Dwyn slid off of Alick’s horse the moment he stopped, and chased after Aulay, following him up the steps as quickly as she could.
“Dwyn,” Alick shouted, and then cursed behind her. She heard his boots on the steps as he hurried after her, but was still startled when he scooped her up off her feet.
“Put me down, Alick. I want to see if Geordie is—”
“I’ll carry ye, lass. Yer feet are bleeding again. There’s a trail o’ bloody footprints up the stairs,” he said grimly.
Dwyn glanced over his shoulder, shocked to see there was indeed blood on the steps. It wasn’t full footprints, but half a bloody print, and just drops of blood from the other. Turning back, she raised her feet to get a look at the tops of them, and saw that her slipper was missing off her good foot, and the linen unraveled and hanging down from her ankle on the other. She wasn’t sure when she’d lost the slipper, probably when she’d been dragged backward so abruptly, but she hadn’t even noticed. Nor had she noticed her linen wrappings unraveling.
Sighing, Dwyn let her feet drop and turned to look for Aulay as Alick carried her through the keep door Drostan was holding open. She wasn’t surprised to find the people in the great hall all up and about. Alick had said they were just breaking down the trestle tables when Geordie’s riderless horse returned and the alarm was called. She supposed the others had given up any idea of sleeping until the men returned and they knew what was about. Now the inhabitants of Buchanan watched silently as she and Geordie were carried to the stairs.
Dwyn heard her name gasped and glanced around as her sisters rushed forward from the crowd, her father close behind them. It was only then she realized it wasn’t just servants and soldiers in the great hall; many of the visiting women and their escorts were below still too, and had been waiting.
“Oh, Dwyn, yer poor feet,” Aileen moaned as she reached them and hurried along beside Alick.
“What happened?” Una asked grimly on her heels. “Geordie looks badly hurt.”
“We were attacked.” Dwyn sighed the words, her head swiveling to look toward Aulay again. She had no idea when Geordie had lost consciousness, but he obviously was now. His head was hanging over Aulay’s arm, his face slack and pale as death.
“Was it Brodie?” Una asked sharply, and Dwyn glanced around, a frown claiming her lips.
“I do no’ ken. They did no’ mention Brodie,” she admitted wearily, and then they’d reached the steps and Aileen and Una were forced to drop back behind them as Alick started to jog up the stairs.
Dwyn forgot them then, her attention wholly on Geordie’s slack face as Alick carried her quickly up the steps and followed Aulay into Geordie’s room as she heard Jetta say, “Set him on the bed, husband.”
Dwyn glanced around the room to see that Rory was already there as well, fresh linens and his medicinals at the ready.
“What happened?” Rory asked, his eyes finding hers as he stepped back to allow Aulay to lay Geordie on the bed.
“He took a sword through the back. It came out the front,” Dwyn said at once, knowing that was what he was asking. She then added, “His lower chest, mayhap his upper stomach. ’Twas too dark to see properly.”
Rory nodded and then stepped back up beside Aulay to cut away the strip of skirt she’d tied tightly around his wound. He and Aulay then worked together to remove Geordie’s plaid and shirt.
Alick carried Dwyn around to the other side of the bed, and set her down. She resisted the urge to crawl closer on the bed, and stayed out of the way, watching anxiously as they held Geordie upright to get his chest bare. She winced when she saw the wound to his back. It was a little more than two inches across, she saw, when Rory washed the blood away. He paused briefly then—she assumed to see how quickly the blood bubbled back up—and then grunted and pressed a wadded-up linen to it with one hand as he shifted to look at the front of his chest.
Dwyn immediately crawled closer then so that she could help hold Geordie upright as Aulay had to release him and step out of the way for Rory to look at his front.
“Well?” Aulay demanded as Rory washed the blood from Geordie’s chest.
Rory glanced up and then frowned when he saw the way Dwyn was straining to hold Geordie upright for him. “Alick, climb on the bed and hold Geordie up. Dwyn, move closer to the edge of the bed so Jetta can start work on yer feet.” Those orders given, he still ignored Aulay’s question and started to do something to Geordie’s chest that she couldn’t see, and then she was distracted by Alick climbing up the center of the bed.
Dwyn shifted her legs aside for him, and then released Geordie and shifted her bottom over too to get out of the way as he took over holding him up. She continued shifting sideways until she reached the edge of the bed, and then glanced toward Geordie again as Rory murmured, “It missed his heart. However, I think it might have nicked one lung. He’s lost a lot o’ blood. No’ as much as he could have though, thanks to Dwyn binding him up tight.” He raised his head to glance to her and nodded solemnly. “Good job, lass.”
She managed a smile, but her lips trembled with it.
“So that’s what happened to yer skirts.”
Dwyn turned at that murmur from Jetta to see that Lady Buchanan was now kneeling next to the bed, a basin of water on the floor beside her that she was dipping a fresh scrap of linen into. Dwyn shifted her attention to her gown then, and grimaced when she saw the state of it. Her neckline had dropped as usual to reveal the tops of her nipples—not surprising after what she’d been through—but she had cut away so much of her skirts they now barely covered her knees. Dwyn merely sighed at the sight, but she did think she probably wouldn’t be at all bothered by the bedding ceremony if they ever had a wedding. Everyone had pretty much seen the better part of her anyway.
“I wish ye’d cut a little more off to cover yer feet though,” Jetta said grimly as she gently clasped her feet and looked at one and then the other.
Dwyn considered curling her legs so she could look at the bottoms of her feet, but decided she didn’t want to know how bad they were. While she hadn’t felt a thing while struggling to get Geordie out of the woods, they were paining her something terrible now and she knew she’d done them more damage running about the woods, and then dragging Geordie on the plaid. She’d had to dig her feet in to pull his weight and knew she’d been digging into branches and whatnot as she had.
“Will he live?”
Aulay’s growl drew her gaze back to Geordie and she saw that Rory had finished cleaning and exploring his chest wound and was now threading a needle. He also was not answering Aulay’s question, she noted with a frown. Or at least was taking an inordinate amount of time answering. Judging by Aulay’s grim expression, that wasn’t a good sign, she thought, and felt her heart drop just as a knock sounded at the bedchamber door.
She glanced toward it with disinterest as her father moved to answer, her mind still wrestling with what Rory’s silence might mean.
“He’ll live.”
Dwyn glanced to Aileen, who had said those words solemnly beside her.
“He has to,” she added. “Ye’re no’ properly married yet.”
“They are married, Aileen,” Una said firmly. “They handfasted, ’tis as good as married in the eyes of the law.”