He paused only a heartbeat before ripping the shirt from his body and kicking off his boots. Clad only in his kilt, he eased onto the bed and wrapped himself around her, drawing her back against him tightly.
“Adrienne!” He cursed harshly as he cradled her in his arms. How could he feel such grief for a virtual stranger? From whence rose this feeling that they were to have had more time?
He leaned back against the wall, cradling her between his legs, his arms wrapped tightly around her while she thrashed and shuddered, his chin resting upon her head.
Deep in the night the fever peaked, and she talked, and cried silvery tears.
She would never know that he kissed them away, one by one.
She would never know that he listened with a heavy heart as she cried for a man he deemed not worth crying for, and that he wished with all his might that he had been the first man she’d loved.
Ever-hard Darrow Garrett. The bastard who’d broken his wife’s heart.
What kind of self-respecting Scotsman was named Ever-hard?
In the wee hours of dawn, the Hawk fingered the smooth ebony of the chess piece Grimm had given him, even as Adrienne called for it in her delirium. He studied it and wondered why this game piece was so important to her that as she lay dying, she searched desperately for it in the inky corridors of her mind.
It was the commotion that woke him, dragging him from a deep and dreamless sleep. Refusing to open his eyes, he felt his surroundings with his senses first. Damn it, she still burned! Hotter, if possible. His wife of scant days dying in his arms. What had woken him? Was it the Rom, finally arrived?
“Let me pass!” The smithy’s voice thundered from beyond the closed door, loud enough to rattle it. Hawk came fully awake. That man’s voice made his body ready for battle.
“The Hawk will kill you, man,” Grimm scoffed. “He doesn’t like you to begin with, and he’s not in a good temper.”
Hawk nodded agreement with Grimm’s words, and was glad he’d posted a half-guard outside the Green Lady’s room. There was no telling what he might have done if he’d woken to find the arrogant blacksmith peering down at him in his present frame of mind.
“Fools! I said I can cure her,” the smithy snapped.
Hawk stiffened instantly.
“A fool, I am?” Grimm’s voice cracked with disbelief. “Nay, a fool is he who thinks there’s a cure for such a poison as Callabron!”
“Dare you risk it, Grimm?” the smithy asked coolly.
“Let him pass,” the Hawk ordered through the closed door.
He heard the sound of swords drawing away with a metallic slash as guards parted the crossed blades that had been barring entrance to the Green Lady’s room, and then Adam was standing in the doorway, his big frame nearly filling it.
“If you came here thinking to play with me, Adam Black, get thee gone before I spill your blood and watch it run on my floor. ’Twould be a wee distraction, but it would make me feel better.”
“Why do you hold her thusly? So close, as if so dear?”
Hawk tightened his arms around her. “She’s dying.”
“But you scarce know her, man.”
“I have no reason for it that makes any sense. But I refuse to lose her.”
“She’s beautiful,” Adam offered.
“I’ve known many beautiful lasses.”
“She’s more beautiful than the others?”
“She’s more something than the others.” Hawk brushed his cheek gently against her hair. “Why have you come here?”
“I heard it was Callabron. I can cure her.”
“Think not to tempt me with impossibilities, smithy. Lure me not to false hope or you will lie dying beside her.”
“Think not to tempt me with impossibilities, Lord Hawk,” Adam echoed brightly. “Furthermore I speak truth about a cure.”
Hawk studied the smithy a careful moment. “Why would you do this, if you can?”
“Totally self-serving, I assure you.” Adam crossed to the bed and sat upon the edge. He extended his hand, then stopped in mid-reach at the look on Hawk’s face. “I can’t heal her without touching her, dread Hawk.”
“You mock me.”
“I mock everything. Don’t take it so personally. Although in your particular case, it is meant rather personally. But in this, I do offer you truth. I have the cure.”
Hawk snorted and tightened his arms protectively about his wife. “How does it come to pass that a simple smithy has such knowledge of an invaluable cure?”