The Irish Warrior Part 14

"I need food."

He bestirred himself. Grabbing their bags, he knelt at her side and rummaged through them, then handed her a hunk of bread and cheese. He watched her chew without interest. She laid her hand on her lap. The food slipped to the ground.

"Finian?"

"Senna-" he interrupted, thinking to stop her scattered, hesitant talk. Talk, or sleep. Or pa.s.sion, he thought languidly, but one or another fully. He was so weary he could almost hear sleep calling to him.

"My hand hurts. Help me with it, would you?"

"Aye." He reached for a flask. "Here." Tugging the cork free with a muted pop, pop, he held the vessel in front of her face. he held the vessel in front of her face.

She wrinkled her nose, pushing it away. "It stinks."

He furrowed his brow. "Ye drank well enough earlier."

"That was then."

He sat back on his heels and exhaled noisily. The hair over his forehead lifted and lowered with the breeze. Senna watched with some interest.

"Drink," he insisted, holding the flask closer to her mouth.

She sighed as if enduring the torture due a martyr, then swallowed and sputtered.

"Another." His hand touched hers, his wide fingers curling around hers as he made her hold the flask and lift it to her lips.

She drank.

He coaxed her to take another couple long draughts; then, while waiting for it to take effect, he dug a deep, small hole and built a small fire in it, then prepared the herbs. He pounded out the root with the hilt of a blade while he boiled the water that he'd procured, then made up a poultice and a tea; then, finally, he removed the stained linen bandage from her broken fingers. It was caked with dried blood, stiff and thick and dirty.

"Ye haven't been at washing it," he scolded gently, his eyes not leaving her hand.

"You haven't taken me to water," she accused unsteadily. haven't taken me to water," she accused unsteadily.

He glanced up briefly. "We crossed a river last night."

She gave him an evil look. "On rocks. We crossed a river by leaping on large rocks. That hardly counts." She hiccupped. "Hardly."

"'Tis a grievous wrong I've done, mistress. I'll right it as soon as I'm able," he murmured, not paying attention to his words, only her beautiful, wrecked fingers.

"I'll remember that," she continued through gritted teeth as his sure fingers probed hers. "I stink to the high heavens. We both of us need a bath, and instead, we jump over rocks," she lamented in a singsong voice, then reached for the flask again, hiccupping quietly.

A smile lifted his lips, but his worried eyes and confident fingers never left her hand, feeling with his hand and his mind, seeing the bone. Let her prattle on, and let her drink.

"And after lying in Rardove's ditch," she went on after swallowing again, "I must smell worse than the leavings under the rushes. Why you tried to kiss me, I'll never know."

"I didn't try."

She shook her head sagely, as if lamenting the pa.s.sing of chivalry. "'Tis a sad day, I tell you."

"Sadder than ye know. And ye asked me to kiss ye."

She glared from beneath lowered eyelids. "You're laughing at me."

"Never," he murmured, dusting his touch up the length of the ring finger of her left hand. This, and the little one beside it, they were the damaged ones. They'd not been set properly. Sinews were already threading themselves wrongly, roping themselves like snakes where they didn't belong. The bones would knit askew, and she'd never use these fingers again.

Rardove had known what he was doing. He hadn't shattered the bones-just a nice, clean break. And she could still function without these two fingers. Sick b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

"After scrambling around in the dirt with you," she slurred derisively, then hiccupped. "And without bathing-"

"Back to the bathing, are we?"

"-and you think I asked you to kiss me?" She shook her head. "You, who know so much about women-"

"Who said I know anything about women?"

"-should know a woman does not ask ask a man to a man to kiss kiss her." She looked at him triumphantly, her torso weaving slightly. her." She looked at him triumphantly, her torso weaving slightly.

"Here." He shoved a large stick between her teeth. "Bite."

She took it but glared. "Moo, ambove all ufferz, fhould know a woman preffers-Ahhhhh!" she shrieked as he abruptly rebroke her fingers.

She flung herself backward, howling in pain. The stick tumbled to the ground. Rolling over onto her belly, she held her now-straight fingers in her good hand and rose to her knees, then staggered to her feet. Finian sat back and watched. She stumbled forward a few steps before falling to her knees again, clutching her hand and biting back screams of pain.

