The Highlander Takes a Bride (21 page)

Saidh merely smiled to herself. She suspected the boy would have continued to endeavor to help anyway. She doubted he could help himself. Fortunately, she was growing fond of the boy and didn’t mind the idea of his nattering at her. They reached the stairs quickly and moved cautiously down them.

“There is an entrance here to the kitchens,” Alpin whispered as they reached level ground again. Raising his torch, he pointed to a wooden lever in the wall. “See that lever there?”

“Aye,” Saidh whispered leaning back against the wall of the passage. She was relieved to be done with the stairs. While she’d felt fine and fit lying and sitting about in bed, she found the small walk and traversing the stairs had wearied her.

“If ye pull on it, the wall slides in and ye can slip into the kitchens.”

“Good to ken,” Saidh murmured. “How much further is the entrance to the gardens?”

“This way,” Alpin said, which wasn’t really an answer to the question, Saidh thought but didn’t say so, and merely followed when he continued forward. However, she was nearly ready to call a halt and request that they rest when he finally stopped several minutes later. Sighing with relief, she leaned against the wall again and watched as he set the torch in a sconce in the wall.

“Are ye feeling all right?” she asked with concern when she noted that he had to use both hands to lift the torch and that they were trembling a little.

“Aye. Just tired,” he admitted and then added with irritation, “ ’Tis a ridiculously long passage.”

Saidh gave a small laugh. “I suspect it did no’ seem so long when me husband showed ye through it the first time?”

“Nay,” he agreed, sounding surprised.

Pushing herself away from the wall, she patted his arm and reached for the lever to open the door herself. “We are both still weak. We need to build our strength back up and lying about in bed is no’ likely to do that. A bit o’ sun and fresh air will help though.”

“Let us hope so. We still ha’e to travel back up those stairs, and I suspect going back up’ll no’ be as easy as coming down,” he said unhappily.

“We can rest on the way back up if necessary,” Saidh reassured him and then stepped back as she pulled the lever and the wall opened inward. Fresh air immediately rushed through the opening and they both inhaled deeply.

“I feel better a’ready,” Alpin announced and she could see his grin in the sunlight pouring through the doorway.

Smiling, she leaned out to peek about and be sure there was no one nearby. Finding this part of the gardens empty, she relaxed and stepped out into sunlight and fresh air for the first time since being shot.

“Oh,” Alpin breathed as he followed her. His gaze slid over the fruit trees that filled this end of the garden and he sighed happily. “ ’Tis like entering paradise.”

Saidh chuckled at the words, but silently admitted that he was right. Blue skies, bright sunlight, green grass, apple trees, and singing birds . . . it
was
like paradise. Funny how, after a few days without it, they now recognized the beauty they normally took for granted. Striding forward, she moved to the lower branches of the nearest tree. “Apple?”

“Aye, please!” Alpin almost hopped up and down with excitement. She suspected he actually would were he not so tired.

Reaching up, she plucked two of the ripest apples she could see among those low enough for her to reach, then walked over to hand him one. “Where shall we sit to eat them?”

“In the shade o’ the tree,” Alpin decided and led her back under the branches to settle against the trunk of the tree.

Saidh sat down next to him and they fell silent as they ate their apples.

“How long do ye think yer brothers’ll sleep?” Alpin asked suddenly.

Considering the question, Saidh tossed her apple core away, and then stifled a yawn before admitting, “I’m no’ sure. An hour or two. Why?”

“I was just thinking it would be nice to nap here under the tree,” he admitted with a chagrined expression.

Saidh chuckled softly at the admission, but understood his embarrassment. She would not mind napping here either. Which meant they’d gone to all this trouble to escape the bedchamber only to sleep in the grass. Shaking her head, she pointed out, “Geordie and Alick may sleep for an hour or two, but that does no’ mean Aulay or Dougall may no’ go up to check on us ere that.”

“Aye,” Alpin agreed on a little sigh as he tossed his own finished apple aside. “For all we ken they may already ha’e done so and discovered us missing.”

“Nay,” Saidh assured him. “Were that the case, we’d ha’e heard Aulay bellowing at Geordie and Alick fer letting us escape.”

“All the way from here?” Alpin asked dubiously.

“Aulay’s fair loud when he wants to be,” she said dryly and then suggested reluctantly, “I suppose we should think about heading back in now.”

“Already?” Alpin groaned.

“I suspect it’ll take us much longer to mount the stairs than it did to come down them,” she said quietly. “Especially if we ha’e to stop and rest a time or two.”

