Chapter Eleven #2
‘Be brave, m’lady. For just a wee bit longer. The laird will find us soon enough.’
Had the boy sensed her weakening state?
‘Aye,’ she said in as cheery a Scottish accent as she could manage.
A bout of dizziness caught her off guard, and her grip loosened on the rock. At the same time, something pressed against her back. Something solid. Something strong. Something that moved.
Someone, not something.
Strong arms came under Helene’s armpits to hold her above the water, and large hands with fingers splayed anchored their bodies to the rock.
Warm lips moved against her ear in an urgent whisper. ‘Helene!’
Lachlan!
Donnie shouted with glee, ‘M’lord! I knew ye’d come for us!’
Relief flooded Helene with more intensity than the undercurrent pulling at her feet and swirling around her skirt.
‘I can only take one of ye at a time,’ yelled Lachlan above the roar of the water.
‘Take Donnie first,’ rasped Helene.
The lad slid from the rock onto his laird’s back, enabling Lachlan to lift Helene into the position Donnie had occupied, and with no further risk of being swept downstream.
All she need do was hold still and hug the rock.
It was there she stayed, watching Lachlan carry Donnie out of danger to the riverbank, where a small group of clan folk gathered.
Until the moment Lachlan walked out of the river and set the lad down, Helene had been too weary to notice that he wore only his linen shirt. The wet thigh-length garment stretched across his broad back. It clung to his tapered waist and the muscular curve of his buttocks.
When he set Donnie down, a woman—whom Helene recognised to be his mother—placed her shawl around the boy’s shoulders. She raised a hand to acknowledge Helene and then immediately led her son towards the shielings.
The remaining women watched their laird return to the river, while covering the eyes of curious young girls who were too young to see a semi-naked man.
Fading light did precious little to hide the outline of his frontal modesty.
Ingrained propriety urged Helene to close her eyes or look away.
Instead, intrigue and natural curiosity compelled her to admire and appreciate his physique, his strength.
To take stock of him having fought the river to reach her and Donnie, and a second time to take the lad ashore. Now he came for her.
She climbed upon his back, arms locked around his neck and legs about his waist. The instant his feet found purchase on the riverbed, Lachlan shifted her from his back to his chest, gently cradling her in his arms. Helene buried her face in the warmth of his neck, thankful to be safe.
She drew herself closer to him, pressed her cheek to the play of muscles beneath the wet linen shirt, and breathed in his scent. His heartbeat thumped in her ear.
Lachlan bent on one knee to seat her on the grassy embankment. Helene reluctantly let go of his warmth and fended off the cold by wrapping her arms about her chest. It was then she remembered. ‘Aila’s brooch! Grizel’s plaid! They’re gone.’
Lachlan pressed both hands to her shoulders and stopped her efforts to stand. ‘We’ll look for them tomorrow.’
‘By then it will be too late!’
‘Nae. We must get ye into some dry clothes and in front of a warm fire.’
Lachlan said something in Gaelic to the women and girls, who hurried off in the direction of the camp.
He then spoke to a couple of herd boys and pointed to the river’s edge.
They returned with Lachlan’s discarded coat, plaid, boots, sword, and dirk, then retreated along the path where the cattle had bolted.
Alone now, Lachlan worked Helene’s arms into his coat before dressing and buckling the plaid around his waist and cinching the weapons belt in place. He pulled on his woollen socks and boots and crouched beside her, rubbing her back.
‘Ye’re shivering. Have ye the strength to stand and walk? If not, I’ll carry ye back to camp.’
Helene craved his embrace, but he’d already expended enough energy on her behalf. She drew his coat tightly about her. ‘I can walk.’
He assisted her in standing and slid a steadying arm around her waist. Night was closing in, and the air had turned cool.
Helene gave thanks for the man at her side, for his warmth infusing her body, and for the gift of second chances.
They walked on, her skirt waterlogged and her stockinged feet squelching inside her boots.
‘The cattle, what’s become of them?’ she asked.
‘They’re being rounded up as we speak. Any strays will be captured tomorrow.’
Lachlan’s arm grew tight around her waist. Just shy of the camp, he said, ‘Ye should have waited for me to take ye to the river.’
His sharp tone took Helene by surprise. ‘You were otherwise occupied, and I didn’t want to interrupt—’
‘And ye chose to bathe in a dangerous bend in the river.’
‘I didn’t bathe. I washed my face and hands beside the river. Not in it.’
His voice took a terse turn. ‘Do ye nae ken anything about rivers?’
‘It’s not a subject covered in advice and etiquette manuals.’
Helene hoped he’d find humour in her sarcastic retort. Instead, it had the opposite effect. He grew even more agitated, and his arm around her waist held her tighter to him.
‘Ye should have thrown a wee branch in the water to observe what happens! If it was pulled under or swept quickly downstream, ye’d have kenned not to enter the river.’
‘As I said, I didn’t enter the river.’
‘Or ye could have dropped a rock in the water to gauge its depth.’
He wasn’t listening to her. ‘I’ll remember that for next time!’
Lachlan steered her behind the privacy of a tree and turned her swiftly in his arms. ‘Next time? There won’t be a next time!’
Water still dripped from the russet hair plastered to his forehead and cheeks. A deep scowl marred his handsome face, and he unleashed what must have been bottling up inside him.
‘If not for wee Donnie, ye’d be dead! He cannae swim and neither can ye. The two of ye could have drowned, and I might have been hauling not one but two corpses from the river.’
‘I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to—’
‘And what would ye have had me tell the lad’s ma and da?’
Horror struck Helene with a vision of Donnie’s lifeless body being carried in Lachlan’s arms. She had no words for that.
Lachlan did. ‘I’d have had to tell them his wee life was taken because of the ignorant stupidity of a Sassenach lass!’
Helene shoved Lachlan away. ‘I did nothing wrong! I could have been beside the safest part of the river and still be in the way of the stampeding cattle. Or was I responsible for that too?’
‘I promised yer father I’d protect ye and keep ye safe from harm. How am I to do that if ye wander about at will, and with nae regard for yer safety?’
‘Oh! So it’s my father you’re worried about. Not me! Well let me assure you, my father would perhaps see my death as a convenience, not a loss. One less female in the family to worry about!’
The words were out before Helene could retract them. She hoped her slip of the tongue escaped Lachlan’s notice.
He stepped forward and took her face firmly between his hands. His chest expanded and fell with every deep breath, and his heated gaze flitted between Helene’s eyes and mouth. ‘If ye had been killed, I’d have been . . .’
The raw tightness in his voice set Helene on edge. Still, she stood her ground. ‘You’d have been what?’
His mouth came down on hers. Hard. Urgent. Pressing the heat of his anger against her lips. There he held her, unrelenting in his kiss.
He’d caught Helene off guard, rendering her too stunned to resist.
He broke the kiss before she had time to process or even protest the injustice of his words. Her eyes snapped open, his face a mere inch from hers. Thunderclouds in his eyes had yet to clear.
His hands still cupped her face. Slowly, his lids closed and his forehead lowered to rest against hers.
In the ensuing moments, the shock of Helene’s near-death ordeal took hold, stripping strength from her body and mind.
Layered over that was something far more dramatically impacting on her senses than having nearly met her maker.
Lachlan had kissed her.
Deed accomplished. Sweet mercy!
Even more so, she’d not expected his lips on hers to have had such a rousing, heady effect. Her blood danced in her veins.
She heard him speak her name, not in anger, but with reverence, seconds before she collapsed in his arms.