Torn Between Two Highlanders (Sword and Thistle 2)

Why the laird was more generous than she could have ever thought. Perhaps Heather was right about him after all. And she found herself wishing to kiss his feet in gratitude. “I say yes. Happily. I will gladly serve you and your physicker, my laird.”

He grunted with satisfaction. “Good. Just stay clear of Davy and Malcolm.”

Arabella’s heart sank. This was the condition, she realized. He was offering her a new life, freedom and independence and a chance to be someone more than a fallen woman. And all he asked was that she cut out the two torn halves of her heart and throw them in the fire. Her lower lip wobbling, Arabella nodded. “I cannot choose between them, so I suppose I must choose neither.”

The laird leaned over to pat her head, sympathetically. But that was all the comfort he offered before sending her away. The laird had larger concerns than Arabella’s heartbreak. Larger concerns by far.

Chapter Fourteen

Feverfew. Lavender. Thistle.

Arabella knew all the herbs and took solace in arranging them in the right jars, making a mental list of which jars must be replenished, worrying how that might be done in a garden over winter. She would have to learn her letters. The physicker insisted upon it. She would need to learn them in order to write lists that weren’t only in her head. And she welcomed learning. Welcomed anything, really, that kept her from thinking about the nightly warfare on the walls. About the near daily skirmishes. About the fact that she’d seen Davy and Malcolm in passing, but always scurried away before she could talk to either of them.

She had promised the laird she would stay clear of his men, so she did. Even though it hurt her to do it. Physically hurt her, like an ache in every joint. Without Davy’s sunny smile, every part of the castle felt like a cold dungeon. Without Malcolm’s penetrating gaze and hard strength, she felt as if she scarcely existed in the world. It had been miserable enough to contemplate losing one or the other of them. Instead, she had lost both of them.

And she thought it might kil

l her.

Heather told her that was not likely. That it was arrows and pikes and swords that killed people. But Arabella didn’t believe it. Grief could kill people; everyone knew that. And what was it but grief she was feeling now knowing she could not even spare a glance for the men who had changed her life?

Changed her world. Made her whole…

And now she feared to shatter.

So she toiled with the physicker, day after day. Earned a reputation not as the harlot of the castle, but as an eccentric. Some of the men revered her as a healer and swore by her remedies. Some of them made the sign of the cross at her whenever she passed. And that suited her, truly. It almost amused her to make men fear her. And they could not burn her so long as she had the laird’s protection.

But in case she should cease to have it…she thought it best to keep to herself as often as she could, and began taking her meals in the physicker’s laboratory.

She was in a castle full of people. And yet she was terribly lonely.

She hoped—somewhat insanely—that a child might be growing inside her. Both men had spent themselves inside her, and even if Davy couldn’t make children, Malcolm could. It would be a disaster, of course, if she were pregnant. A disaster beyond anything she could comprehend. And yet, a beautiful disaster that might give her some piece of her lovers to hold onto.

She dreamed of them often. Thought she caught glimpses of them when they weren’t there. Heard Davy’s infectious laugh upon waking. Imagined Malcolm’s smoldering eyes upon readying herself for bed.

Maybe that’s why she didn’t quite believe her eyes the day the two of them stood in the doorway of the physicker’s laboratory, side by side.

“You can’t be here,” she whispered, even as her eyes feasted upon Davy’s ruddy good looks and Malcolm’s savage beauty. How glad she was to see that they were both healthy and whole—Malcolm still walking with a limp, but well on his way to recovery.

“We can’t be here, or you don’t want us to be?” Davy asked.

“You can’t,” she said, turning her backs to them, squeezing her hands upon the wooden workbench. “I know you want me to choose between you, but I can’t choose. And since I can’t choose…well, the laird forbids me to keep dangling myself before you on a string, as he put it.”

Malcolm snorted.

Davy also snorted.

“You can’t choose?” Davy asked, moving to her side, taking her chin in his hand and forcing her to look at him. “Are you sure?”

Arabella exhaled with bittersweet frustration. “I love you, Davy,” she said, which elicited from him a smile as bright as the blue sky on a summer day. “I love your laugh, your freckles, your irresistible dimples…I love that you choose, every day, to find a way to be happy. You choose it. And you lighten the hearts of everyone around you. You give them courage. You gave me courage.”

Her eyes filled with tears as she said this, and she noticed that his blue eyes were a bit misty as well. So it pained her to drag in a deep breath and turn to Malcolm. “And you, my ill-tempered, surly, man. How you have touched me deep inside. How you have awakened things in me I scarcely knew were there. How you have honored me by sharing the pain of your wife, and offering me some small part of a heart that belonged to her.”

“More than a small part,” Malcolm whispered. “Much more.”

Arabella reached for his cheek. “You are both loyal and strong men. I am more fortunate than a faerie princess to have your love. And I would do nothing to hurt either of you. My head says that I should choose one or the other of you, so as to bring happiness, but my heart…”

“What if you don’t have to choose, lass?” Davy asked.