For Love Of Rory. Barbara Leigh

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СКАЧАТЬ objections she hurried off to find Old Ethyl, knowing all too well that the chances of success were slim.

      But even a slim chance was better than no chance at all.

      * * *

      “M’lady! Slow down a bit,” Old Ethyl panted. “I can’t keep up.”

      Serine glanced back over her shoulder, gauging the lengthening distance between herself and the other woman. “Don’t fret yourself, Ethyl,” she said. “Just keep me in sight and there’ll be no problem.”

      “There be a problem already,” Old Ethyl called after her. “No lady in her right mind would go looking for a needle in the hay. You’ll find yourself sorry, you will. Mark my words, there’s naught but grief left on those shores.”

      But Serine did not slow her steps, and the old woman somehow managed to keep but a few paces behind her, for all her grumbling.

      The coast looked deserted as Serine viewed it from her vantage point among the rocks on the high cliffs.

      “You see?” Old Ethyl came up behind her. “I told you there would be nothing here. The Celts have taken their fallen comrade and gone their way.” She tugged at Serine’s arm, her one eye scanning the coastline cautiously.

      Serine caught her breath. “The ship is still here,” she said as she ducked behind the rocks, pulling the old woman with her.

      “It will not sail again. The Celts have left it to rot. Now come along. This is not a good place to linger.”

      Serine shook her off. “I’m going down there to look around. Perhaps they left something that will tell me the name of the village from which they came.” As Serine spoke she spied a scrap of cloth along the shore. Her heart turned painfully in her chest and pounded against her ribs like a falcon fighting to fly free.

      She jerked away from Old Ethyl’s restraining hands and ran down to the beach. Only when she reached flat ground did she slow her steps and approach with some semblance of caution.

      The Celt was not where they had left him. She had noted the bush carefully, for it had been her point of refuge the night before, and there was no body lying beside it. If the Celts had not come back and taken him, he might yet be alive and have moved away from the sea. Again her heart lurched at the thought of life pulsing from his body, and she found herself almost as greatly troubled by the thought of the man dying along the water’s edge as she was by the loss of her son.

      She bolted through a cluster of rocks and almost stepped on an outthrust arm.

      It took all her control to keep from screaming as Old Ethyl slammed into her back.

      The older woman peered around her lady, glaring malevolently at the man on the ground. “Guess I didn’t place the arrow as well as I thought,” she remarked as she nocked another shaft.

      “No.” Serine pushed the bow aside. “There will be no killing.”

      “What do you mean, no killing?” Old Ethyl challenged. “The man is a Celt! He’d just as soon rape and kill you as look at you. You can’t mean to let him live!”

      “I mean to make him live,” Serine told her. “To make him live, and make him tell me where his people have taken my son.” A tiny smile touched her lips. “And then I mean to make him take me there to demand the return of Hendrick in exchange for the Celt’s life.”

      Old Ethyl shook her head, but she lowered her bow. “I don’t know that Celts work that way,” she said thoughtfully. “But I guess it’s worth the chance. Especially since it seems to be the only chance we’ve got.”

      “I only hope he lives long enough to tell me where they’ve taken Hendrick.” Serine dropped at the man’s side, appalled at his color, or lack thereof. “That is, if he’s alive even now.”

      “Oh, he’s alive enough, I’ll warrant.” Old Ethyl quickly assessed the situation. “In fact, I’d wager he heard every word you said, didn’t you, laddie?” She nudged his leg with her foot.

      “How can you be so certain?” Serine looked up at the old woman and did not see the Celt’s eyelids flicker. “A moment ago we both thought him dead.”

      “That was before you knelt down beside him,” Old Ethyl said cryptically. “I don’t think he’s in any condition to harm you, but if you’re determined to save him I better go and get a cart to carry him back to Sheffield.”

      “Thank you, Ethyl,” Serine answered, but this time her whole attention was focused on the man beside her. The man who pinioned her with eyes filled with pain. The man whose hair fell in ebony ringlets across his forehead. The man who managed with all that was left of his strength to drag a breath into his punctured lungs and say, “I would have thought I had surely died and been taken to my reward, had it not been for the old hag beside you.”

      “Do not fear, Celt,” Serine said as she placed a cool hand on his fevered forehead, “I do not intend to let you go anywhere until you tell me where I can find my son.”

      She fought down the jolt she knew when her flesh touched his, and tried to act as though nothing unusual had happened, nothing that could not be explained as concern for his condition, nothing that might indicate that each moment she was near him filled her with emotion she had never before known and never so much as imagined.

      His voice was little more than a whisper as he fought down a quickening of his blood that was slightly less than devastating. “No man could desire eternity with you at his side on this earth.” His voice faded, and he stared at her, unblinking.

      “Why do you look at me so?” she demanded, unnerved by his scrutiny.

      “Because I fear if I close my eyes you will disappear and the one-eyed harpy of my nightmares will return.” His eyes closed against the pain, nonetheless.

      “I will not disappear,” Serine assured him. “At least, not until you tell me how I can find my son.” But even as she spoke his head lolled back and she knew he could no longer hear her.

      She turned him onto his side to ease the pressure on his wound. What was he trying to do to her? Offering compliments when he was barely conscious. It was almost obscene! A Celt offering flattery with his last breath. How dare he? If only she didn’t need him so desperately. If he wasn’t her only chance to discover the whereabouts of her son. If her heart didn’t beat so erratically when she so much as thought about their unconscionable first meeting. If these things weren’t so, she would leave him here without blinking an eye. But they were true. They were all true, and she couldn’t leave him behind again.

      * * *

      The man did not regain consciousness as he was moved from the coast to the castle. Serine watched him closely, making certain he continued the shallow breathing that was all his wound allowed.

      Secreted in her own chambers, Serine removed the arrow and bathed the wound with bedstraw tea, then applied a poultice of fresh crushed lady’s mantle. But the Celt’s fever did not abate and the women worried over what course to take next.

      “Nettle tea would give him some nourishment and purify the blood,” Margot suggested, “but before we dare try to get him to swallow we must bring down the fever.”

      Serine СКАЧАТЬ