“Well, so be it,” Geordie muttered to himself. With the appetite his wife had, and that he had for her, they could start here, move on to the waterfall after they’d rested and then maybe make their way over to the meadow where the ladies had picked their flowers. He’d had some pretty hot imaginings of loving Dwyn there too, and they could end the night back at their tree, perhaps even in the tree if he came up with a way to keep them from falling, he thought wryly, and turned to walk back to Dwyn where he’d left her. Only she wasn’t there.
Geordie’s feet paused, and he blinked at the spot where he’d left her . . . by his horse, which also wasn’t there.
“What the hell?” he muttered with bewilderment. While Geordie knew that the noise of the falls would have prevented his hearing the horse leave, Dwyn wouldn’t have ridden away with the beast without him. Where the hell were they? he wondered, and then spotted something on the ground by where he’d left his horse. Hurrying forward, he squatted and picked up the item, his heart lurching when he turned it in his hand and realized it was Dwyn’s slipper.
His eyes searched the dark woods as he straightened, and then he withdrew his sword and started forward. His pace was cautious, until he heard a male shout followed quickly by Dwyn screaming his name, then he burst into a run.
“Shut up, bitch!”
Dwyn grunted as she was hit in the face hard enough to send her crashing to the forest floor.
“And what the hell’s the matter with ye, Coll? Screaming like that. Ye’ll give us away. We’re supposed to be quiet, remember?”
“She grabbed me ballocks and twisted.”
Dwyn raised her face off the ground, and glanced around as she spat out the dirt that had got in her mouth as she’d fallen. The man who had dragged her into the woods must be the one presently bent over with both hands covering his groin, she decided. Which meant the man standing straight up was the one who had hit her and started yelling. And he was complaining about the other one not being quiet? She snorted at that, and then stilled, her eyes narrowing warily when the standing man turned on her.
“Ye’ll no’ be looking so pleased with yerself when we get ye back to our camp, little lady,” he growled, stomping toward her.
Dwyn tried to lunge to her feet and make her escape, but didn’t even get upright before he grabbed her by a handful of hair and yanked her around to face him. Dragging her so close she could smell his foul breath, he snarled, “There’s a good chance the men’ll all get a turn at plowin’ into ye once we have ye back at camp, lass, and I’m thinking Coll there’s gonna want to show ye about as much care as ye showed him now we ken what a nasty lass ye are. So, unless ye want me to behave just as badly, I suggest—”
He broke off abruptly, his head swiveling to the side.
It was only then Dwyn heard the sounds of someone crashing through the woods toward them. Geordie had heard her scream, she thought with relief, and then began to struggle as the man holding her by the hair tried to drag her in front of him. Desperate to get away, she tried to reach down and grab him as she had the other man, but this one was ready for that trick and grabbed her hand with his free one so she kneed him in the groin instead. When his grip eased, Dwyn threw herself to the side. She was already scrambling away before she hit the ground, desperate to put as much distance between them as she could to avoid being used against Geordie. But Dwyn hadn’t moved far when she heard the ring of swords clashing.
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Geordie battling the man she’d just kneed. It took little more than three swings of his sword before he felled the man. It was only when Geordie started to turn toward her that she realized he didn’t know there was a second man. She and the villain he’d just felled must have been blocking the second one from view, she thought, and shouted a warning even as a sword suddenly exploded out of the front of his lower chest.
She watched with horror as Geordie lowered his head to peer in shock as the blade slid back the way it had come until it disappeared into his chest. Dwyn fully expected Geordie to drop to the ground then as the first villain had done when he’d struck him a similar blow, although it had been a little higher on him. But Geordie didn’t drop. Instead, he whirled on his feet with a roar, his sword coming up and swinging.
Judging by the man’s wide eyes and gaping mouth, he hadn’t expected that response from Geordie any more than she had, Dwyn thought grimly as she watched his head tumble from his neck and crash to the floor even as his body fell. Only then did Geordie go down, dropping first to his knees, and then falling forward on the forest floor.
Crying out, Dwyn crawled quickly to his side. Her gaze slid over his back, but while her eyes had adjusted quickly to the dark forest where the moonlight didn’t reach, all she could see were dark shapes. She could feel the blood soaking his plaid though when she placed a hand to it, and quickly grabbed up her skirt hem. She tried to tear it, but the material was too thick for that, and she had to feel around on Geordie for the dagger she’d seen him slide into his belt back in his room. Dragging it out, Dwyn used that to cut off a strip of her skirt. She then balled it up, and pressed it against the center of the spreading patch of blood, before slicing at her skirt again to get another swath of the material. Dwyn laid that over the ball of cloth she’d placed over the wound, then stuck each end under his arms before rolling him onto his back. She sliced away a third strip of her gown to ball up and press against the center of the blood patch on the front of his chest when she found it with her fingers. Dwyn then grabbed up both ends of the cloth she’d tucked under his arms and drew them together to tie them off over the cloth. She pulled both ends as tight as she could as she did it, putting her whole body behind the effort, relief sliding through her when she heard him grunt in pain.
Pain was good, it meant he lived, Dwyn thought as she finished tying off the cloth and bent over his face. Patting his cheek lightly, she said, “Geordie? Are ye awake, husband?”
“Aye,” he groaned.
“Thank God,” she breathed, and then ordered, “Stay that way!”
“Well, I’m no’ likely to sleep with ye bellowing at me like that,” he said, his voice weak, but with a touch of humor to it.
“Good, because ye’re no’ getting out o’ marrying me good and proper in front o’ a priest, Geordie Buchanan. So do no’ even think o’ dying on me,” she growled, and then glanced around anxiously, trying to think what to do. She needed to get him back to the clearing and his horse. “Can ye get up, do ye think?” Dwyn turned back to him to ask.
He raised his head and shifted his hands to his sides to help push himself up, but then dropped back to the ground on a sigh. “I’m sorry, lass. I do no’ think—”
“’Tis okay,” Dwyn said at once. “Don’t waste yer strength talking.” She glanced through the trees, trying to judge how far she’d been dragged. Turning back to Geordie, she bent to press a quick kiss to his mouth, then pushed herself to her feet, muttering, “I’ll be right back. Do no’ die on me.”
“Wife, wait,” he gasped, but she ignored him and burst into a run. The clearing wasn’t far at all, perhaps twenty feet, but when she didn’t see Geordie’s horse, Dwyn at first thought she’d somehow got turned around and come out at the wrong spot. But then she saw the plaid spread out under the moonlight and cursed. This was the right place. Geordie’s horse was just gone.