Page 53 of Kidnapped By her Highland Enemy
“Me faither and I have posted armed guards all around. Ones on the roof too, armed with bows and arrows to start an aerial attack on any ambushers. Daenae ye worry about it. Remember,this is a celebration of our pending marriage.” He bowed and extended his hand. “Please, dance with me.”
Heat rushed over her face as she took his hand. “It has been ages since I’ve danced.”
“With a suitor?’
“At all.” She shook her head. “I’m sure I’ll make a mess of it.”
“That matters not. Come, we’ll enjoy it.”
Brows lifted with an expectant look, he held out his hand. “Ye do remember what it is to enjoy something, aye? If not, I would like to remind ye.”
She allowed him to sweep her onto the middle of the room. “Very well. But if I tread on yer toe, ye must nae blame me.”
“Me feet will withstand your wee foot.” He laughed and leaned her toward the other couples already dancing.
When they joined in, she was glad to see that he was light on his feet as they danced. The energetic steps swiftly tired Maisie but she kept on with Lucas who did not look even sapped at all. On the third song, Maisie made a misstep and almost toppled sideways; Lucas caught her and laughed loudly, prompting Maisie to laugh too.
The sound of her laughter surprised her as they danced again. How long had it been since she had laughed and danced? More than five years? After two more dances, Maisie begged off and was both relieved when Lucas helped her to a seat.
“I have forgotten how to dance,” she confessed as she settled in the chair.
“Nay. Merely out of practice, but I ken well how to remedy that,” he snorted as he kissed her cheek, bowed, and went to talk with his guests—the other Lairds and their families.
She sat and allowed the merriment around her to lull her into thinking all would be well—until an unholy scream from above, louder than the music, had half the revelers jumping for another reason. Before she could blink, Cinead was at her side while Lucas, Oliver and another man rushed out. They had barely yanked the doors open when a body fell, with a sickly thump, dead at their feet.
She screamed then—dignity be damned— as hoof-beats grew fainter in the distance; the attackers were gone. Maisie felt her pulse roar in her ears as the guests parted from the body, leaving a clear view of the man. The training she had gotten from her healers sparked in her heart and she picked up her skirts and ran to Lucas’s side.
Even in these horrifying circumstances, with the blood of the freshly fallen at their feet, she crouched, and attempted to press her hand against his chest to feel his heartbeat, but a rolled-up parchment lay in her way within his doublet. In the dim light,she could barely decipher a few of the Gaelic words inscribed in bold letters across the top.
Plucking it out, she handed it to Lucas and strived to find heartbeat—even while the man’s vacant eyes told her none was to be found. Blood soaked through his leather doublet and with a sigh, she closed his eyes and stood to find that Lucas had disappeared into the dark.
Finding Cinead’s eyes, she simply shook her head. Angus came to her side, and rested a hand on her shoulder, “I’d hoped this threat would have stopped after we went to find the King, pardon, our Guardian, but I suppose the unity has only made him determined to kill one of us.”
Two liveried guards came and took the body away while others began ushering the honored guests out of the hall and into the rooms above. She heard others arranging for the villagers to go home safely with soldiers accompanying them or in carts.
“What was on the note?” she asked.
Cinead looked grave, “I wish I could tell ye, lass, but Lucas took it with him when he went off to follow the attacker’s horses.”
Firming her jaw, she decided to go and see the dead man. If he had anything on his person, that would tell her where the attacker came from.
“Take me to the healing hall,” she told Cinead.
“Why?” Angus questioned her.
“If he fought the attacker who was wearing any remarkable livery of the clans nearby and snatched something off him, we can get a clue as to who is behind it,” she explained, grasping her skirts.
Cinead’s brows lifted, “Yer speaking like a cannie war-queen, lass. Smart of ye.”
As he took her through the halls to east of the main hall and to a low, flat room, she smelled the tangy scent of drying herbs. There were women, clad in gray and white, the seniors of them with their graying heads wrapped in a whitekertchs. The fire smoldering in the center of the room supplied little light but it was enough.
The man on the bed wore the Barclays’ clothing and did not hold anything his hand. Even worse, he had not tussled with the attacker—the arrow wound in the middle of the man’s neck showed her the killer had not come close.
Hence the horses.
Disappointed, she sighed and tugged a blanket over him and sat back, ready to wait on Lucas’s return. While the ladies moved around her, she gazed at the herbs dangling on a drying rack at the end of the room and spotted the roots of a few she knew well.
I wonder what Lucas will think about the lady of the house being a healer as well?
