They’d be on them in another minute, Dwyn thought with dismay, and then her head swiveled so she could look forward as a thunderous battle cry rent the air. Not one, she realized as she saw the darkness ahead morph into several moving shapes. Many. The air was reverberating with the shouts of countless men on horseback, charging down the hill toward them.
Eyes wide, Dwyn watched the warriors approach, afraid they would charge right over them. But the horses flowed around them and trampled, or engaged, the men following instead, she saw as she swiveled her head again.
“Geordie!”
Dwyn turned forward again at that shout and saw two men on horseback approaching, each leading a riderless mount. The men were nearly on them before she recognized her father and Alick.
“Take Dwyn and the priest to the women,” Geordie ordered, setting Dwyn in her father’s lap even as the MacGregor helped Father Machar up behind Alick on his mount.
“Husband!” Dwyn grabbed at his hands as he released her. When Geordie paused, his head lifting to hers, she whispered, “I love ye. Be careful.”
Geordie squeezed her hand, but then turned to mount his horse as the MacGregor mounted his own. The two men rode into the fray as her father and Alick turned to head back up the hill.
Dwyn had no idea where the women were, or even who they were, and was too busy trying to watch Geordie over her father’s shoulder to care much. Unfortunately, it was too dark and the scene too chaotic to see much. She quickly lost sight of her husband in the dark shapes battling in the trees.
“Are ye all right, lass?”
Dwyn shifted her gaze to her father’s face. She couldn’t see his expression, but he sounded concerned. “Aye, Da, and glad to be safely away from Brodie.”
“Geordie’ll get him,” James Innes said with confidence. “He was most worried about ye. I think he near killed Katie when she would no’ tell him where ye were.”
“Ye ken about Katie?” Dwyn asked, as surprised at the knowledge as she was over the fact that she’d briefly forgotten all about the woman.
“Aye. Geordie worked it out that Simon could no’ have been stabbed without going through her with her position before him, and she was the only one who kenned ye were at the waterfall, so is the only one who could have told Brodie that.”
“Oh,” Dwyn sighed, and they both fell silent as they rode. She was beginning to fear they were going to ride all the way back to Buchanan when the horses began to slow.
Lifting her head, she glanced ahead, her eyes widening at the sight before them. Several torches had been planted in the ground in a large circle that surrounded a fire and several logs where women sat waiting, or had. They were all getting up now and rushing to meet them as her father slowed his mount and helped her dismount.
“Dwyn!”
Turning, she found herself caught up in a fierce hug by Aileen. Una soon joined them, wrapping her arms around both of them.
“Are ye all right?” both of them asked at the same time, not releasing her.
Managing a smile despite the pain they were causing her by pressing against her bruised chest and stomach, Dwyn hugged them back.
“Aye. I’m fine now,” she murmured, and then heard as Father Machar assured the women surrounding him, “Oh, nay, I’m fine, m’lady. Just fine. Lady Buchanan took good care o’ me, though she took a terrible beating herself.”
Dwyn sensed rather than saw when all eyes turned on her. Sighing, she opened her eyes to glance around in time to see that most of the women were all now moving toward her.
“Brodie beat ye?” Una asked, sounding angry as she pulled back. Reaching out, her sister pushed the hair out of Dwyn’s face and inhaled sharply, then breathed, “Bastard.”
“I’m fine,” Dwyn assured her.
“Nay, Dwyn, you are not fine,” a woman she’d never met before said quietly with an English accent. Una and Aileen fell back at once to make room for the newcomer. “You have a split lip, a terrible black eye and a bump and cut on your forehead that look serious. Come over by the fire and let me look at you.”
“Dwyn, this is Jo Sinclair,” Saidh said, taking her arm and urging her toward the fire.
“Aye,” Murine said, urging Father Machar toward the fire as well as Dwyn was ushered that way. “Ye remember us mentioning her. She is a fine healer.”
Dwyn nodded silently. The women had told her all about how they’d met, which had been at Sinclair. They’d been invited there by Campbell Sinclair’s mother in the hopes that he’d be interested enough in one of the women to finally marry and produce grandbabies for her. As Dwyn recalled, it was where the women had got the idea to invite all the heiresses to Buchanan. But a fine joke had been played on all since Campbell had arrived at Sinclair with Jo already as his wife. Even so, the women had become fast friends, and Saidh and the others had insisted that Jo and Campbell, as well as Jo’s aunt and uncle, the MacKays, should be invited to the wedding at Innes.
“Brodie did this?” Saidh asked as she urged her to sit on the fallen log closest to the fire and looked her over.
“Aye,” Dwyn murmured. Noting the grim expressions all around, she was guessing she looked pretty bad at the moment, but then a black eye and split lip would hardly be pretty; add a cut and swollen forehead and she feared her plainness had moved on to just ugly.
“Oh my, it was an adventure,” she heard Father Machar saying from a nearby log that the other women had urged him to. “The Brodie gagged us and tied us up back-to-back. It was most unpleasant. The gag was dirty, ye see. But Lady Buchanan got her gag off and then even managed to remove mine as well. She had to stick her tongue in me mouth to do it, but there was nothing lascivious about it. She was just trying to get the gag out.”
Dwyn turned to peer at the man with raised eyebrows. She seemed to recall him declaring he couldn’t possibly talk about what had happened. What would people think? he’d asked. Apparently, he’d forgotten that concern, she thought wryly as he continued.
“Just as I’m sure there was nothing lascivious when she put her hands on me bum while I had me legs in the air. It wasn’t even really her hands, but her knuckles. She was trying to undo me bindings, ye see.”
There was a brief silence and then one of the women loosed a giggle. It was short. Whoever it was obviously tried to stifle it, but it was the catalyst that had everyone laughing, and Dwyn felt herself relax a little, and then jerked in surprise when something cool touched her forehead.
“Sorry,” Jo Sinclair said apologetically as she smeared something oily over the cut on her head. “I did not mean to startle you. I am just putting some salve on to help prevent infection and reduce the swelling.”
“Thank ye,” Dwyn murmured, doing her best to remain still.
Jo smeared more salve around her eye after that, and a little on her split lip, and then frowned at the bruises visible on Dwyn’s chest, but began to press on her ribs, asking if it hurt.
“I do not think he broke any of your ribs, but you are definitely bruised there. And everywhere from what I can see,” Jo said grimly.
“He was angry that I was married already,” Dwyn said wearily.
“And thank God ye were,” Saidh said grimly. “I canno’ imagine ye’d have survived long married to that bastard.”