“Aye, there is,” Dwyn agreed, and pointed out, “And we can visit here as often as ye wish, husband.”
Nodding, he bent to kiss the tip of her nose, and then turned the horse to start along the path through the woods.
Geordie didn’t appear to be in a hurry to return to the keep. He kept his mount at a trot as they left the clearing and startedalong the path. She suspected he was saying a silent goodbye to this place that had been home to him for twenty-nine yearsof his life. That part of marriage had never occurred to Dwyn during her childhood imaginings. She’d never included the partwhere she’d have had to ride away from Innes, the only home she’d ever known, to go to someplace she’d never seen before,but was supposed to happily accept as her new home. That hadn’t happened in the end, but it was happening to Geordie now thathe’d married her.
She hoped he didn’t resent that. He’d told her he loved her the night they were married, but hadn’t repeated it since awaking.Had the declaration been the result of the injury, something easily said when he’d thought he was about to meet his maker,or had he meant it?
Dwyn knew Geordie was happy with their marriage right now, and was even looking forward to seeing Innes. But would he likeInnes once there? She bit her lip worriedly at the thought. She loved Innes, but it was in the flat Lowlands while he wasused to the majesty of the mountains in the Highlands. And then there was the problem of Laird Brodie. Dwyn had tried to tellGeordie about that to prepare him ahead. They’d discussed much while he’d been healing the last several weeks. But every timeshe’d tried to bring up the subject of their neighbor, Brodie, he’d interrupted her to say it was fine. All would be well.They were married now. There was nothing the man could do, and did Brodie foolishly try something anyway, he’d take care ofit.
Geordie’s suddenly stiffening behind her and his arm tightening around her waist drew Dwyn from her thoughts. She glancedahead, half expecting to see riders approaching. Instead, her gaze fell on a large, dark bundle on the path some fifty feetahead. It took a moment for her to recognize what the bundle was and even then she wasn’t sure until she was able to makeout the strong bare legs sticking out of the bundle of cloth. They weren’t moving. “Is that a Buchanan soldier?”
Geordie grunted behind her, and she twisted her head around and up to look at his face. His expression was grim, his eyesscouring the trees around them and the path beyond the fallen man as he slowed his mount. Dwyn turned back then, her own gazesliding quickly around. When she didn’t see a horse or anyone or anything that might be a threat, she shifted her attentionback to the body. They were closer now and she could make out more detail. The body was large, a man with fair hair, lyingon his stomach, his arms raised and slightly curved around his head, his face turned away from them as if looking back towardthe keep. He wore a dark green, blue and red plaid she’d noted on about half of the warriors at Buchanan, Geordie among them,and there was blood pooling in the dirt by his chest, but there was no arrow, knife or any other weapon to suggest the sourceof the wound that had bled so profusely.
They were both silent as Geordie reined in just before the body and dismounted. He turned back then, just in time to catchher by the waist and ease her drop to the ground as she slid off the horse. Once on her feet, they hurried to the man.
Dwyn paused on the near side and peered down at his face as Geordie moved around to the other side. The man looked familiar.She’d seen him speak to Aulay several times since arriving, but it wasn’t until Geordie gasped the name, “Simon,” that sherealized it was Laird Buchanan’s second, the man who took over when Acair was too busy to manage his duties as first, whichhad been a lot of the time lately, she realized.
She waited until Geordie had turned the man over, and then knelt across the body from her husband and lowered her head tothe fair-haired man’s chest to listen for a heartbeat. Dwyn didn’t hear one, but the amount of blood on the ground hadn’tgiven her much hope that she would.
Geordie didn’t appear surprised when she shook her head. Sighing, he leaned forward to shift the top swath of plaid asideand tugged the second’s tunic out of it to reveal the injury he’d taken. Dwyn frowned when she saw the large gaping wound.The man had been gutted by either a sword or a knife. She raised her head to glance at her husband, and froze, as she sawthe man behind him.
Tall, barrel shaped, with iron gray hair on his head, but a beard and mustache both more black than gray, the man was notattractive. He also had cruel eyes that haunted her in her nightmares.
“Brodie!” Dwyn gasped the name with horror.
Geordie started to turn, but it was too late. Faolan Brodie was already slamming the hilt of his sword into her husband’shead.
Dwyn’s gaze shifted to Geordie with dismay as he collapsed across Simon’s chest. Terrified that Brodie would kill him as hehad Simon, she instinctively threw herself on top of her husband, protecting his head and back the best she could.
“Take her on yer mount, Garbhan, else I might kill her ere I can wed her.”
She heard Brodie’s words, but paid them little heed until someone—presumably Garbhan—grabbed her arm and started to drag herto
