“Are you alright?”
“Better. Very thirsty.”
“I’ll get you some water?—”
“Here.”
Skylar didn’t need to go for water. David was in the room as well. Bathed and changed, he wore a handsomely loose-fitting white shirt and form-hugging breeches along with black boots. A stray lock of his dark auburn hair had formed a wild, rakish wave down the center of his forehead, and he impatiently thrust it from his eyes as he pressed a glass of water into her fingers.
Skylar rose. “Well, Shawna, you’re looking much better. I guess I had best leave the two of you…er, alone,” she finished flatly, looking from one of them to the other.
She didn’t flee uncomfortably. Skylar wasn’t the type to do so. She turned and seemed to gracefully float from the room.
Shawna sat up, instantly wary.
But she groaned then, burying her face in her hands. “Don’t you ever go away anymore?” she whispered painfully.
He sat by her side on the bed, and she felt his eyes on her. She felt his stare. It seemed to be piercing her, stripping her in a manner quite unlike anything she’d ever felt before, even from him.
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
“I should not tell you the time of day.”
“I don’t give a damn about the time of day. What happened?”
“Your brother came to me to see the mines?—”
“So he says. But he is a gallant heathen and would protect you.”
“He is gallant—and honest.”
“Indeed. Go on.”
“We heard a tapping. And followed it. And a gust of air doused the light. I heard him calling to me—” she began, then broke off flatly, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Go on.”
She shook her head vehemently. “I’ll not.”
“You will.”
“Go plague someone you believe in, Laird Douglas.”
“I shall plague you mercilessly until I get my answers. My brother was nearly killed today. That would have made a fine and fitting end to the Douglas clan.”
“I never sought to harm your brother. He knows it well. And you know it.”
“Maybe I’m afraid I’m finding it far too easy to believe in your innocence, and knowing you, I don’t dare allow myself that luxury. What happened to you when you went for the rope to save his life?”
“Someone…drugged me.”
He stood, walking to the window. Then he turned back to stare at her.
“How odd.”
“What is odd?”
“I found a handkerchief very early this morning in the chapel.”