“Ye should have let your men go without ye…” She sighed, running her fingers down the post. “But I suppose it doesn’t matter now.”

He tossed his head, his brows pinching as if he were in pain.

“Let me fluff your pillows. That’ll make ye more comfortable.” Divana ran her fingertips over the heavy damask coverlet as she walked to the head of the bed. “Look at ye, living in luxury with a chamber four times the size of the bothy and a stately bed large enough for an entire family. Why, ye have enough feather pillows to make a pallet for a king.”

Reaching behind him, she punched the cushions inward, trying not to jostle him overmuch.

Again, Kennan moaned and knit his brows.

“Is your shoulder ailing ye?” she asked, glancing downward and gasping. “Oh, dear.”

Runner had mentioned the captain had been thrown from his horse, but everyone was so fraught with the musket ball in his shoulder no one noticed the bruise spreading down the back of his neck. Honestly, if Divana hadn’t been leaning over him, she wouldn’t have seen it.

Ever so lightly, she rubbed her fingers toward the back of his neck. When everything felt normal, she continued upward and found a knot the size of her elbow.

Kennan grunted and winced.

“Saint Columba, ye’ve struck your head something terrible for certain.”

Wringing her hands, she turned toward the door. Should she have someone fetch the healer? But what more would Mistress Ava do? It wasn’t as if she could stitch a lump. She’d left the salve, and a guard had brought up a tincture of willow bark tea for the pain. The knot on his head clearly must hurt something awful.

Divana spooned a bit of tea between his slightly parted lips and watched his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed. After half the cup was gone, she rolled him to his uninjured side.

“That ought to make ye more comfortable.”

At the washstand, she poured water from the ewer and doused a cloth, then cooled Kennan’s head with it. “Ye’re going to grow well. I refuse to think otherwise.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek, breathing in the masculine scent of him—of the man she’d come to know in the bothy. “Now rest and let your body heal itself. Have not a care. I’ll be here until you wake, mo cridhe.”

Aye, he had become her heart, her courage. And she vowed to be his strength in his hour of need.

God willing, she would move heaven and hell to see her Highlander smile once again.

Chapter Fourteen

Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, Kennan knew he was home. He’d suffered a severe blow to the head once before when he’d fought a band of dragoons while fleeing the Samhain gathering at Inverlochy with his sister. The red-coated bastards had bludgeoned him half to death, and he remembered very little of the incident.

Now, as he drifted in and out of consciousness, he again found his memory lacking. If only he were able to wake and to ask what had happened, but there was a terrible pounding at the back of his head and, every time he tried to move, searing pain shot through his shoulder as if someone had prodded him with a red-hot fire poker.