Page 37 of Dark Side of the Laird
“Your body is working hard to repair itself.”
I nodded, allowing my eyes to rest a moment and hoping when I reopened them, that the blurriness would have ebbed.
“My lady,” Ewan’s voice sounded from somewhere to my right.
I rolled my head to the side, blinking open my eyes and seeing his blurry form. Or at least what I thought was his blurry form.
“Ewan,” I said. I held out my hand. “Come closer.”
He stepped closer to the bed, his hands clasped behind his back.
“Where is Logan?” I asked.
“He is on his way to the king, my lady.” His voice was calm. Too calm.
“But the rider… Who was he?”
He cleared his throat, and when he spoke his tone was clipped. “We shall speak when ye’re feeling better.”
I shook my head, the motion making me all the more dizzy and my stomach rolled. I pushed up on my elbows, my head lurching forward against my chest, suddenly certain I was going to vomit on myself.
“Ye must have rest, my lady. We’ll talk of the messenger when ye’re feeling better. For now ye must concentrate on your health. The laird will have my head if ye’re not well upon his return.”
I closed my eyes, swallowing down the bile rising in my throat. I heard his words, but I heartily disagreed. I didn’t want to wait. Didn’t need to. As much as I wished Ewan was my older brother reincarnated, brought back from the dead, I knew he wasn’t, and I didn’t want him to treat me that way. Bossing me around. Keeping information from me when I needed to hear it. I…
I turned to the side, gagging, and there was Agatha again, stroking my hair and holding a pan beneath me as I retched. Very little came out as I’d not eaten yet that day. And when the gagging stopped, I was sweating all the more, my breathing ragged, stomach painful.
“I’ve posted guards outside her door,” he said, speaking as if I weren’t there. “Dinna let…anyone in, unless ye’ve sent for them.”
His cryptic words were indicative that he thought Isabella could have been responsible for my fall. Or was I just reading into it. Had I mentioned in my unconscious state that there had been a shadow hovering above me. Was Isabella the one who pushed me? I vaguely remembered feeling that shove on my back. Or was it all my imagination?
When Ewan opened the door, I swore there was a flash of Isabella’s dark smile from the corridor. A shiver stole over me. Though I had no proof, I was acutely aware that the woman wanted me dead, and that she’d tried to make it happen earlier.
The door closed tight and I was relieved to know that guards stood outside. Isabella couldn’t get to me while I lay here, not without getting through them first, and there was no way she could knock out two guards that weighed twice as much as her.
Was there? I gave a mental shake of my head. No. There was no way.
12
Logan
The king’s guards made us wait outside in the cold, the beginnings of a storm brewing from the scent of the wind. Night had fallen hours before, and the moon was high in the sky, but guarded by misty clouds.
Torches lit the battlements of Falkland Palace. The groggy guards who sat on the wall-walk were none too pleased with our arrival, but I’d pushed us hard and had no plans whatsoever to make camp outside the walls of the palace. We were in need of a hearth, ale and warm food.
“Open the doors. ’Tis Logan Grant, Guardian of Scotland.”
The men peered over the side, their eyes squinting in the smoke from the torches. “Looks like ye,” one of them said.
“Likely because ’tis,” I drawled out.
“Ye’ll have to drop your weapons, Guardian or nay,” the other man said taking a sip of something that steamed in his mug.
I rolled my eyes toward my men. “We’ll disarm in the courtyard.”
The king’s men seemed to chew on that for a moment, whispering back and forth, but then they both nodded. “A minute, then, good sir.”
The sounds of the portcullis chain being cranked broke the otherwise silence. As it was raised, the doors were opened and we rode slowly into the courtyard, arms stretched up.
