—”
“Aye. After equal parts of cropleek and garlic are pounded together, the leek must be added to a mixture of wine and the gall. It must be left alone in a brass vessel for nine days.”
Rose stood up. “Nel. Where can we find such a remedy?” Oh, how would she do this? How would she save him?
“Thankfully, I know a man…an old apothecary. He lives three miles south of here. My husband canna make such a trip. And yer friend mightna even need it, but—”
“I shall go,” Rose said without further hesitation. “Just give me better directions than three miles south of here.”
“But, my dear,” Nel laughed, “’tis just that. Three miles south. Ye willna miss it.”
All right then. She was going. She bent to press a kiss to his hot mouth. “I shall be back to you in no time, Tristan.”
She saddled up and took a folded cloth from the innkeeper as payment for the concoction. The man who possessed this cloth would have a hot meal and a bed for ten days or ten uses throughout a year.
Rose promised to repay the innkeeper and his wife for all their trouble and set out without further ado, south.
It didn’t take her long to find the old apothecary, though his house wasn’t overly large. It looked like something out of one of her books. Old, with a magical quality to it—and a deer standing on the narrow, pebble-covered path.
Rose took a moment to let the beauty of this place sink in. She smiled at the dragonflies paused in a shaft of sunlight by the door.
She didn’t want to hurry but she had to. She would return another day to enjoy this place. Now, she had to get that concoction.
She knocked at the door. “Hello?” she called out when no one came to the door. She knocked again. Finally, she turned the doorknob. The door opened. She went inside.
“Hello?” she called out again. Oh, she didn’t know what to do if the apothecary wasn’t here. She would have to wait and pray he wasn’t dead and was coming back.
She shouldn’t wait inside his home though. She was wrong to come inside although she couldn’t help but note that the inside was as charming as the outside. She went to the door and opened it.
“You there!” A male voice stopped her from