“Oh, aye,” Alpin said on a sigh, and then asked, “But can we come out again tomorrow?”

“If ye help me sneak more o’ Rory’s sleeping tincture, we can,” she said as they both stood up.

“His satchel is probably in his room. We could stop and sneak some now, on the way back to the master bedchamber,” Alpin suggested as he watched her brush down her skirts to remove any grass or leaves that may have attached themselves to her. “That would save us ha’ing to try to distract him later.”

“Is there an entrance to his room from the passage?” she asked with surprise as she straightened.

“There’s an entrance to e’ery room on that side o’ the hall.”

Saidh considered the setup of the upper floor and then frowned. “Windows.”

“What about them?” Alpin asked, tilting his head curiously.

“The passage is along the outer wall, but there are windows there,” she explained, “How—”

“The passage floor is six or seven feet below the windows. The floor o’ the passage slants downwards when ye first step out o’ the master bedchamber. Did ye no’ notice?”

“Nay,” she admitted, a little surprised that she’d missed that detail.

“There are stairs from the other rooms, very narrow stairs cut into the stone, but because it starts on the side wall and then turns to follow along the outer wall, they just slanted the floor for the entrance to the master’s bedchamber.”

“Hmmm,” Saidh murmured and decided she’d have to pay closer attention on the way back in. Shrugging, she glanced to him and raised an eyebrow. “Ready?”

He snorted at the question. “I ha’e been waiting fer you. Are ye done fussing with yer gown?”

Saidh wrinkled her nose at the lad, and placed a hand at his back to urge him toward the still open passageway. “Ye’d do well with a bit o’ fussing o’ yer own. Ye’ve a leaf stuck to yer arse. ’Twill gi’e us away do me brothers see it.”

“Nay!” Alpin stopped walking and turned to try to see his backside as he brushed at it. “Is it gone? Did I get it?”

Saidh grinned to herself with amusement and continued walking toward the passage entrance. She’d only been teasing him. There was no leaf on his plaid.

“Saidh!”

She thought he’d realized her trick when he yelled her name, so was taken completely by surprise when he slammed into her back, sending her crashing forward. Her head hit and bounced off the castle wall as she was plastered against it by his weight. The blow sent up a roaring in her skull that nearly blocked out the sound of Alpin’s grunt of pain and the thud of something heavy hitting the ground behind them.

“What?” she began with confusion, raising one hand instinctively to her forehead and pressing the other against the castle wall as she tried to push away from it. But Alpin was still pressed to her back . . . and then she felt him begin to slide to the ground behind her.

Forgetting about her head, she glanced around and tried to grab at him. Her eyes widened in alarm when she caught a glimpse of bright red blood on his back.

“Alpin?” she said sharply and then spotted the collection of large stones on the ground directly behind him. It looked like one of the merlons had come down from the battlement along the top of the castle wall . . . and Alpin had received a glancing blow by the stones as they fell. Actually, she would have been crushed by them had he not suddenly crashed into her, Saidh realized as she saw where the stones rested. He’d saved her life . . . and been injured in the process.

Cursing, she released her hold on Alpin and let him slip to rest against the backs of her legs. She then shifted out from between him and the wall as carefully as she could before turning and dropping to her knees to examine him. He had landed crumpled on the ground and she could see that it wasn’t just his back that had been injured, for there was blood on the back of his head as well.

Mouth tightening, she turned him over. He had been terribly pale ever since the fever had felled him, but now he was as white as death.

“Alpin?” she said, patting his cheek gently. When she got no response, Saidh glanced around in the hopes that one of the servants may have come out into the garden in search of an herb or vegetable for the sup, but it was empty. She had to get him help herself, but feared leaving him there on his own. What if another merlon fell?

She wasn’t taking that chance. She’d have to take him to help. That wouldn’t have been a problem a week ago, she would have merely hefted him over her shoulder and carried him around to the kitchens. But right now she wasn’t sure she had the strength to heft a kitten over her shoulder. Hell, just getting her own weight back up the stairs had seemed like a major undertaking moments ago; carting around a boy who must weigh four or five stone . . .

Grinding her teeth with frustration, Saidh turned back to Alpin and set to work.

Chapter 14

“W
e’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, o’ course. Who else would be wantin’ to escape?” Dougall pointed out grimly and Greer glanced back to see that both men were now following him with Aulay, Niels and Conran on their heels, Aulay still bawling out the younger men for failing at guarding their sister.

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.”