Taming a Wild Scot: A Claimed by the Highlander Novel by Rowan Keats Page B

Niall said crisply, “Form a line. Pass the buckets from one man to another.”
    Again and again he pulled up a full load of water and poured it into a waiting pail. He favored speed over accuracy and ignored the water that sloshed over his clothes and boots. Before long, his lèine was soaked clear through. His shoulders ached with the strain, but he did not allow throbbing muscles to slow him down—too many lives were at stake.
    The trail of buckets doubled up, snaking toward the kitchen door, as more villeins and guards joined the effort. Full buckets went down one side, empty buckets returned up the other. Niall had no time to check on their success. Exhaustion crept upon him. Another man took over the dumping of the bucket into the pails, which eased his efforts considerably, but even so, his shoulders began to tremble. Blisters rose on his hands, filled with fluid, and tore open on the wooden handle of the crank.
    Niall gritted his teeth, pushed the pain to the back of his thoughts, and pressed on.
    He cranked up another bucket, the weight of which seemed to equal that of a full-grown man. Just before it reached the top of the well, his hands slipped on the crank, and the bucket plummeted. Fingers numb, it took all his concentration to squeeze the handle and halt the bucket’s drop, but he succeeded.
    Another man—the wheelwright or the blacksmith, judging by his large arms—nudged him aside and took over the crank. “Fine job,” he said gruffly. “Away with you now.”
    Niall stepped back.
    Finally able to think beyond how quickly he could draw the next bucket, he glanced at the kitchen. The smoke rising into the sky had thinned to a thin, pale ribbon.
    “Let me see those hands.”
    He spun around. Ana stood next to him, a dark streak of soot smudged across her cheek and a faint gray tint to her normally white brèid. She was paler than he’d ever seen her. He frowned. “Are you ill?”
    “Nay.”
    “Where were you when the fire broke out?”
    She opened her leather satchel and dug inside for a small earthenware pot stopped with melted wax. “Inside.”
    “Where inside?”
    “Does it matter?”
    He grabbed her chin and angled her face toward the sun, checking for any hint of injury. Beyond the soot, thankfully, he saw nothing. He released her. “Aye, it matters. Answer me.”
    “I was consulting with the cook.”
    “In the
kitchen
?”
    “Of course, in the kitchen.” Using her knife, she pried the wax from the pot. Then she took one of his hands in her much smaller palm, unfolded his fist, and slathered unguent on his red, raw blisters. Her hands trembled as she worked. “Where else does one meet with the cook?”
    The image of her running blindly through a smoke-filled corridor, chased by fire and choking on hot fumes, flayed his thoughts. He’d imagined her safe in the upper chambers with the baroness all this time, not fleeing for her life. “You are a healer, not a scullion. What in God’s eternal glory possessed you to enter the kitchen?”
    She shrugged. “I am tasked with ensuring the baroness eats well.”
    “The cook should attend you, not the other way around. Do not go into the kitchen again.”
    “The cook owes me no service,” she responded with a frown. “He’s a busy man and, frankly, all credit for my safety rightfully belongs to him. He hustled me out the instant he realized there was a problem.”
    At least there was one person with proper sense. “What happened?”
    “One of the kitchen hands dropped a pot of oil near the ovens and it caught flame. Don’t worry. The lad is fine,” she said, applying the same thick paste to his other hand. “He was wearing shoes. Only his ankles were burned and not too severely. The half-wit who threw water on the flaming oil is a mite worse off.”
    A very prosaic description of events. Were it not for the quaver in her voice, he might have believed her completely unaffected. But she’d been frightened. And he didn’t like that.