“Ross?” she whispered uncertainly. He had stopped snoring and if he was awake and up … well, that would be embarrassing. But if it was someone else who had not yet entered the clearing and spotted them, she hardly wanted to draw their attention.
Biting her lip, she listened to the answering silence with a sinking heart. Surely Ross would have answered? Well, unless he’d died laughing on spotting her predicament, she supposed, but Annabel was sure she would have heard that. Besides, the sudden silence was not a good sign. Either the sounds she’d heard were from someone who had heard her whisper and was now listening for another call to see where it had come from, which she definitely did not want. Annabel did not want her husband to see her like this let alone a stranger.
Or the alternative was that the sounds were from someone who was trying to sneak up on them in the clearing, and who had paused cautiously at her call to convince her that there was no one there. However, the goose bumps now covering her arms and chest were telling her that there was definitely someone nearby.
Taking a deep breath, Annabel tipped her head back and found she was able to see out the top of the gown’s neckline. She’d barely made the discovery when a rustling sound caught her ear. It was closer than the other sounds had been. Whoever it was, was nearly upon her. Turning abruptly in the direction of the sound, she bent sharply at the waist while keeping her head at the same angle and tried to spot the source of the sound.
When Annabel caught a glimpse of a large figure moving toward her, she didn’t stop for a better look, but shrieked, straightened and turned to run blindly in the opposite direction at once.
ROSS WAS WOKEN by a high-pitched squeal. Blinking his eyes open, he sat up at once, but was slow to orient himself to where he was. Then he recalled the clearing, his wife and that his marriage was finally consummated. The knowledge was trying to pull a smile across his face when a second squeal caught his attention and drew his gaze to the side. What he saw then left him poleaxed. Someone, his wife he presumed, since it looked like her dress tangled around her head and shoulders, was charging blindly about the clearing with the skirt of her gown barely covering her private bits and leaving her legs naked. He was so startled by the sight of her like that, that it took Ross a moment to notice that someone was chasing her. A man. A big bloody man too. Dressed in a plaid and a white cotton shirt, the fellow was rushing after his wife, arms outstretched.
A thud drew his gaze back to his wife in time to see her bounce off a tree trunk and flop backward onto the forest floor. Ross was on his feet in an instant, a battle roar on his lips. The sound brought the head of his wife’s pursuer around just as he reached Annabel. When he saw Ross charging, he did what any smart man would do … he left Annabel where she was and ran like hell in the opposite direction.
Ross watched him disappear into the woods as he rushed to his wife’s side, but did not pursue him. He was too concerned about Annabel. She had hit the tree hard and there was already blood staining the gown where he thought her head must be. She was also lying unmoving. All of that was enough to decide for him that she took precedence.
“Annabel?” he said with concern, kneeling beside her in the grass.
Relief poured through him when she moaned in response. She was alive at least, Ross reassured himself, and began the struggle to get the gown off of her so he could see how bad her injury was. In the end, the tangle she’d got herself into defeated him and Ross had to find his sgian dubh and cut her out of the tenacious material.
A curse slid from his lips when he saw her head wound. A large knot was already rising in the center of Annabel’s forehead and coloring an ugly mottled black and blue with a red gash in the center that was oozing blood. Scooping her up, Ross carried her to the horse, but then paused and peered from her to the fur where his plaid and sword were. Cursing again, he carried her to the fur and laid her on it while he grabbed up his shirt and plaid. Ross pulled on his shirt, but he didn’t bother folding pleats into his plaid. He simply tied the material around his waist. He then grabbed his sword, and crossed the clearing to the horses to slide the weapon into a loop on his saddle before returning to collect his wife.
The sight of Annabel lying there half naked with the ruined gown beneath her made him gather her up, fur and all. Tugging it around her as if it were swaddling around a baby, he carried her to the horses and then came to a halt again. He could not mount with her in his arms like that. Muttering an apology despite the fact that she was unconscious, Ross tossed her atop his horse on her stomach, grabbed the reins of her mare and then mounted behind Annabel.
