Highland Temptation by Jennifer Haymore

Author:Jennifer Haymore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2016-08-23T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

His eyes were glued shut, but with some urgency he couldn’t define pushing at him, Colin peeled them open.

He was lying on a bed in an unfamiliar room. There was no light except that cast by the fat flame of a flickering candle on small shelf beside the bed. He surged upward, his hand going to the sgian dubh tucked into his stocking, but there was no blade there. There was no stocking, either.

He jumped out of the bed. A mistake. Nausea surged up within him so strongly, he staggered, then bent toward the empty pot conveniently sitting on the table beside the candle and wretched. Only vile-tasting liquid came up. There was no food in his stomach, and its convulsions were so painfully intense that he saw stars.

He finally stood straight, but dizziness overcame him, and he stumbled back onto the bed, breathing heavily as he looked around in bewilderment. He couldn’t make any sense of where he was.

“Och! I thought ye might be up.”

Blinking, Colin looked toward the voice. A figure of a person hovered in a doorway, blurry and round, with soft edges. He blinked hard, trying to focus. He thought it might be a woman. The voice had been that of a woman, hadn’t it? He was damn confused.

“Ye should lie down, lad.” She turned and bellowed over her shoulder, “Stuart! Stuart, the lad’s come to!”

“I canna…” He needed to get up. He needed to do something. For the life of him he couldn’t remember what. He put his hand to his head in frustration, then winced. The entire left side of his head was soft and pulpy, as if he had no bone there, only flesh. What the hell? He tried in vain to remember…anything.

The figure moved closer, and Colin tensed, ready for battle. Had there been a battle?

“You were walloped in the heid,” the woman said. There was a deep kindness in her country Lowland Scots accent that made Colin relax…If there’d been a battle, it certainly hadn’t been with her. “I’m Mary MacCallum. My husband, Stuart, and I found ye on the side of the road, sleepin’ like a wean but bleedin’ like a stuck pig with a lump the size o’ a haggis on your skull.”

He looked at her in confusion.

“Must’ve been highwaymen,” she told him. “They come ’round these parts now and again, so near tae the border as we are.”

The border…Why was he at the Scottish border? Memory began to seep in, in pieces and chunks. Lord Pinfield’s stout body stepping out, the man leering at him. Guns aimed at him. Pinfield…he was a traitor. And he was chasing after them…after…

Emilia!

Colin jumped up again, then instantly bent forward gasping, gripping the edge of the little table.

“E-milia…” he pushed out.

“What’s that?” the woman said.

Still holding on to the table so he didn’t keel over, he twisted his head and looked at the woman, and found he could now focus a bit better. She was short, round, and plump, and in her green tartan dress, she reminded him of an apple.

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