Page 50 of Sins of the Highlander

Drummond swore under his breath. Elspeth might well be dying, and all on account of a dog! Cattle and land and clan alliances be damned. MacLaren had probably done him a sideways favor. If she’d risk herself for a dog, Elspeth Stewart was too half-witted to be the mother of his heir.

“What now, my lord?” Lachlan’s man asked, the end of the rope hanging limply.

Drummond took one of his bolts from his quiver and jabbed it into the floor of the raft. Then he cupped his hands around his mouth to shout back to Stewart and Calum, waiting on the shore.

“MacLaren was armed with a crossbow!” Lachlan yelled. “When we got too close, the blackguard shot Elspeth!”

Stewart roared his grief. Lachlan turned to his retainer and spoke in a furious whisper.

“If I hear a word from ye to the contrary, I can only assume ye dinna value your tongue and will no’ be surprised when I rid ye of it.”

***

“Elspeth! Oh, Lord, what happened?” Rob took a knee beside her prone form.

“He was…going to shoot Fingal,” she said, trying to rise. “But I couldna let—”

“No, dinna talk.” Rob eased her back down. “Dinna move either.”

He ran his hands over her and encountered warm stickiness on her left thigh. His fingers found the iron shaft and the spreading wetness around it.

Rob swore vehemently then caught himself, swallowing his anger. It would give no comfort to Elspeth if he couldn’t remain outwardly calm. But inwardly, he damned Lachlan Drummond and all other cowards with thrice-cursed crossbows to the fires of hell.

“Dinna draw the bolt,” Angus warned. “As much as she’s bleeding now, there’ll be more if ye pull it out.”

Rob ripped the fabric of her skirt around the shaft to expose the wound on her thigh. Her skin was pale, except for the dark ribbons of blood.

“I need light,” he said, tamping down the rising panic in his gut. “I canna see clear what to do.”

“That’ll have to wait for dawn,” Angus said. “I’ll no’ have a lit torch on my boat. Fire is a sailor’s worst fear.”

Rob’s worst fear was lying on the curved bottom of Angus’s vessel. Elspeth didn’t speak, but a small whimper escaped her lips.

“Then put in to shore,” he ordered, “and we’ll build a fire.”

“Look about ye, lad. There’s no’ a level place to put in anywhere hereabouts,” Angus said. Dark sentinels hedging the loch, the highland peaks rose steeply from the water’s edge all about. “No’ for a goodly ways, and then we must take care to make landfall only on the north side.”

“Why?” All Rob could see was delay and disaster.

“The men following ye have someone with them who’s knowledgeable about the loch. Else they’d not have waited in ambush for us to sail by that point. They must have suspected ye wished to go west instead of east and had to wait for the current to change,” Angus said. “Stands to reason they may try to ride through the passes to greet us at the next level spot on the south shore.”

“He’s right,” Elspeth said, her voice thready. “One of my father’s men, Calum Guthrie, is a lochman. He kens Loch Eireann and the land about it as well as any alive. If he rides with my father, that’s what he’ll advise.”

Rob pulled his shirt over his head and wrapped it around her thigh to stanch the bleeding.

“No, ’tis too cold, Rob,” she complained. “Ye’ll catch your death.”

“Let me worry about that. D’ye think ye can bear for me to move ye? The pallet in the cabin will be more comfortable than the bare hull, I’m thinking.”

She nodded, teeth clenched.

He reached under her arms and knees and lifted her as gently as he could. She didn’t cry out, but her swift intake of breath cut his heart as sharply as if she’d wailed like the damned.

Before Rob ducked into the cabin to lay her on the pallet, Angus called out, “I’m minded of something.”

“What?” Rob stopped, clutching Elspeth to his chest. The hand she splayed on his bare skin was cold.

“There’s a wise woman who lives on the loch.” Angus crossed himself as protection against the devil. “She’s a witch, some say, but they also say she kens a good deal about healing.”