Once in the saddle, he quickly shifted her to rest in his arms again. Ross then urged his horse out of the clearing and into a run for home. He had to get Annabel to Seonag. She would know what to do.
ANNABEL’S HEAD WAS pounding when she woke up. That pounding only got worse when she tried to open her eyes and light crowded in, so she closed them again quickly with a moan and reached for her head, only to have her hands caught halfway there and held firmly.
“Now, lass. Ye won’t want to be doing that. ’Tis no doubt tender at the moment and ye’ll just cause yerself more pain.”
“Seonag?” Annabel said uncertainly, unwilling to open her eyes again just now, but sure she’d recognized the older woman’s voice.
“Aye. ’Tis me, and yer safely home now,” the woman said soothingly.
“Home,” Annabel echoed the word softly, confusion filling her. “What happened? Why does my head hurt so much?”
“Do ye no’ remember?” Seonag asked.
Annabel heard what she felt sure was concern in her voice and frowned, trying to recall. After a moment she said slowly, “Ross took me on a picnic.”
“Aye,” Seonag said with a tinge of relief.
“And we … er … picnicked,” she finished lamely, not willing to say what else they’d done. That being the case, she glossed over the next bit quickly. “Ross fell asleep.”
“Men often do after a picnic.”
Annabel was quite sure there was amusement in the woman’s voice as she said the word picnic, and suspected the maid knew that more than picnicking had gone on, but continued, “And I went for a swim in the river.”
“In the river?” Seonag squawked with alarm. “Bloody hell. Yer lucky the currents did no’ carry ye away. Don’t be doing that again, lass.”
“I will not,” Annabel assured her and knew it was true, but it wasn’t Seonag’s warning that would prevent it. It was how cold the water had been, and what she was now recalling had happened after her dip in the river that would prevent her doing that again. “I tried to don my gown, but I was wet and got tangled up in it.”
“Ah,” Seonag said as if that explanation clarified something she hadn’t understood.
“And then I heard snapping branches and rustling as if someone was approaching,” Annabel continued slowly as the recollection flowed over her. “I could just see out of the neck of the gown if I tipped my head back and looked through it, so I bent in the direction the sound was coming from.”
“Did ye see him?” Seonag asked.
“Just enough to know someone was approaching,” Annabel said with a grimace. In her memory all she’d glimpsed was a band of plaid moving toward her.
“And was it an Englishman or someone in a plaid?” Seonag asked with a frown.
“A plaid,” Annabel answered.
“Ah.” Seonag paused briefly and Annabel guessed she was nodding when she added, “Aye, ’tis what the laird said. A man in a plaid.”
“He saw him?” Annabel asked with surprise, blinking her eyes open briefly, only to close them again as pain once more stabbed through them into her head along with the light.
“Aye. He said he saw you first.” There was a brief pause and then she said tentatively, “He said ye were racing about the clearing like a chicken with its head cut off, yer gown around yer head and blind from it.”
“Oh.” Annabel breathed the word out on a sigh.
The picture Seonag’s words painted was not a grand one. No doubt she had looked a complete fool.
“He said as how ye ran into a tree like that?” Seonag prompted, obviously wondering if she recalled that part of her adventure.
“Was it a tree?” Annabel asked weakly. “All I remember is hitting something hard and pain exploding in my head.”
“Hmmm. Yer memory’s still all there then,” Seonag said, sounding relieved.
Annabel didn’t comment, but merely asked, “Did my husband catch the man?”
“Nay,” Seonag answered. “The laird didn’t give chase. He was more concerned with getting ye home to tend yer wound. He’s out there now with the men though, beating the bushes and searching for him.”
“Oh,” Annabel murmured, oddly disappointed that he’d simply dumped her there in Seonag’s care and rushed off rather than stay to see her wake up and reassure himself that she was all right. She supposed it was silly, but after what they’d done in the woods she’d thought—
“He wanted to stay,” Seonag added. “But he was driving me wild pacing about like a caged animal and hovering over me shoulder while I tried to clean yer wound, so I ordered him from the room. Told him did he no’ leave and go find the man responsible, I’d stop what I was doing and leave Cook to tend ye. Cook is no’ very good with wounds, so he left,” she added.
