Page 147 of Bride of Mist
He started to fade again, and she shook him once more.
“Listen, mac Darragh. You promised to marry me,” she told him, “and you’re bloody well going to keep that promise. Do you hear me? Do youhearme?”
She wasn’t sure he did. His eyes glazed over, and he sank into darkness.
For Gellir, confined to the buttery, it was torture not knowing what was happening outside. Chivalry demanded he look after the wee lass with the broken nose. But he wasn’t a physician. All he could do was comfort the maid with words of reassurance.
Even that was humiliating, considering he was clad in next to nothing. While his cousins battled the foes outside, he was stuck here, placating an innocent lass whose gaze kept straying to his linen braies.
He cleared his throat. “My brother Brand once broke his nose.”
“He did?” Her eyes dipped to his bare chest.
“Aye,” he said, casually crossing his arms to block her view. “And he’s still the comeliest of all of the Cameliard brothers.”
“How could anyone be as comely as ye?” she gushed.
He glanced at her in surprise.
She blushed and clapped a hand over her mouth. Clearly she hadn’t meant to speak that thought aloud. “I mean…” she said through her fingers, but she couldn’t figure out how to finish the sentence.
He frowned. He knew what she meant. She was blinded by affection. He’d stayed with her in her time of need. And now she saw him as her handsome hero.
She was wrong. He might do the noble thing when it was required. But he was no one’s knight in shining armor. Bloody hell, he wasn’t even wearing armor. Pesky Feiyan had left him with little more than his undergarments. Thank God no one in the clan could see him now.
An instant after he sent up that thanks, his cousin Hallie burst into the buttery like a snowstorm, trailed by her husband Colban and his friend Morgan. Their faces were covered with the sweat of battle. Their swords were flecked with blood.
Gellir immediately covered his manly bits with his hands, emitting a very unmanly gasp. “’Tisn’t what you think,” he tried to explain, suddenly aware of what it looked like.
But they didn’t seem the least bit interested in what he was or wasn’t doing with the redheaded lass with the bloody nose.
“Where are those fiends?” Hallie bit out. “That pair of gutless savages. I saw them come in here.”
“Who?”
“Those two conniving Highland knaves,” she muttered, making Gellir wonder if she’d temporarily forgotten she was married to a Highlander.
“Fergus and Morris,” Colban said.
“The Fortanach brothers?” Merraid asked.
Hallie curled her lip. “Whatever they’re calling themselves, they’re bloody swine. Did they escape through the passage?” She was aware of the secret stairs since Rivenloch had made use of them last night.
Merraid nodded.
Gellir, leaping at the chance to lend aid, replied, “But they said they’d kill Dougal if anyone followed them.”
“Shite!” Morgan spat. “We’ll have to go the long way around the point again.”
“And hope we’re in time,” Colban said.
It was on the tip of Gellir’s tongue to ask if he could go as well. But just then Hallie hunkered down beside Merraid as if noticing her for the first time.
“Did they do this to you?” she asked.
Merraid nodded.
Hallie gave Gellir a grim smile. “Well, you’ve got the best champion a lass could ask for. Gellir will take good care of you.”
