Chapter Twenty-Three
Three days later, Ronan was finally ready to leave their room and venture outside again. Brenna suggested they go hunting together, and they had awakened early enough to satisfy their desires and still make it to the stables in good time.
She gathered bannocks to break their fast, and he readied the horses and weapons.
He kissed her as she tucked the food into her pack and helped her mount the tall stallion.
He had seen much of his wife’s body over the past few days, but there was something about seeing the curves of her body wrapped in soft leather trews that made him want to carry her back to their bed despite the soreness in his leg that morning. Some things were worth the pain.
They rode silently for a bit, him watching her rather than where they were going. It wasn’t until he looked up and saw the sun glinting off the surface of the water that he sucked in a breath. Brimstone, ever perceptive of Ronan’s slightest distress, came to a stop.
“What is it?” Brenna asked as she came to a stop next to him. She glanced at the water and back at him. “Do you see someone? Is it Ewan?” She twisted in her saddle, looking about.
“Nay. ’Tis not Ewan. It’s that I haven’t been here in many years. Not since I was a boy. This is…” He swallowed and decided to force the information from his lips. “This is where I nearly died.”
“When you almost drowned, and Ewan saved you?”
“Aye. We were swimming here.”
Her brows pulled up in confusion. “This lake is not so deep. I didn’t realize it was this pond. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come this way if it distresses you.”
He raised his hand to set her mind at ease and looked at it as she did. The body of water was more of a shallow pond than the dark depths he seemed to remember.
“Come, let us leave,” she said.
He agreed, though he turned to look over his shoulder, still surprised to see such an innocent-looking place. Tranquil even. He nudged Brimstone into a trot and left this place’s ghosts behind him again.
When they arrived at the forest’s edge, where she preferred to hunt, he helped her down, lingering long enough for a kiss. His earlier alarm had gone. She smiled and he laughed with her. He didn’t know he could be so happy. Not for the first time did he curse himself for being away all this time.
“Do you think we will ever have enough?”
“God, I hope not. In our defense, we have much time to make up for,” he pointed out. So many years they’d spent longing for something they could have had each night if not for his selfishness.
“Especially since we both remained chaste all this time.” She smiled, and he saw the pleasure his fidelity had brought her.
“It was worth it,” he said easily now that he no longer needed to remain chaste. It was one of the most challenging things he’d ever done.
“Why did you?”
“Why did I honor my vows and be faithful to my wife?” he teased, though she was still waiting for an answer. He shrugged.
“It couldn’t be for any respect for me personally. You hardly knew me, and I know it wasn’t your choice to marry me.”
He let out a breath and wondered if he’d ever forgive himself for his behavior when he’d first met his wife.
Seeing how Gabe had stepped forward to marry Isabelle in her time of need shamed Ronan as he recalled his cowardice.
He’d been nearly the same age Gabe was now.
Yet the soldier didn’t waver in doing what was right—even taking on a child that wasn’t his by blood.
“I was a fool not to see how wonderful a wife you would be. I was an impatient arse.”
“It is impossible to see the moon when the sun shines so brightly.”
He didn’t need to ask what she meant by that. Hannah. For all the ways his wife had grown into herself, it was clear this uncertainty remained. She’d heard him state his preference for her older sister, and it was yet another thing he regretted.
“I mostly prefer the nights when it is only me and the vibrant light of the moon,” he said, hoping to convince her he was more than pleased with the sister whose hand he’d taken in marriage.
She smiled again but said, “You didn’t answer my question.”
He hadn’t. She wanted to know why he’d remained celibate all those years.
“Two reasons, I guess. My father didn’t think much of men who didn’t honor their wives.
My mother may have disillusioned my da, but he loved her deeply, as did my stepfather.
I grew up seeing a man devoted to his wife in both homes.
It may seem silly, but it was how I was raised and what I felt was right. ”
“And the second reason?”
He scrunched up his nose. “The poor women who follow the drum and offer their company for coin have hard lives. I’d not wanted to be part of that or succumb to one of the many unpleasantries they shared with the other men.
” He’d seen more than a few soldiers suffering from the effects of a few moments of pleasure that ended in painful diseases.
She smiled at him. “I thank ye for not bringing such horrors to our bed.”
He realized then he should have voiced a more personal reason. But he knew she would have seen through such a thing. Years ago, when they’d wed, she’d asked him for honesty. He would do his best to honor that vow.
When her brow pulled together in a frown, he thought perhaps he’d been hasty, but he quickly saw she wasn’t upset with him.
“What is it?”
“I seem to have lost one of my arrows. I’d thought I had five, but only four are in my quiver.”
“You are welcome to one of mine.”
She chuckled. “Yours are too long. Mine are made specifically for my size. That’s why I tip the feathers with woad. No one likes to get one of my arrows by mistake.”
He pointed to her four remaining arrows, white swan’s feathers tipped blue.
“I’ve seen you hunt and know you’ll show me up with the four arrows just fine.”
She blushed under his praise and headed into the dim coolness of the forest. They stood side by side, waiting and listening. She tilted her head and lifted her bow. The flash of blue sailed through the air, silently hitting its mark.
“Good job. I’m afraid I am not one for stealth,” he said as they walked together to retrieve her arrow and the rabbit she’d taken.
“War is very loud, I imagine.”
