Chapter 8
BETWEEN TWO TONGUES
Oliver watched through his laden lidded eyes as Sorcha studied his horse. He knew what she was thinking, what she was planning. She was going to leave him here to die, leave him to his fate.
In a half-attempt at rising so he could convince her to do otherwise, Oliver tried to prop himself up on his elbow, only to fall back on the ground. His energy drained out of him right alongside his blood, leaving him more helpless than he ever cared to be.
Sorcha let out a deep sigh, and Oliver forced his eyes open so he could watch what she would decide.
Stalking across the bloodied yet still clearing, she stood over one of the only men still breathing.
She had knocked him unconscious several minutes before with the hilt of his sword.
Oliver didn’t envy the headache the man was sure to have as she jostled the guard awake, slapping him on the cheek once then twice in an effort to bring him around.
“Wake up!” she shouted. “Tell me what ye ken!”
Oliver let his cheek rest on the cool dirt beneath him, his eyes threatening to close once more. But her shouts kept him focused, kept him alert.
“Why did ye come after us?”
The guard roused, his head lolling to one side and then the other as she jerked him around.
“Is it me that Dudley is after?” She tried again.
“Why would he want you?”
Even half-awake, the guard still managed to be insulting. Oliver’s fingers itched with the need for violence.
“Then what is it that he wants?” Sorcha pressed on, ignoring the insult entirely. “Why did ye come after us?”
Oliver noted that she seemed entirely capable of having a conversation without the need to exchange barbs. It just seemed she was incapable of doing so with him. The thought was a passing one as Sorcha continued her interrogation.
“Tell me what ye ken, or I will strap ye to yer horse and send ye back to Dudley with a letter telling him how spectacularly ye and yer men have failed.”
“The Marquess,” the guard answered immediately. “We were sent after him.”
Sorcha cast a doubtful glance over her shoulder towards Oliver. He could see the endless list of questions rolling around in her head, the gears in her mind turning.
“Why did he send ye after Lord Blackwood? I thought he was an ally to the Baron.”
“Once Dudley got Blackwood’s signature, he no longer needed the Marquess. He figures no one will care if he dies. It leaves the Blackwood estate open and vulnerable for Dudley to take for himself.”
Pressing her foot further into the man’s wounds, gaining a groan of pain from the guard, she stared down with a hard look in her eyes.
“So what was the plan? Kill us both and invade Lord Blackwood’s land?”
Oliver hated how formal his name sounded on her lips. A futile thought he knew, as he lay dying in the mud, but one that plagued him every time she mentioned him all the same.
“We were to kill him and bring you back to Lord Dudley. Then he would spread word that it was Scottish raiders who killed the Marquess. A dead Lord would be sure to garner the support of the men still hesitant of the Baron’s cause.”
Growling, Sorcha looked down on the man with disgust. Oliver echoed the feeling.
“Tell me why I should allow ye to live. Ye beat me, threw me in prison, and are here to murder an innocent man. Every other man ye came here with today is dead. Why do ye get to live?”
“I was only following orders,” the guard answered through clenched teeth as Sorcha pressed more of her weight onto his arm. “I was only doing what I was told.”
Picking up the man’s own sword, she pointed the tip of the blade at his neck.
“Had ye nay thought of yer own? Did ye nae think that ye should find a new lord to serve? One less wicked? Do ye nae see anything wrong with chasing after an innocent man?”
The guard hesitated for a moment too long. Sorcha slashed the sword against the thin skin of the guard’s neck with a gentle swish of her wrist.
“At least now, ye are saved from facing yer merciless Lord again.”
She spat in the guard’s direction, annoyed with everything the man said and stood for, frustrated that he had cost them so much valuable time for Oliver. Dropping the sword, she rushed back to Oliver’s side, confusion etched in her brow.
“Och, what are we going to do with ye?” she asked him, significantly more gently than she had questioned the guard.
She fell to her knees at his side and pressed her palms against his wound.
“Ye are bleeding too much,” she told him. “Ye will nae survive the night if we dinnae get ye help soon.”
The frantic concerned look she wore for him melted his heart, warming his countenance towards her.
“Blackwood,” he croaked out.
“Aye, I ken yer name. What am I supposed to do with ye?”
