“Are ye awake?” she whispered.

When he didn’t budge, she draped the blanket over him. Who was this soul? From whence had he come? Had he a good heart or bad? What horrors had he seen that had brought him to this remote isle? And now that he was there, what should she do with him?

What if he died?

Dear Holy Father, please. Not another!

* * *

Divana stirred the pot of kelp and water. Warm steam moistened her face as she leaned over and checked to see if it had begun boiling. There weren’t many herbs on Hyskeir, but her mother had oft used a seaweed poultice on cuts and burns. The only problem was she couldn’t recall if Ma had added anything but water to the mixture. Though even if she had, it most likely wasn’t available.

“How are ye feeling?” she asked the man, but he gave no reply. The dank air in the bothy carried a new scent. His scent. A mixture of sea salt and musk. It was heady yet alluring in an odd way.

After she let the mixture boil for a few moments longer, she ladled some of the thick, sticky muck into a bowl-size clamshell and set it aside to cool. “I’ve a poultice for your wounds, sir. Me ma always said seaweed staves off corruption, and I would not want your injuries to grow putrid.”

The man lay still, stretched out on the dirt floor. His hair was nearly dry—a light brown color with wheaten wisps framing his face. In repose his was a braw face. Expressive brows arched above his closed eyes—dark eyelashes forming crescents on his cheeks. He seemed rather young, though deep lines etched the corners of his eyes and mouth as if he spent a great deal of time squinting in the sun.

Divana moistened a bit of cloth and cleaned her hands with the lye soap she’d made last year. Then she kneeled beside the Highlander and drew the cloth across his brow and cleansed his face with gentle brushes.

The Highlander’s nose suited his face—masculine, sturdy, rectangular. He drew in a breath through slightly pursed lips that were chapped so much, blood-encrusted scabs filled the cracks. Divana scooped a bit of duck fat onto her finger and ran it over his lips, surprised to find them full and pillowy soft beneath the abrasions.

Though the stubble peppering his face had made him look dangerous at first, in slumber he appeared rather harmless. She folded the blanket down to his hips. The red and green plaid he wore was still damp, and he shivered, gooseflesh rising over his fair skin—far fairer than his tanned face and hands. The muscles across his belly were taut like bands of iron. Even his chest, rising and falling with each slow breath, was powerful yet riddled with puckered scars. He’d been savagely sliced across his belly. Divana peered closer. The wound hadn’t exposed his insides, thank heavens. She took his thick leather doublet and held it toward the light. It had been slashed right open.