The Highlander Takes a Bride
Page 21
Chapter 14
"We've been o'er the area six times now, Greer, and found nothing."
Greer sighed at Aulay's more than reasonable words and gave up examining the ground to move back to his mount. His brother-in-law was right, of course. He'd had the men search the woods repeatedly and had checked here several times himself before this, but today he and Aulay had checked and rechecked the area six times with nothing to show for it. There wasn't even a crushed patch where the archer might have waited. He should have been satisfied that he'd done all he could, but he wasn't. Greer felt as if there was something they were missing . . .
But that might have been simply because he was desperate to find something, anything that might point him in the direction of who had shot his wife. Frankly, to his mind, the best thing would be to find traces of a camp where bandits may have been, or even some sign that a peasant had been hunting in the wrong area. Either would please him. At this point, Greer didn't think he'd even be angry at the hunter if he came across one. He'd just be relieved to know that this occurrence had been a one-time event and unlikely to be repeated.
However, without some evidence of something, he was forced to consider that it might have been a deliberate attack. That meant having to continue to do whatever was necessary to keep Saidh safe.
Greer grimaced at the thought. Recovering from the wound and loss of blood as she was, his new wife was growing restless at being kept to the bedchamber, and he could not blame her. He was tiring of being in there himself and he was only there during the nooning meal and in the evenings. Greer very much feared that if he didn't clear this matter up quickly, she would rebel and neither he nor her seven brothers would be able to keep her in the master bedchamber.
"Perhaps we should be looking in a different direction," Aulay suggested now. "Mayhap we should check the arrow again to be sure there is no' some marking or something else we missed that may help us sort out who it belonged to."
Shaking his head, Greer quickly remounted and took up the reins of his horse. "We ha'e done that at least twenty times now. There were no markings, no nothing. 'Twas as common as can be, a broadhead arrow with gray goose fletching."
"Aye, verra common," Aulay agreed, sounding as frustrated as Greer felt, and then he suggested, "Then mayhap we should try the other side of the path."
Greer shifted impatiently, his gaze fixed on the spot where he'd found Saidh lying beside her mare. "Nay, the angle of the arrow was very slight, but suggested it was shot from this side. To have been shot from the other side of the trail she would have had to have been riding backward on her mount and shot after she passed the archer."
"I did no' really see fer myself," Aulay admitted with a frown. "I mean I saw the wound and the arrow protruding from it, but did no' notice at the time if 'twas at an angle." He slapped his leg impatiently. "Are ye sure o' the angle?"
"The wound on her back is closer to her arm than 'tis on her front," he explained.
"Aye, but Rory pushed it through. 'Tis possible he changed the angle a bit as he pushed it through," Aulay suggested and then shifted with frustration and said, "Nay. He is too careful to ha'e done that."
"He is," Greer agreed and then pointed out, "Besides, the arrow was already pressing against the skin of her back ere he forced it through. That is why he pushed it through rather than . . ." His voice trailed away as he considered his own words. The arrow had been pressing against the skin of her back, the bulge visible. It had hit with enough impact to travel nearly all the way through her body before stopping . . . which meant it had been shot from a relatively short distance; certainly the archer had to have been closer than the area he'd searched repeatedly the last three days.
Cursing, he urged his horse forward, moving slowly along the trajectory he had guessed the arrow had to have taken to hit her at the angle it had. He heard the clop, clop of Aulay's horse and knew the other man was following, but Saidh's brother didn't say anything, merely trailed patiently after him. When Greer suddenly reined in and dismounted, Aulay did as well, and moved up next to him when he stopped.
They both stared at the compressed grass next to the large oak tree to the side of the path. It was the size and shape of a body.
"Someone laid in wait," Aulay said grimly.
"Aye," Greer agreed, but frowned even as he said it and pointed out, "But if they'd shot her from the ground, the angle of the arrow would have been upward as well as to the side."
Aulay murmured in agreement and walked around to the top end of the spot, eyeing it solemnly before suggesting, "Mayhap they lay in wait here, then stood when they heard her mare coming and shot her from a standing position."
