Just then, Orick and Jane reappeared from the wide expanse of trees where they’d each gone in search of a private place to relieve themselves.
“Sorry for what?” Jane mounted her horse with ease, and I wondered how long it would take me to be able to do the same.
“For insisting that I drive him to the village.”
She laughed and looked back over her shoulder at me.
“It didn’t hurt him. It’s not that far of a walk. We all found it rather amusing.”
Adwen glared teasingly at his wife and mounted his horse.
“Aye, well it doesna surprise me that ye took pleasure from it. Ye have a strange sense of humor.”
Jane laughed, and reluctantly I allowed Orick to help me back atop Grock. He surprised me by giving me a quick, soft kiss on the cheek before pushing me upward.
“Thank you.”
“Yer welcome. Just a wee bit further, and we shall reach our resting place for the night. If ’twas only Adwen and I, we would sleep under the stars, but we ken ye and Jane wouldna enjoy it. ’Tis a small inn with only two rooms. Will ye pretend, just for a night, that ye are my wife? If ye doona wish it, I’ll make camp out here with the horses, and I willna mind doing so. I’d understand.”
I smiled and started nodding before he finished.
“That means that we get to share a room, yes?”
Orick stood next to Grock with one hand on the horse’s neck and the other on my thigh. He gave me a light squeeze as he answered.
“Aye.”
I smiled and leaned down to kiss him, fully aware that Adwen and Jane watched our every move. When I pulled away, I winked at him.
“Then, aye, husband. Lead us to the inn.”
CHAPTER 28
From the outside, the inn looked like it was barely large enough to hold a room for the owner, let alone an additional two for guests. The rooms had to be the size of closets and the beds not much larger than a crib. Still, no matter how small the rooms or the beds, I would find it preferable to sleeping outside, so I said nothing as we stopped in front of the place.
“Fionn is no back from his hunt. Ye must stay outside until he is.”
Adwen dismounted with an aggravated groan and went to go talk to the old woman who stood in the doorway. She greeted us with her arms crossed tightly against her chest, her blatant frown a stark difference from Isobel’s ecstatic welcome.
“Shona, ye ken well enough who I am. Ye ken Orick, as well. Do ye no trust that we willna steal from ye nor harm ye?
Shona took a step toward Adwen as he approached and shooed the group of us away.
“Aye, I ken ye Adwen MacChristy. Last time ye stayed here, ye had that one,” she pointed at Orick, “sneak in Willy’s daughter for an after dinner tup. The man still willna speak to me for allowing such things to happen in my home. If ye wish to stay here, the group of ye will wait in the stables for Fionn. The choice will be his.”
Adwen laughed and reached for his horse’s reins as he led us to the stables.
“Aye, fine, we shall wait, but ye know Fionn will grant us entry.”
The woman huffed and turned to go back inside.
Jane glared at Adwen the entire way back to the stables, waiting until we were completely inside to say a word.
“You really used to be a tool, didn’t you?”
Adwen laughed as he patted his horse affectionately. Orick spoke up in affirmation.
“I doona ken what ye mean by tool, but aye, he was a wretch.”
Jane whirled on him and quickly put Orick in his place as well.
“Like you’re that much better, seeing as you snuck them in and out of the place.”
Orick looked down at his feet as he dismounted, and I ran my hand through his hair playfully as he came to help me off of my horse. I could tell she’d been successful at embarrassing him.
Once I was off my horse, I reached to the small packsack where Isobel had placed our food and hurried to try to change the conversation.
“Anybody hungry? Why don’t we eat something while we wait for permission to go inside?”
I didn’t wait for anyone to answer as I plopped myself down and yanked out a piece of dried meat and dug in. Slowly, the rest of them joined me.
Orick leaned over as we ate.
“Thank ye for that. I feared Adwen was about to start sharing stories about me that I’d rather ye no hear just yet.”