“Oh,” Annabel murmured, feeling a little better about being abandoned. Although, she would have felt better still to hear that he’d left the room only to hover anxiously in the hall, haunting the door like a ghost in his worry. That, she supposed, was silly too, but she couldn’t help what she wished for.
“Can ye open yer eyes now?” Seonag asked suddenly.
Annabel hesitated, but then eased her eyes open, and again closed them. “Nay.”
“Try more slowly,” Seonag suggested. “Open them just a wee bit, then a bit more.”
She grimaced, but cracked her eyes open just a sliver. It caused pain, but wasn’t as bad as when she’d opened them wide, so Annabel eased them open just a crack more. It took a couple of moments, but in the end she was able to open her eyes all the way without too much discomfort.
“Good,” Seonag praised her, and then picked up a goblet on the bedside table and asked, “Do ye think ye can drink this?”
“What is it?” Annabel asked.
“A white-willow-bark tincture,” Seonag said. “ ’Twill help with the pain.”
“Aye,” Annabel murmured. She knew about white willow bark from her work with Sister Clara. The good sister had often used it to ease pain or reduce a fever.
Seonag helped her sit up and Annabel drank the liquid when she pressed the goblet to her lips.
“There,” Seonag said, easing her back onto the bed when she was done. “Why do ye no’ rest a bit now until that takes affect?”
“Aye,” Annabel murmured. Her head hurt enough that sleep sounded like a good escape, but she doubted she’d manage it with her head pounding as it was. Still, she closed her eyes and tried to relax.
“NOTHING?” ROSS ASKED with a frown when Gilly rode into the clearing and dismounted. He had returned only moments ago himself after searching the area. He had found several trails, but hadn’t even caught a glimpse of the man who had been chasing his wife.
Gilly shook his head, his expression grim. “I found the remains o’ a campsite though. It was probably someone just passing through. He spotted yer pretty little wife, thought she was alone and—” He shrugged, and then suggested, “Or mayhap he was trying to help her with her dress. Ye did say she was in a might tangle with it.”
Ross frowned at both suggestions and shook his head. “Either option is possible, I suppose,” he admitted reluctantly, and then added dryly, “The first option is more likely than the second.”
“Aye.” Gilly nodded, and then raised his eyebrows and asked, “But?”
Ross hesitated, but then admitted, “That was the decision I came to when we couldn’t find the man who came upon Annabel that first night on the journey here.”
“I’d forgotten about that,” Gilly admitted with a frown.
“I hadn’t,” Ross said quietly and then added, “A fellow traveler stumbling upon her by accident once was one thing, but twice?”
“Hmmm.” Gilly considered that, but then pointed out, “Still, ye said the first man was wearin’ English garb.”
“I didn’t see him—just his trail. It was Annabel who later said he was in braies,” Ross reminded him. He’d questioned her further on what she’d seen as they’d sat around the fire that night and Annabel had been quite clear that the man she’d seen had been dressed in English garb, a dirty white shirt and braies.
“Oh, aye.” Gilly nodded. “And ye say this one was wearing the plaid?”
“Aye,” Ross agreed, and reluctantly admitted, “I suppose they have to be two unrelated occurrences.”
“Probably,” Gilly agreed, but he now sounded doubtful.
Ross stared at him briefly, but then shook his head and headed for his horse. They were not going to find anything out here and he wanted to check on Annabel. He had only left because Seonag wouldn’t allow him to stay in the room while she was tending her and he had felt useless pacing the great hall. Searching for the man who had chased his wife into the tree had seemed a better expenditure of time than pacing about wringing his hands like an old man. But he’d searched, found nothing, and now wanted to see his wife … whether Seonag liked it or not.