That made sense, Greer acknowledged, and the possibility scared the hell out of him. It meant it hadn't been a hunter mistaking her for a deer or some other such animal. No one would mistake the gallop of a horse for that of the much smaller deer. It also made it less likely to have been bandits too. They did not, as a rule, hang about waiting to shoot women in the woods. They would have taken her, or robbed her, not just shot her off her horse and fled, and Greer was quite sure there had been no one here in this spot when he'd found Saidh. He would have noticed them.
Someone had tried to kill his wife. They had lain in wait and deliberately shot her with lethal intent.
The thought floated through his head like a bird of prey winging through the air, and sent a shudder down his back. Whirling, Greer rushed back to his horse, mounted and turned him toward the castle. He had a sudden desperate need to ensure himself that Saidh was well and safe.
Greer didn't need to look back to see if Aulay was following. The man was right beside him, racing his horse through the woods, his expression as concerned as Greer was sure his own was. He had found many things to like about the Buchanan men the last couple of days, but the one he appreciated the most was how much they all loved their sister. They would help him keep her safe, he knew, and that was the only good thing he could think of at that point.
Greer and Aulay raced their horses through the bailey, sending merchants, servants, children, dogs and even a chicken or two scrambling to get out of the way. At the stairs, they dismounted and raced to the double doors together, each pushing through one to get inside. Greer spotted Dougall and Geordie at the trestle tables, noted that both men got abruptly to their feet in alarm at their rushed entrance, but didn't slow in crossing the great hall. He had to see for himself that Saidh was okay.
Apparently Aulay was feeling much the same way, for rather than stop or even slow to explain to his brothers, he kept pace with Greer until they reached the stairs. He only fell back a couple steps then because as wide as they both were in the shoulders they would not have managed the stairs side by side. But he followed on his heels and was only a step behind him when Greer reached and opened the door to the master bedchamber. Both men skidded to a halt just inside the door, however, as their gazes found first the empty bed and then the two men sleeping in the chairs by the fire.
Greer released a string of curses then that would have had Alpin in an uproar. It also woke up the two men in the chairs.
"What's about?" Niels cried, lunging to his feet, one hand grabbing for his sword even as Conran did the same.
Greer ignored them and turned to head back downstairs, his only thought to find his wife. The fact that the men were sleeping and that Alpin too was missing from the bed told him that she had not been taken, but had somehow arranged their escape. Although he hadn't a clue how she had managed it, he was quite sure she was somehow behind the fact that both brothers were sleeping. They cared too much for her to have simply dozed off while they were supposed to have been guarding her.
"What's happened?" Dougall growled, pausing on the steps and turning sideways to let him pass when he reached the man.
"They've escaped," Greer snapped, hurrying past him and then Geordie too when the man made way.
"Who's escaped?" Geordie asked with confusion.
"Saidh and Alpin
Greer had just stepped off the stairs when an alarmed shout from the direction of the kitchens caught his ear. He turned and rushed through the swinging doors. The stillness in the hot and steamy room brought him up short as he entered. The kitchen was generally bustling with noise and activity, but now every servant stood as if frozen and the only sound was bubbling from the pot over the fire. Greer scanned the room and had just spotted Saidh across the room when someone crashed into his back. He stumbled under the impact, but then continued forward, moving more quickly the closer he got to his wife. Her hair was a wild mess about her pale face, blood trickled from a new wound on her forehead, and she was dressed in only her chemise.
"Greer," she cried with relief when she saw him approaching. But rather than rush to him, she began to drag something along the uneven stones of the kitchen floor. "Fetch Rory. We need him."
Greer glanced down with confusion to the sack she was dragging. Not a sack, he realized on examining the material. Her gown. Shaking his head, he asked, "What--?"
The question died on his lips as she stopped and released the edges of the gown she'd drawn up to form the makeshift sack and the cloth dropped, allowing a small pale arm to drop out between the folds to lie unmoving on the floor.