I smiled and reached for the bread, speaking to him with my mouth full.
“We’re each entitled to our secrets, I suppose. We can share them in our own time.”
“Aye, we can.” Orick stood and extended a hand to help me do the same. “Fionn approaches.”
I couldn’t hear anything that would make him think that.
“How do you know?”
“I canna hear him yet if ’tis what ye wondered. I just saw him pass through the trees behind ye.”
“Oh.” I grasped at his hand and stood up.
Adwen quickly did the same. While Jane and I gathered up the food, the men went to go and greet him. Fionn seemed to know them right away and called out to them as soon as he was close enough to tell who they were.
“Adwen, Orick, has Shona no let ye in? I canna say it surprises me. She doesna care for the two of ye at all. She does no have a pleasant way about her to begin with, and mention of either of ye brings out the worst in her. Still, I’m happy to see ye both. Do tie up yer horses and follow me in.”
Fionn swung off the back of his horse with the energy of a man half his age before happily clasping both Adwen and Orick on the shoulder. Jane did the same to me in jest as we all walked toward Fionn’s home together.
“Are ye well, Fionn?” Orick asked as the three of them walked in step together.
“Aye, well enough, though I came across a troublesome sight far into the forest yesterday morn. I havena been able to keep my mind off it since.”
“What did ye see?” Orick pulled away from the odd little train as they neared the front of the house. They couldn’t all fit through the door standing next to one another.
“I offered help to a lass who needed it badly. She wouldna take it, and I ken she will die without it. More than that, she wouldna let me near her. She held a spear. I doona doubt she would have thrown it had I tried to get closer to her than I was.”
Orick’s steps stopped immediately at Fionn’s words, but he didn’t say a word as Adwen spoke.
“Was the lass alone? What happened to her?”
“I doona ken what happened to the lass. She wouldna say a word to me other than I best get going unless I wished to die with her. She was all alone and accustomed to being so. Her side was near split open, whether it be man or animal that caused her wound, I canna ken for sure.”
Jane and I stood back, both of us taking notice of the tension in Orick’s stance. He reached out to grasp Fionn’s shoulder.
“What did the lass look like? Describe her to me.”
Fionn turned, concern etched in his face at Orick’s panicked interest.
“She has skin darkened from the sun and hair even darker. I doona think she lives an easy life. She dinna trust me, no matter how I tried to help her.”
I knew who it was. Orick had mentioned her name often during the short time I’d known him.
“’Tis Marion. I must go to her.”
CHAPTER 29
Orick didn’t delay his goodbye; he kept it short and to the point before he took off in the middle of the darkness in search of Marion. Adwen tried to leave with him, but Orick wouldn’t allow it, stating as firmly as I’d ever see him do anything that Marion wouldn’t want anyone other than him to get near her.
He wished for the rest of us to continue our journey to Macaslan Castle. He would meet us there just as soon as he could. Without him there, my presence on the trip seemed more than a little out of place. Still, Jane and Adwen were nothing but kind and inclusive of me as we traveled the next day, making sure to keep their hands off one
another, only having conversations that I could carry on with them.
I appreciated their effort to include me, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Orick. In that brief moment before he left after Marion, I saw more concern, thought, and emotion from him than I’d felt in myself in the last decade. What did that say about me? A good many things, I imagined, the most obvious being that I was a terrible match for a man so selfless as Orick.
I knew the woman Fionn spoke of was most likely Marion the moment I saw Orick stop walking toward the house. Of course he would go to her. I wouldn’t expect anything less. It seemed rather obvious to me, and it didn’t bother me in the slightest.
She was injured and very possibly dying—even a man lacking the profound moral compass Orick lived by would have gone to try and help her. What amazed me was that even in that moment, where I was certain all I would have been able to think about was my concern over my friend, he kept thinking about everyone else.
He worried about leaving Adwen to deal with Laird Macaslan on his own, and he felt guilty about leaving me when he was the one who invited me along. I just about had to shake it into him that I understood.