Chapter 7
Annabel sighed sleepily and opened her eyes before she was awake enough to remember the pain that action had caused her the first time she’d woken. Fortunately, it did not cause pain now. In fact, other than a dull throb in her head, like a far-away voice barely heard, she felt fine.
“How do ye feel?”
She glanced to the side with surprise when she heard that question in a deep rumbling voice and stared blankly at her husband. Ross was leaning forward anxiously in a chair beside the bed, eyeing her with concern.
“Good, my lord,” Annabel admitted, and then grimaced and added, “And a little foolish.”
His eyebrows rose in surprise. “Why?”
“Well, I knocked myself out,” she pointed out dryly, and recalling Seonag’s recital of his description of her ordeal, added, “And in a most undignified fashion.”
Ross sat completely still for a moment, his lips twitching, and then he turned and coughed into his hand.
The action made Annabel’s eyes narrow. The cough had sounded suspiciously like an attempt to cover a laugh. Surely he wasn’t laughing at her suffering? She scowled at the idea, but then shook her head and closed her eyes, amusement curving her own lips as she imagined the picture she must have made running blindly about with the gown over her head. It had not seemed funny when she was fleeing the unknown figure in the clearing, but Annabel had to admit that it now might be … a little.
“We searched fer yer attacker,” Ross said after a moment, which she supposed he needed to compose himself.
Her eyes flickered open and she turned to peer at him again, this time frowning. “I was attacked? I thought I just ran into a tree.”
“Aye, ye did,” he acknowledged. “But when yer squawking woke me up, someone was chasing ye.”
“Squawking?” she asked with affront. “I do not squawk, husband.”
His mouth worked briefly and he turned away for another pseudo cough, but then nodded solemnly. “I meant scream. When yer screaming woke me up.”
“Hmmm,” Annabel said, only slightly mollified, and then asked curiously, “Who was he and what was he doing there?”
All traces of amusement fled from his face then and Ross looked grim when he admitted, “I don’t ken. It looked like he was chasing ye, but he might ha’e been trying to stop ye from running into the tree. Whatever the case, he got away,” he admitted unhappily, and then added, “We searched the area after I brought ye back to the keep fer Seonag to tend, but found only his campsite
. He’d fled the area.”
“Oh,” she murmured, and then asked, “But he did give chase?”
“Aye.” Ross tilted his head, and asked. “What happened ere I awoke? Did he attack ye? Is that why ye were running from him?”
“Nay,” Annabel assured him quickly, lest he think something untoward had happened. She wouldn’t have him thinking she’d been sullied by his touch. “I took a dip in the river after ye fell asleep and—”
“The river?” Ross interrupted sharply, and then said firmly, “Never swim in the river, Annabel. I should ha’e warned ye of that. ’Tis no’ safe.”
“Aye, Seonag told me,” she said soothingly. “I will not do so again. And I did not go in far. I did notice the current was strong.”
Sighing, he rubbed one hand over his face and sat back with a nod for her to continue.
“At any rate, I should have waited to be dry before trying to don my dress. However, I did not and it got caught and all bunched up around my head and shoulders.” She noted the amusement on his face and suspected he was recalling her in that state, but ignored it and continued, “I heard branches snapping and thought mayhap you’d awakened and were approaching, but you did not answer my call, so I bent over to look out the top of the dress and caught a glimpse of a large, plaided figure and—” She grimaced. “Well, I just panicked. I shrieked and started to run away.”
He knew what had happened after that so she didn’t bother to continue.
Ross was silent for a moment and then asked, “So ye did no’ see who it was?”
“Nay. Just that he was big and wore a plaid.”
Ross nodded and asked, “And he did no’ touch ye?”
Annabel shook her head solemnly and realized it was true. She’d heard a sound, seen a figure and run away in a panic, knocking herself out. Whoever it was hadn’t harmed her at all … and may not have meant to, she acknowledged. It didn’t seem very bright to attack her with Ross lying but feet away. If his intentions had been nefarious, surely the man would have approached Ross first and knocked him out or even killed him. She wouldn’t have known, as blind as she’d been at that point.
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