Dwyn stood still for a second, her heart thumping and brain twisting itself up trying to sort out what to do. She had to get Geordie to help, and quickly, or she could lose him. His horse had been their best bet. She hadn’t thought ahead to figure out how to get him on the horse when he couldn’t even stand up, but she would have figured out something. Unfortunately, there was no horse to get him on.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” Dwyn breathed, turning in a circle. She could lose him. She couldn’t lose him. She loved him.
The thought made Dwyn freeze briefly. Love? Already? She wanted to scoff at the thought, but was very much afraid that she did already love Geordie Buchanan. The man was just . . . He made her feel alive. For years she’d felt like she was fading away, becoming just another piece of furniture at Innes. That had been happening for the last seven years actually, since the day that she’d learned her betrothed had died. She’d never met the man who was to be her husband, so had not grieved his passing for the man he was. Instead, she’d felt only panic and fear.
When they received the message with the news of his death, Dwyn had turned to her father with dismay and asked what they would do now. His response had been “not to worry, everything would work out,” and she’d known then that he wasn’t likely to try to find her a replacement husband. Her father was too comfortable with the way things were. He was too happy having her to run his keep, and handle his people. And she’d known she would live out her days at Innes, alone, without the husband and children she’d dreamed about someday having.
Dwyn was positive that if it weren’t for Geordie she would have died a lonely old maid, running her father’s home and people. Or perhaps living out her end days on the charity offered to her by her sisters, depending on what had been done with Innes if her father died first.
By the time the first letter had arrived from Buchanan, she’d already been a shriveled-up old maid in her head. Almost. But that first letter had sparked hope in her heart. However, her father hadn’t shown much interest in it. In fact, he’d tossed the first away. It was Dwyn who had snatched it up from the floor where he’d tossed it after crumpling it up. And it was Dwyn who’d responded to the message in her father’s name. She’d continued to respond to each successive message from Jetta Buchanan, telling herself it was a nice little fantasy to pass her dreary days so that she wouldn’t get her hopes up, because she knew her father ultimately wouldn’t agree to anything that might prevent her taking care of him. But then the message with the Buchanan terms had arrived. Dwyn had begun to tremble when she’d read that if a brother chose her to wife, Laird Innes had to agree and put in the marriage contract that the Buchanan brother would become the heir to Innes, and next clan chief.
Hope had flared to life in Dwyn, a brilliant fire in her breast. She’d known her father would like that. It not only wouldn’t take her away from him, it would add someone else to take over more of his responsibilities, freeing him to pursue his own interests. She’d been sure that would appeal to him, and she’d been right. The next thing she knew he was responding that they would travel to Buchanan so that the sons could meet his daughter.
Dwyn had been over the moon . . . until her sisters had decided to help. She knew they really had wanted to help, that they’d wanted her married and happily settled like they were going to be with their still-living future husbands. They had not tried to make her feel inferior. But, in the end, that’s what their help had done. Their determination to lower the necklines on her gowns to highlight her large breasts, which were her “finest feature,” had reminded her that she had not been graced with the beauty they had, but was plain and unappealing. Their insistence on taking in the waistline of those same gowns until they were so tight that she could barely breathe so that she looked slimmer had just reminded her that she was not long-legged and slender like her sisters. And the lessons they’d insisted on giving her in how to be interesting and not a bookworm had reminded her that she was a dull little wren, not likely to attract a husband.
By the time they’d left for Buchanan, Dwyn was regretting ever answering Lady Jetta’s first letter, and sure the trip was going to be a terrible waste of time. Things had not improved when she’d arrived and Lady Catriona and Lady Sasha had begun to peck at her, reinforcing what her sisters had unintentionally made her feel. She was plain, and boring and fat, and none of the Buchanans would be interested in her, they’d said, and then begun to call her horse-face and to whinny at her, and she’d thought the trip would not just be a waste of time but probably the most miserable time of her life.
And then Geordie climbed up into her tree and everything changed. He made her laugh. He made her burn. He made her feel desirable, and even desired. He made her feel powerful, like a goddess . . . and he was so kind and gentle with her. So careful with her at all times. Geordie made her see herself through entirely different eyes than her sisters and Catriona and Sasha did. He made her like herself again, and she loved him for that and much more. For his kindness to Drostan. For the way he helped his family. For his strength and character.
She loved him . . . and she had to get back to him now, Dwyn realized, pushing her thoughts away. She didn’t dare leave him alone for too long. Time was of the essence here. She needed to get him to help as quickly as she could, and it seemed there was only one way to do it now that his horse was gone.
Mouth tightening grimly, Dwyn rushed over to grab the plaid and then turned to charge back into the woods.
Chapter 12
“Yer horse is gone,” Dwyn got out on a gasped breath as she reached Geordie and started to lay out the plaid.
“Aye,” he sighed. “I tried to tell ye that, but ye ran off too quick.”
“The men must have loosed him,” she muttered, pulling the plaid corners out.
“And slapped him to make him run,” Geordie added. “Else he would no’ have gone. He has probably returned to the keep. They’ll send help if he has.”
Dwyn glanced at him sharply at that. “What’s his name?”
“Who? Me horse?”
“Aye, Geordie, what’s his name?” she asked again.
“Horse.”
“Ye named yer horse Horse?” Dwyn squawked with disbelief. “Do ye call yer dog Dog too, then?”
“I do no’ have a dog,” Geordie reminded her, sounding amused but weary.
“Ye do now. Two o’ them, and their names are Angus and Barra, so do no’ expect them to answer to Dog,” she said firmly.
“Wife, what—?” His question ended on a grunt when Dwyn moved around to his side opposite the plaid and shoved with all her might to roll him onto his stomach. It put him half on the plaid, and before he could protest her shabby treatment of him, she rolled him again, onto his back this time. Much to her relief that roll put him in the center of the plaid.
“Dwyn,” he said with a frown in his voice as she moved to his feet and began to tie the ends of the plaid together beneath his boots. “What are ye doing, lass? Ye need to make yer way back to Buchanan.”
“I intend to,” Dwyn assured him, “with you.”
“Nay, lass. Ye—”