“I’ll make it up to ye, Gillian. Ye canna know how much I hate to leave ye. I owe Marion a great debt, and I canna leave her out there if she’s hurt.”
He had nothing he needed to make up to me. Had it been my friend, I wouldn’t think twice, wouldn’t worry for a moment about anyone else that I left behind while leaving to help them—Orick cared about others almost too much.
He felt that he needed to be everything to everyone. The thing was, he had enough love and strength within him to be that. Most of the time, I felt like I didn’t even have enough of all that good stuff inside me to give it to myself, let alone someone else. He deserved someone with a heart like his.
“He will be okay, you know? I’m now convinced more than ever that Orick’s part cat. He has nine lives or something.”
I glanced over at Jane who was watching me closely.
“I know. I’m not worried about him. I was thinking about myself actually. Isn’t that terrible? I should be worried about him and instead I’m riding along thinking about how much better off he would be without me. I don’t think about others the same way he does. I don’t care about anything the way he cares about strangers he meets. He needs to be with someone like him.”
Jane twisted her face up in disapproval.
“Why would you think that? Can you imagine if he was with someone just like him? Someone who did worry and think about everyone else all the time? They would nauseate each other. It would just be too much of everything in one place. Opposites attract for a reason. You’re not supposed to be the same. Perhaps there are areas where he is weak and you are strong and vice versa. As long as you love each other, that’s what counts. Quit thinking about it so much. You’re trying to make it hard on yourself, trying to think of reasons to end it and move on so that you don’t get hurt.”
I knew that was part of it. I did it with every relationship I’d ever been in.
She reached between us and squeezed my knee as if she knew she was right.
“That won’t work with Orick. He doesn’t let people give up, so quit fighting with yourself and just enjoy the ride. Besides,” she paused and pointed off into the distance to the large expanse of stone we were riding towards, “you’d be better off preparing yourself for the unpleasant event that lies ahead. Laird Macaslan is a total ass, and Adwen’s changed his mind about the story. You’re no longer my maid, you’re my cousin—that way you’ll get to stay in a decent room and be allowed to eat dinner with us. Just remember that we’re not in the twenty-first century anymore. He has to think that you’re my cousin so don’t say anything no matter how ridiculous the man is. If we want to help Adwen get Lennox and Griffith released, we will have to play his game.”
CHAPTER 30
Marion traveled a distance far greater than Orick would have expected since last he’d seen her. It made him wonder more than once as he traveled through the night if the lass he sought was indeed Marion. But then he would think of Fionn’s description and the spear she’d wielded at him, and he knew it could be none other than her. He only hoped he wouldn’t be too late and that when he found her, she would allow him to help.
She was the most stubborn lass he’d ever known, and he was accustomed to being around his share of strong-willed women. If she refused his help as she had done Fionn’s, there was little he could do about it.
Despite his worry, he moved through the forest at a slow pace. He couldn’t overtire his horse who had already put in a full day’s work. Besides that, it was so difficult to see that he wanted to make sure he didn’t pass any signs of her in the darkness.
It helped that he knew her patterns, knew from staying with her for so long the sort of place she would dwell in. It would be near the water, whether a stream or the ocean. Marion wanted to hear the sound of water moving across the earth. That, at least, allowed him to narrow his search significantly. He found the stream that ran through the forest and followed along its bank, watching for any unusual covering or caves where Marion might have holed up.
He searched all night. When the sun started to peak over the horizon, his heart felt like lead inside him. If Fionn thought her near death the day before, how did he expect to find anything more than her lifeless body now? He shook his head and pulled his horse to a stop, climbing down to walk to the edge of the river where he dipped his face down into the cool water.
It wouldn’t do for him to think that way, not until he knew for sure what had happened to her and where she was. Fatigue had the ability to turn even the most level-headed man mad. He couldn’t allow his own sleepiness to poison the hope he held for her.