"Alpin?" he asked with dismay.
"Aye," she said as he bent to remove the cloth that now covered the boy. "He saved me."
Something in her voice gave him warning. Glancing up sharply, Greer saw her beginning to teeter and quickly straightened to catch her against his chest as she fainted.
Closing his eyes, he briefly pressed her close, then scooped her up in his arms and turned back the way he'd come, pausing when he saw that Dougall, Geordie, Niels, Conran and Aulay were all there.
"Aulay--" he began.
"I'll bring the boy," the eldest Buchanan assured him before he could ask. He then glanced to Geordie. "Go find Rory and tell him to bring his medicinals."
"Thank ye," Greer said grimly and carried his wife out of the kitchens.
Saidh opened her eyes sleepily and grimaced as she became aware of the low throbbing in her temple. Good Lord, she'd thought she'd got past that. Her head hadn't ached since the third day after she'd been shot and had fallen off her horse. Her back was throbbing something awful too, and she realized she was lying on her back.
She immediately turned on her side and found herself peering at Alpin's sleeping face, a sight she'd woken up to several times during the last couple of days. It wasn't until she became aware of movement and noticed that Alpin wasn't under the linens and furs, but lying on top of them and that Rory was working over him that she recalled why her head hurt again.
"Is he going to be all right?" she asked anxiously, sitting up.
"Aye. Fortunately, the stones only sheared him as they fell rather than hit him full on. The head wound is just a grazing."
"But he fainted," she protested with a frown. "A mere grazing would no' ha'e--"
"I imagine it was the wound to his back that made him faint," Rory interrupted.
Saidh shifted her gaze to Alpin's small back and bit her lip. More than half of it was skinned from shoulder to almost his hip. "How bad is it?"
Rory grimaced and removed the bloody cloth he'd been cleaning Alpin's wound with. He dipped it in a basin of water, wrung it out and then returned to his work and finished grimly, " 'Twill heal."
Saidh sighed unhappily, knowing from the way her brother had said it that the boy was in for a long, painful recovery. Swallowing, she whispered, "He saved me."
Rory paused and glanced to her in question.
"I was standing where the rocks fell. He pushed me out of the way," she explained solemnly.
"Yer forehead?" Rory asked.
"I hit it on the castle wall as he knocked me forward. If he hadn't . . ." She didn't bother finishing the sentence, but took a breath and asked, "Where is me husband?"
"Up on the battlements with Aulay and the other men, examining the merlons to see how they were dislodged," Rory answered as he returned to his work.
Saidh nodded, but then just as quickly frowned. "How did they ken about the merlon? I did no' get the chance to tell Greer ere I fainted."
"Alpin awoke when Aulay picked him up. He told him about the merlon falling and where it happened as he was carried up here," Rory murmured, concentrating on his task.
"And then fainted again when ye set to work on him?" she asked, feeling for the poor lad.
"Nay. I gave him some o' me sleeping tincture so he could sleep through me cleaning his wound. There was no need fer him to suffer through it."
"Oh, thank ye," Saidh breathed, grateful that he had. She watched silently as he worked, then asked uncertainly, "Was Greer verra upset that we'd slipped our keepers?"
"Aye," Rory said shortly, and then paused to give her a cold glare. "As are the rest o' us." When Saidh looked away, he added, "Saidh, we were trying to protect ye from exactly what happened today. Ye should no' ha'e--"
"I ken," Saidh interrupted on an unhappy sigh. "We should no' ha'e done it."
"We?" Rory asked dryly. "By me guess 'twas ye who did it and Alpin jest got dragged along with ye."
"I did no' exactly ha'e to drag him," she protested. "He was as sick o' this room as I am."
"He is but a lad," Rory snapped. "Ye're a woman, full grown and supposed to ken better."
Saidh shifted uncomfortably and muttered, "Aye, well how would you like to be locked up in a room fer days on end with men to constantly guard ye?"
"How would ye like to be dead?" he snapped back. "Because 'tis only by the skin o' Alpin's back that ye're not."
