Page 79 of Her Highland Prophecy
The man licked his lips in response, his laughter still echoing on the trees all around them.
What on earth was going on?
“I did it, ye ken?” the man asked a minute later. “I was the one who shot ye in the side during the hunt.”
“Yeshot me?” Gordain asked in astonishment, his dirk lowering slightly in his surprise.
It was the wrong move to make. Taking advantage of his inattention the man snapped up his sword, and then they were circling around each other again, sword clashing on dirk, as they tried to gain the upper hand on each other.
As they fought, the other man started taunting him with his words.
“And after I shot ye, I poisoned yer Sassenach wench. What did ye think she just became ill by herself? Ha, nay. I paid one of yer servants to pour the poison in her drink.”
“Why? What does Diana have to do with ye?” Gordain asked, dancing out of reach of one of the man’s swipes.
“The Sassenach? She has done nay thing to me, but there are people who want her out of the way.” The last word came as a grunt, as he used the sword to Gordain’s blow to his shoulder.
“And we didn’t stop there either,” the man said. “Nay, we have bigger plans than that.”
Ice flooded Gordain’s veins. Why had he left Diana alone when he knew there was still a threat?
“What did ye do to her?” he asked desperately.
“Och, yer lassie is fine. It is yerself ye need to worry about,” he said, attacking Gordain once more.
“What are ye talking about?”
Obviously the man had been sent to kill him, but there seemed to be more to the story. Why would he tell him this instead of just attacking? Beyond that, why hadn’t he just attacked him and Diana when they were on their way to Ballachulish? It would have made much more sense than waiting until now to lure him away.
A feeling of rage overtook him at the thought that this man had been watching him and Diana from the shadows last night as they lay entwined. Or worse, while they had so freely given themselves to one another. It was incomprehensible.
He raised his dirk to attack him once more when the man opened his mouth again.
“Yer Faither is dead,” he proclaimed and Gordain’s thoughts stopped entirely, his mind blank in incomprehension.
What?
His father couldn’t be dead. Gordain had just spoken to him two days ago, the very morning before he and Diana left the Castle. He had been supportive of Gordain making the trip both to protect his betrothed and to meet her family before they wed.
“Ye’re lying,” he said through gritted teeth. The stranger raised an eyebrow, his look gleefully patronizing.
“I am nay lying to ye, Gordain. Ye will be dead in a few minutes anyway so it willnae matter that ye ken the truth now. Yer Faither is dead.”
Each word clanged through him as if he were a hollow bell, the feeling of dread spreading through him. His father was dead? It did not seem possible and yet the man in front of him didn’t seem to be lying. It just did not seem possible that they had managed to kill him. No matter his faults, his father had always been present for him.
And now they wanted to do the same to him.
There was no way he was going to allow the person responsible for the death of his father to win. Beyond the need to protect himself and avenge the death of his father, a sudden worry rose within him about Diana.
They had killed his father and if they managed to kill him now, she would be left defenseless, wandering alone somewhere in the fair where anyone could grab her and drag her away.
His arm lowered and he shuddered, hoping for the first time that she was already gone. That she had found the information she sought and that she was already heading out to the cave to disappear to the place where these people couldn’t hurt her anymore.
“No!” he heard her voice scream out, from somewhere far away as if from a dream.
He looked up, realizing only as he did so that he had left himself weaponless in his shock and that the man who had been sent to kill him was standing over him, sword in hand.
“No!” he heard Diana yell again, her voice closer now and a moment later his vision was obscured by a head of blonde hair.