“My home,” he answered, a faint smile on his lips. “It is not far. The healer will be able to tend my wounds. Less than an hour.”
Pushing back on her heels, she scoffed and moved quickly to retrieve all of the fallen and forgotten swords.
“Ye mean to tell me that ye insisted on stopping to water the horse less than an hour away from yer home? I kent ye were English. I did nae ken that ye could be so foolish.” She shot him a glance as she led his horse over to where he lay.
“I swear, if ye survive this and tell me that ye stopped for my sake, I will run ye through with a sword myself.”
He chuckled, and then winced. Without a second thought, Sorcha ripped the bottom of her long tunic into strips and wrapped it around his middle. He let out his own string of curses as she worked, but was grateful for her ministrations as he felt the blood flow start to slow.
“Put yer arm over me. We will get ye on yer feet and then into the saddle.”
It took them far longer than he could have ever imagined, and his chest burned as though he had been set on fire, but somehow, the fearless girl had managed the task.
They were both seated in the saddle, she with the reins in her hands, he leaned against her back.
The pressure her body gave against his wounds helped staunch the bleeding.
“I have no intention of binding your wrists again,” he whispered in her ear as she reached for a length of rope. “One of us has to be able to steer.”
She laughed softly, the sound a melody he would have never expected from a woman like her.
It was a balm that helped soothe his frayed mind.
He couldn’t remember the last time he had been so grievously injured.
No doubt he was sure to get an ear full when he returned home.
That bothered him almost as much as the wound itself did.
Twisting in her seat, Sorcha looped her arms around his waist, taking the rope with her hands.
The feel of her fingers against his back was another kind of balm, one that he had no business entertaining.
Though she didn’t run, though she had chosen to stay and help him, he knew very well that she had a home to return to.
No matter what she thinks, he knew he could never keep her.
“There,” she announced, having wrapped the rope around her own waist before knotting it off, effectively tying them together. “Now if ye faint, ye at least will nae fall off the horse, and we will nae have to repeat that Herculean task of getting ye on the horse.”
“I will not faint,” he grumbled, loathing the thought of ever being so weak.
“We shall see. An hour is a long time to bleed. Just hold on and tell me where to go.”
It took only a few minutes before Oliver was sagging against her back.
The jostle of every step his horse took was an agony that drained him of any remaining energy and resolve he might have had.
Sorcha made no complaint of his weight pressed against her or of the blood that now soaked her clothes too.
“Keep to the east through this pass. Once you cross the river, you just have to stay on the road until ye see the bolder with the carved sign.”
“Rest easy, Lord Blackwood. I will see ye home,” she promised, her voice once again soft and reassuring.
It was discomfiting the way she sought to comfort him now. He much preferred it when she bickered with him, exchanging sharp barbs back and forth. At least then he knew where he stood with her, that she wasn’t convinced he was dying.
Letting a sigh escape his nose, Oliver rested his cheek on her shoulder.
Her hair brushed against his face in the breeze.
There was a distinct smell left from her time in Dudley’s dungeons, but beneath that, he could almost make out the scent of rose and cedar soap.
The flowery perfume was such a contrast to the stubborn, fierce woman he had come to know that it only made him want to know her more.
He wanted to discover the softer sides of her, the ones that made the roses make sense.
The landscape became a blur as he stopped fighting the urge to let his eyes drift shut.
Snow cover tree branches morphed into streaks of white, brown, and gray.
The rocks that stood proudly beneath them turned into a sea of stone.
He was lost to his pain, so much so that when Sorcha shifted her shoulders, he jolted upright before moaning.
“I assume that is the boulder ye mentioned,” she told him, pointing to the marker on their right.
“That’s it. Take a left. Blackwood Manor will come into view just behind those trees.”
He tried to imagine what it would be like for Sorcha to see his home for the first time.
He wondered if she saw the ivy his grandmother had planted on the east side of the manor.
Or the lion that greeted them when they entered the drive, missing an ear from the time he had slingshotted a rock into it.
To him, he couldn’t help but note the few places in the roof that needed patching or the stone on the north face of the building that needed replacing before the next winter.
But beneath the ever-growing list of things he needed to do for the manor, even he had to admit his home was a beautiful one.