Finian was surprised it took as long as it did-perhaps a minute-before she found her voice. "Irishman," she vowed hoa.r.s.ely, "come a time, I will hurt you as much as you just hurt me."

"I'll be counting the days," he drawled, pleased she showed fire. He must keep her in this angry state, for he still had to set the bones, lash them to hold them straight.

She was kneeling but no longer rocking. In the distance, a chorus of frog songs bubbled out of the creek. She sniffled.

"Ye're wailing and complaining in a childly way," he remarked coldly, to give her anger, and thereby strength.

She glared. "I neither wail nor complain-"

"Come here," he ordered roughly, reaching out his hand, done with placating. There was a bone to be set and sleep to be had. He yawned hungrily and turned his palm up.

She staggered over, weaving as she came. She lowered herself, swaying slightly as she sat, her knees bent, legs kicked out to the side. Her hair was free of its confinement, a tumbling chestnut wave that spilled over her shoulders and down her back. She looked like she belonged in some sultan's palace. Or right where she was, on the hills, with him.

She shook and cried out as he worked on her fingers-first whisky, then poultice, then cobwebs, then strips of linen torn from the spare tunic in her pack. She kept him informed of every bolt of fiery pain that shot through her body, but she did not move her hand until he was done, by which time she'd become utterly quiet. He lifted his head to encounter a small, shocked, tearstained face.

With a m.u.f.fled curse, he held out his arms. She fell forward into them and he wrapped her up, stroking her hair and murmuring soft, soothing words for a long time.

"The yarrow should start to dull the pain soon," he murmured eventually.

"'Tis a'ready."

"I'm sorry."

"You should be."

He held her tighter. Her faint words rose up some time later. "I am left breathing, which was more than I hoped for a few moments ago. My thanks."

"Aye, angel."

Her fingers throbbed with pain, but she suspected this was because Finian had shifted something back to right, and now the messages were flowing between her body and mind as they ought: Attend. This hurts. Attend. This hurts.

In fact, many things hurt. Her fingers, her knees, due to the small jagged rock she was kneeling on, but she didn't move. Because more important than the pain was the feel of Finian's arms around her, the soft, gentling words he was murmuring in her ear, designed to comfort and calm. They did both.

After a while, with great reluctance, she disentangled herself from the solid warmth of him. One could not lie in a warm embrace indefinitely.

"I'm fine now," she said stiffly. He released her silently.

Throwing herself down on the ground, she tried to sleep. She punched the sack serving as her pillow and turned on her side. Ouch. Muttering, she flipped to the other shoulder. No, that was not helpful. She flung herself on her back, feeling the earth bite into her bones, and hummed until her own off-key tune annoyed herself. She tried imagining the sounds of a waterfall, hoping that would lure her into sleep. It didn't.

She stared up at the sky, which was lightening into predawn. It was no good, nothing helped. Tears loomed.

She heard a small movement in the gra.s.ses, then his arms were around her, pulling her backward into his warmth. He lay on his side and tucked her into his chest. As if she'd been waiting for just this, she relaxed.

"Rest, angel." His soft, rough voice rumbled through her hair, onto her neck.

His lean, hard body was stretched against hers, heating every inch of her from neck to knees. One powerful arm was slung over her hip, the other stretched on the ground above their heads. She sighed deeply. This was beyond goodly, and more than enough to hold her pain in abeyance. Now, how had he accomplished that?

"Thank you," she whispered just as sleep stole over her.

"Thank ye," he murmured back. She snuggled in and his hand tightened on her hip. She fit right in.

Chapter 19.

When Senna awoke, Finian was already up, standing a few feet away, kicking more dirt atop what had been their firepit. Each time his foot moved forward, the rest of his body adjusted for the movement, muscular arms out slightly, the hair beside his face-that not trapped in its binding at the nape of his neck-swaying slightly. His chiseled face was dusky with beard growth. His gaze was intent on the pit.

She sat up. He looked over. His eyes dropped to her hand. "Yer fingers?"

She thought about them, then realized the fact that she needed to think about them with purpose was a good sign. "They do not throb so much, and there's no pock."

He nodded appraisingly. "Aye, no swelling. Here's yer chance to wash." He pointed to a small creek she hadn't noticed last night.

