Free Lois Greiman by Bewitching the Highlander Page B

you be able to guess what I do with those who do not please me?”
    “I be starving,” he intoned, and Chetfield laughed just as the girl reentered the room. Once again she held a tray in her hands. Once again something steamed from a bowl. Or was it all still a dream?
    “Did I hear him right?” she murmured.
    Chetfield nodded sagaciously. “Our young friend appears to be rather famished.”
    She settled back onto the bed, setting the tray beside Keelan’s hip. A ceramic bowl was filled with a thin soup that curled tentative tendrils of fragrance toward his nostrils. Keelan felt his battered system twitch lethargically to life. True, some areas had previously shown interest when Charity entered the room. But he was quite certain those parts would react long after they put him in his grave. In fact, he had some evidence to support that theory.
    “Oxtail soup,” she said, and lifted a spoon toward his mouth. Fatigue lay like a millstone upon his shoulders. Nevertheless, he shifted his gaze to the ghoul and opened his mouth.
    Charity spooned in the broth, and with it, his indolent system jerked to life. The bread she offered tasted like ambrosia. He finished the bowl, ate the bread from her fingers, and watched her lively face as she smiled and set the spoon back on the tray.
    “Very good, Mr. Angel. Very good.”
    “Yes,” added the old man. Keelan had almost forgotten his existence. What a pity he must remember. “I’m certain you’ll be up and doing what you do in no time at all.” He turned toward the girl. “Shall we leave him sleep now, my dear?”
    She nodded and touched Keelan’s hand. Feelings spurred quietly through him. “Sleep now, luv. And if you’ve a need, I shall come.”
    He did have needs, he thought, but before he could figure out exactly what they were, sleep took him in its hard grasp.
    Dreams came again. Not pleasant now, but harsh and old, still raw after a hundred plus years—his mother’s pleading eyes, the taste of death on his tongue, and the knowledge…the unending certainty of his own cowardice.
     
    “Mr. Angel.” An apple-bright face stared down at him. “Mr. Angel,” Charity said, “you’re scaring your lamb.”
    He glanced down. Lambkin stood, knobby-kneed and befuddled beside him, dark ears drooping.
    Ragged memories stormed through him, leaving a bitter aftertaste. “What did I say?” His voice was a harsh croak.
    “I couldn’t understand a word of it,” she said, and handed him Lambkin’s bottle. He turned it toward the little ewe, who took it without hesitation, bobbling her tail at the first taste. “But you seemed terrible distraught.”
    Distraught . He almost laughed at the word.
    “Are you feeling any better?”
    He took inventory. His left foot hardly hurt a’tall. “Aye, lass,” he said, and searched hopelessly for some hope, but the ancient dreams made him melancholy. “I be fit as a milch maid.”
    “You know what it is you need?”
    He took a stab in the dark. “A pint o’ whisky?”
    “To return to your master’s house, to sleep in your own bed.”
    He didn’t answer. The dream was still close, hovering like a dark wraith, ready to devour him, for he knew the truth, had known it all along—his mother’s potion was not meant tomake him brave. It would only make him safe.
    “Mr. Angel…” Charity said.
    He drew his mind back from his grim thoughts and gave her a weak smile. “Something tells me yer lord might take it amiss if I tried to leave without his permission,” he said.
    “Lord Chetfield?” Her satiny brows rose. “Naw. He wouldn’t be bothered a’tall. He only wants what’s best for you. Besides…” She shrugged a bonny shoulder, eyes wide and bright. “He’s not here today.”
    “What’s that?” Keelan asked, perking up.
    “The master,” she said. “He had errands to see to in the village. Took Frankie and some of the others with him.”
    His mind was spinning suddenly, giving him hope, reason. “Where’s