He pulled his face from the water, allowing the droplets from his face to drip down his neck and beneath his shirt as he closed his eyes and breathed in deep, silently praying for the safety of his friend and the strength he needed to keep going until he found her.
A loud clap caused him to jerk and look up from where he sat hunched over the water on his knees. He turned in the direction of the noise to see a fawn darting away from an opening in the grass—a small hill with an opening, an opening covered by foliage until the fawn dared to near it.
It was just the sort of den where Marion would seek refuge. If she were badly injured, it would be an easy enough place to pull herself inside. Orick stood, tied his horse to a nearby tree, and pulled off his sack full of food before approaching slowly. Whatever her state, Marion could fend away the most unruly intruder. He didn’t wish to end up on the receiving end of her fishing spear.
“Marion,” he called out to her as he approached, hoping if she knew it was him, she would call for him.
When no response came from inside the small underbrush, he reached down to lift the foliage away with his arm. He saw her right away, lying on her side with her back against the inside of the small space, her eyes closed.
Sadness pulled at him, but as he reached inside to touch her, he pulled back at the warmth of her skin. She wasn’t dead, not yet anyway, and he quickly lay on his own side so that he could push his way in next to her.
She breathed, but her breaths came sporadically, each one a little weaker than the last. He could see no proof of injury, at least not right away. But as the sun rose higher and shined light onto them, his eyes caught sight of the sticky pool beneath her and the wide-open gash in her side. She had the wound pressed tightly against the ground. He could see then that she lay on her side for that purpose, to keep from bleeding as best she could.
He shook her gently, whispering her name and hoping with his every word that she would wake up in time to see him, that she would die knowing that she wasn’t alone. And die, she would. There was no potion nor stitch that would heal Marion’s injuries. They were too vast and had sat too long. A fever raged within her. He could feel its heat without touching her. He’d only just made it in time.
“Mar
ion, Marion, wake up, lass. ’Tis Craig.” The name seemed much less uncomfortable to him now that he knew his real name. Now it seemed a reminder of the affection he and Marion had for one another.
Slowly, on a great intake of breath that caused blood to pool on the stained dirt beneath, she opened her eyes, taking a moment to register him before she smiled.
“Have I died, or is it truly ye, Craig? I dinna think I would see ye again in this life.”
Orick gathered Marion’s limp hands into his own and brought them to his mouth as he kissed them.
“Ye havena died yet. I’m here. I shall stay here with ye until the end.”
Marion chuckled just once before closing her eyes at the effort. Orick moved in closer and allowed her head to rest against his shoulder as he gathered her to him.
“Thank ye for no lying to me—for no saying I wouldna die.”
For some, such blunt words would have been inappropriate, but Orick knew that Marion would appreciate nothing less than the truth.
“Ye ken well enough the extent of yer injuries, Marion. What happened to ye?”
“’Twas foolish and my own doing. I pushed my spear into the ground whilst I climbed a tree to see where I was. I stepped on a rotten branch and fell from high onto my spear.”
“Marion.” Orick glanced down at the wound once more. He could scarcely believe it hadn’t killed her at once. “And ye pulled it out on yer own?”
“Aye. I couldna leave it in me, and I dinna see a choice. ’Twas early yesterday morn.”
“I’m sorry that I was no…”
She hushed him. “No. Doona be sorry for anything. Tell me. I can see ye remember, for ye’ve changed.”
Orick smiled and reached to brush the hair from Marion’s eyes.
“Aye. I remember. I told ye my name was no Craig. ’Tis Orick.”
Marion’s eyes changed at his words, and she lifted her head as much as she could.
“What did ye say?”
“My real name is Orick, but ye can call me Craig, Marion. I doona mind it.”
Love Beyond Dreams (A Scottish Time Travel Romance): Book 6 (Morna's Legacy Series) Page 13
