The Country Wife Read Online Free PDF Page A

never had before. She pushed those thoughts from her mind and concentrated on the tasks at hand. In life and death, there was no room for such emotions, only fear and caution.
    Between nursing her patient and feeding Rose and milking the bawling cow and tending its calf, she lost the day. Late in the afternoon, when the rain began to fall softly over the fields and it seemed her patient slept easier, she took up an old shawl and Thom Hardy’s spade and dug a grave on the slope above the byre. From here, the boy could see the rising sun and God could not forget him.
    Late in the night, Callum’s fever broke, and he lapsed into an exhausted slumber. Gratefully, Lilli sprawled across the foot of the bed and slept as if dead.
    Sunlight on her face woke her. She opened her eyes and stared straight into Callum’s dark unwavering gaze. Startled, she sat up.
    “Rose?” she said.
    “Sleeping like the wee bairn she is,” he answered softly, indicating the tiny bundle tucked against his side.
    “She’ll be waking soon and wanting her food.”
    “Not yet, lass. She’s been fed and her cloths changed, so she’s dry and content. Sleep on if you’ve a need.”
    Lilli gazed at him in consternation. “You’ve fed the babe and changed her ditty?”
    “Aye. ‘Twas not so hard.” Smugness crept into his tone. “Tending a bairn is not the task I thought it to be.”
    “Humph!” She pushed herself off the bed and ran an impatient hand over her tousled curls. “Mayhap not if you’ve no meal to make or cleaning to do or the hundreds of other chores that require a woman’s time.”
    “I’ll not make light of what you do. Didn’t you nurse me back from the hellish fevers?”
    He smiled, and it was a thing of beauty to Lilli who drew a breath and couldn’t expel it. She turned away, going to the fireplace to poke at the embers. Better to poke at her own heart, she thought somberly, the way it was running away from her.
    “Are you hungry?” she asked gruffly, reaching for the griddle. “I’ll make some bannocks and then I’m going to the bathing pond. Can you watch Rose whilst I’m gone?”
    “Aye, go now if you like. I’ve no appetite for food yet.”
    “I will then.” She glanced around the room.
    Callum’s eyes were closed as if he slept. There was naught to hold her here at the moment. She gathered a clean gown and undergarments and turned toward the door.
    “What are you running from, lass?” Callum asked huskily?
    She whirled to look at him, but he lay with his eyes closed as before. When she made no answer, he opened his eyes and turned a piercing gaze on her.
    “Those men who came were not of the MacAlister clan. They had no interest in me, but in a young woman and babe.”
    “I-I have no reason to run from anyone,” she stammered, unable to meet that piercing gaze another moment. “If those men weren’t searching for you, then I’ve no mind who they want.” So saying, she fled through the door and hurried along the path to the burn that tumbled down the mountainside with nary an impediment.
    Standing on the edge of the pond, she thought of more peaceful times when she and Edward had been children running through the Highland meadows and swimming in ice-cold burns such as this. There had been laughter and love. Then her father had been killed and their clan broken. Edward had become a rebel, angry and defiant, determined to regain their lands, determined to win the hand of the woman he loved.
    His dream had been hers. Side by side she’d ridden with her beloved brother. Tears rolled down her cheeks and dripped from her chin as she thought of those days. Of dreams dreamed and lost. Dreams that their clan would be restored and their lands returned.
    Those dreams were long gone and never would return. Edward was dead, hanged by Archibald at the hanging fields and she must flee for her life and that of his daughter’s. Sir Archibald Campbell was the head of a powerful clan, a close ally to the king.