“Yes. But amid the chaos and noise, I often found moments of quiet when all else was blocked out. In those brief moments, it was possible to hear a single breath from an enemy as he drew his sword, hoping to end my life before I ended his.”
She placed her hand on his chest and looked at him. In her hazel depths, he didn’t see pity or fear. Just understanding. He knew she couldn’t know what war was like and was glad she never would.
He opened his mouth to say something, but she turned. Her eyes narrowed on something he couldn’t see, and then, with a gasp, she quickly stepped closer to him and pushed him to the side. She jerked and then looked at him in surprise.
“What…?” he managed to say as blood bloomed across her white shirt.
“Run,” she said as she slumped to the soft, dark earth. An arrow stuck up from her back. White swan feathers tipped blue. His wife’s missing arrow had been stolen and had been meant for him.
He wanted to chase after Ewan and end this right then, but his wife was hurt. She could be dying, and there was no greater need than for her to live.
He dropped down behind some shrubs so he’d not be an easy mark. Tugging her shirt to the side, he saw the arrow had just come through her skin just below her collarbone. A lower shot would have been fatal. He hoped this higher shot had missed anything vital.
Years at war had him acting as he would have with any other soldier.
It wasn’t until he’d pushed the arrow through and broken off the tip to pull the shaft back through the entrance wound that he spared a moment to consider the frailty of his wife’s smaller body.
As much as he wished to see her eyes bright with laughter, he was glad for her unconscious state during that hideous task.
“Sorry, lass,” he whispered frantically.
From his sporran, he pulled a bundle of clean cloth. Ripping them, he shoved a length into the front wound and then the rest into the wound on her back to staunch the bleeding until she could be properly tended.
The first thing he needed to do was get her to a healer and quickly. “Stay with me, Brenna. Don’t you leave now that I’ve just gotten here. We have things to do, you and I.” He spoke with the desperate need to keep her from fading off to the welcoming darkness many succumbed to.
He spared only a moment to worry if another arrow might come his way as he pulled his wife into his arms and headed for the horses.
It took him a moment to get mounted and settle his wife against him before taking off for the castle.
He frowned at the groan she made at his relentless pace but was heartened that at least she was alive enough to offer a complaint.
“I’m sorry, love. You can tell me what a bugger I am as soon as you are able, but I need to get you tended. Hold on, lass. ’Tis not far now.”
With Merlin running behind him, their thundering hooves captured the guard’s attention.
“Open the bloody gate,” Ronan bellowed to the man. Ronan didn’t have time to wait until they were close enough to see who he was. He had to hope they recognized him from that distance.
The gate opened just as he rode inside.
“Close it, and whatever ye do, don’t let Ewan Grant inside,” he ordered the confused men.
“What has happened?” Malcolm came running from where he sparred with Gabe.
“Get a healer. Bring them to the hall.”
“But Brenna is the healer.”
“She isn’t going to be able to stitch her own wound. There must be someone else. Get Moira.”
“Yes. Right.”
Gabe ran off as Ronan passed down his wife to the larger warrior. By then, the rest of the guards had gathered and followed them inside.
“Lay her here.” Ronan pointed to a table. He sent a maid for water and clean clothes to be made into bandages.
“The wound is too high to have hit her heart,” Will said, which was what Ronan had been hoping. “You,” he yelled to one of the lads. “Get a fire going in the hearth. We’ll need to sear the wound. Put some water to boil.”
With everyone rushing about, Ronan was left to stand there looking at his pale wife along with the other men who’d been unable to protect her.
“She was shot with her arrow. I’m sure it had been meant for me. No doubt meant to make it look like she’d shot me. Ewan would have had both of us out of the way so he could take over the clan.”
“Bastard,” Hugh whispered.
“Aye. I want the forest by the kirk searched. Find my uncle. Turn over every rock he may have slithered under and bring him to me.”
His men hesitated momentarily, a testament to how much they cared for their mistress, as they clearly wished to stay to see to her needs. But Hugh repeated the order, and with a round of “ayes,” the men rushed from the hall to capture the monster that had injured Ronan’s wife.
Ewan would pay for this.
Moira hurried inside a few minutes later, carrying a basket. The maids entered at the same time, holding a steaming pot of water, and the boys by the hearth had a fire stirred to life.
Ronan stepped to the side so the older woman could work.
“Ye did well, Ronan.”
“It wasn’t my first time tending to an arrow wound,” he said. He didn’t say it was the first time he’d done so for a woman and one he cared for at that. “I hope I wasn’t too rough. Instincts took over.”
“She is a strong lass. This is not a mortal wound. She will be fine so long as the wound doesn’t fester.”
As if ensuring such a thing didn’t happen, the healer dumped a fair bit of whiskey over the wound.
The pain stirred Brenna to wake, and she let out a string of curses that made the healer chuckle.
Ronan might have also found it amusing to hear his wife’s foul oaths, but he couldn’t find the humor when his wife was in obvious pain.
Ronan stood next to Brenna and held her hand while Moira stitched her up. When she was done, she added some salve and bandaged the wound. “Let’s move her to her bed where she’ll be more comfortable and get her changed out of this bloody gown.”
Moira had spoken to the maids, but Ronan saw to changing his wife and settling her in their bed in a clean shift.
And then he sat and waited. And waited.