Saidh glanced to the boy guiltily and then lowered her head unhappily. Rory rarely got angry. He and Alick were the last two to ever lose their tempers. But he was furious right now and she could not even blame him. Alpin would not be in the state he was presently in if not for her determination to outwit and escape her jailors.
She grimaced to herself and picked at the fur covering her lap as she worried over what this meant. If Rory was this angry, how angry must Greer be with her right now? She'd nearly got his squire killed. Cowardly as it might be, she really didn't want to find out just how angry her husband was with her just then. In fact, she'd be happy to avoid having to deal with him until he'd had a chance to let his temper cool. In that regard, she could only envy Alpin. At least he was asleep and would not have to face Greer's anger. That thought made her still and then she glanced at Rory and said, "Me head is paining me something fierce."
"I am no' surprised," Rory said with little sympathy. He didn't even glance up from his efforts to clean Alpin's wound.
Saidh scowled, but then cleared her throat and asked, "I am sure rest would help ease it. I do no' suppose I could ha'e some o' that sleeping tincture o' yers?"
He straightened and eyed her through narrowed eyes.
Saidh held her breath and tried to look pitiful. It wasn't a natural state for her, however, and she suspected she just looked brain-boiled.
After a moment, Rory returned to his work, saying mildly, "Unfortunately, I somehow lost a goodly portion o' me sleeping tincture and ha'e precious little left. I am no e'en sure what I ha'e left will be enough to keep Alpin from suffering as he heals, so I fear I ha'e to say no." He paused and glanced her way as he added sweetly, "Howbeit, I do ha'e a tincture fer pain. It tastes vile, but it might help."
"Nay," Saidh muttered with disgust and lay back in the bed. It served her right for even considering taking the coward's way out . . . which was completely unlike her. Saidh was no coward. She'd stood fierce and proud in the face of her brothers' anger many times over the years, and couldn't say why this time was different. She wasn't afraid of Greer. No matter how angry he got, she knew, to the bottom of her heart, that he would not harm her. In truth, she didn't even think it was fear that she was experiencing. She just didn't want to see the disappointment and accusation on his face that she knew she deserved.
Saidh heard the men's voices coming from the hall and quickly sat up again. If she had to face Greer, she would do so upright. She'd rather have been out of bed and on her feet, but there wasn't time for that. She'd barely got into a seated position before the door opened and Greer led her brothers in. Every last one of them was there, she noted, and knew from experience that once her husband got done berating her, they would line up to take a turn at bawling her out as well.
She steeled herself against what was to come as the men walked to the bed, then gasped in surprise when Greer suddenly bent, tugged the linen and furs aside and scooped her up. When he then turned to carry her out of the room, she thought she understood. He didn't want to wake Alpin with his bellowing. She glanced over his shoulder, expecting to find her brothers all trailing behind, preparing to blast her. However, they had all gathered around the bed to talk quietly with Rory.
Perhaps they were letting Greer give her hell on his own before going at her, she thought with a frown and then glanced around as her husband turned into the room she had stayed in when she'd first arrived at MacDonnell. Greer strode inside, paused long enough to kick the door closed, then carried her to the chairs by the fire and sat in one, settling her in his lap.
Saidh raised her chin proudly as she waited for the scolding to start, only to gasp in surprise when instead he covered her mouth with his own and kissed her almost violently. She was just getting over her surprise enough to kiss him back when Greer tore his mouth away and pressed her close, muttering, "Thank God ye're all right."
"Alpin saved me," she breathed guiltily.
"Aye, and I'll reward the boy fer it too. He's a good lad," he murmured into her hair.
"Aye," Saidh agreed, guilt mixing with confusion now. "I thought ye'd be angry with me."
"I am," he growled, framing her face with his hands and pulling her back so he could meet her gaze.
Her eyes widened at the tortured expression on his face.
"But I'm so damned relieved ye're all right. When I found the crushed grass and raced back only to find ye missing, I thought me heart would stop in me chest."
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