She looked at it without moving. There was absolutely no way she was going to undress in front of him.

"Now, la.s.s. We leave as soon as we're done." He pointed again.

"I do believe a good rest was all I required," she said brightly. "Sleep," she added when he looked confused. "Not a bath."

His face cleared. One dark eyebrow slanted up. "I will not watch ye, Senna." Was he amused? It certainly appeared to be a smile threatening to break free on his face.

"I simply do not think 'tis wise to dampen my hand," she said coldly. "All your leech craft would have been for naught."

A small smile did curve up a corner of his mouth at this, but he didn't say any more. He finished with the fire and started unbuckling his hauberk. Its flap fell down over the soft undertunic and he dragged the armor over his head.

"I don't want to hear any regrets later," he said, his voice m.u.f.fled.

She didn't reply. She was too busy staring in amazement: the Irishman was going to undress right in front of her! The armor came off, and he pulled up the bottom of his tunic. He was going to remove it. She couldn't rip her eyes away. Excitement flew around her belly like birds coming out of a nest, swirling and fluttering. He tugged up, revealing his flat stomach. Senna lurched back into speech.

"You shall hear no regrets," she said sharply. "Although it seems quite likely that you knew of this stream last night when I wished to bathe, and did not mention it..."

Her words trailed off. There was simply nothing more to say on the subject, and the tunic had gone up and over Finian's head, dropping onto the ground beside him.

Tangled black hair fell down around his smooth, muscular shoulders as he rotated each one in turn, stretching his head the opposite way and groaning in appreciation, apparently unconcerned that she was watching him undress. Staring. She wrenched her gaze away.

He stepped over to the far side of the creek that ran in the gully, an easier access point than the side Senna stood on, and ducked his head under the water. He came out wet, and shook his head, sending water droplets spraying into the air. He pushed his hair off his forehead with a swift push of his palm, then looked at her.

"So tell me, la.s.s, why are ye the one managing the books for yer father's business?"

She watched as he splashed more water over his face, then took one of the cakes of soap and clumped its misshapen lump in his palm. He spread it over his cheeks and jaws. Reaching into the belt lashed to his waist, he pulled out a blade.

"You shave!" she exclaimed in surprise.

"Aye."

She watched in utter silence. When he was done, he plunged his head into the water a second time, threw his drenched hair back, and revealed his unbearded face for the first time.

Long dark hair slicked back, revealing the sharp, fine lines of his jaw and cheekbones. His mouth still held the grin that so beguiled, the one that made her heart thump, but now the full sensuousness of his lips was fully revealed, and it set her heart hammering as she recalled what he'd done to her with them.

Thick fingers entwined in his hair as he shoved the hair off his face, and before Senna's eyes flashed an image of them tugging through her own. The sculpted definition in his arms, bent above his head, exposed curves and lines that her eyes followed with greedy intensity. A dusting of dark hair covered his flat, ridged belly, which narrowed to trim waist and hips, then widened again to thick, corded thighs.

Her gaze devoured his body as if it were a meal, mindless of the fact that he was watching her watch him. Finishing, she lifted her gaze and encountered his wolfish grin.

"A woman who looks at a man like that, Senna, is a very tempting thing."

G.o.d save her, the Irishman knew every turning in her wicked thoughts, every depraved notion and erotic wanting that had flickered through her mind. She blushed. He c.o.c.ked an eyebrow. Her flush met her hairline. She ripped her gaze away.

Apparently satisfied, he knelt back by the stream. "The accounts," he said, prompting her to recall his question.

She half turned her head, trying to ignore the sight of the bunched muscles of his thighs as he crouched beside the stream, splashing water over the cake of soap in his large hand, then rubbing it over his wet arms and chest.

"I manage the accounts because I am quite good at it."

"I didn't so much mean how ye came to it, Senna, as how yer father came to not. not."

"Oh. Indeed. As I said, Sir Gerald gambled. Come a time, he would wager on anything. Horses, tourneys, raindrops, anything. Once he bet my mother's brother whether King Edward would choose Balliol or The Bruce to rule Scotland."

Finian picked up his tunic and rubbed it over his damp hair. "And which did yer father choose?"

She gave a bitter smile. "One of the few times he was right, and the only time he was not pleased. Gambling became his pa.s.sion, after my mother left."