Chapter 3 #2
He took a careful step, praying that his leg would support his weight.
Pain shot from his shin to his hip, but he stayed upright.
Not broken, but injured. Was he bleeding?
He was too wet and cold to be able to tell.
Determined, he limped forward until he reached the border of shrubs and trees.
There, he found a broken branch long enough to use as a walking stick.
Hadn’t he had an oar? How could he have left it behind?
From that point on, he was able to move more easily and with a little less pain.
But the climb to the castle was almost more than he could manage.
The ground was damp and slippery in places, making his footing as uncertain as his head.
Wet leaves and grasses added to the moisture in his clothes.
Had it rained, too? He thought he was soaked through by the sea, but perhaps it had been rain all along.
Nay, he’d cast up salty water. He’d been in the ocean.
He stopped several times, bent double to calm his racing heart and suck in lungfuls of air.
As the morning light increased, he took stock of his injuries.
His leg was gashed, his breeches torn, his hands scraped raw in places where he had either fought to avoid submerged rocks, or abused them dragging himself up onto the beach.
His head still pounded, but his belly had emptied itself to the point that it calmed. Small mercies.
The low, thin trees around him provided something he could hold onto and helped him stay on his feet and keep moving.
By the time the sun was fully above the eastern horizon, he was on the approach to the castle gate, but he’d used his last reserves of strength.
His head was still pounding, and he was dizzy and so weak, even the smallest step took as much effort as fighting a battle.
He reached the studded oaken gate and pounded on it with a closed fist. With his strength ebbing with each blow, he feared no one would hear him.
Eventually, voices above him told him someone had heard or seen him coming. He stepped back from the door and looked up, grimacing as the pain spiked in his head. Two guards looked down at him, distrust written in their raised eyebrows.
“Who are ye? What do ye want?”
“I’m injured. I need help,” he managed to croak out, surprised that he had any voice at all.
“Go away,” one of the guards demanded, but the other pulled his fellow back and spoke sharply to him. The first guard disappeared.
“Let me in. I canna harm any of ye. Look at me.” His torn clothes had yet to dry, blood streaked the leg of his trews, and when he realized whatever still dripped onto the side of his face was warm, he discovered the site of the wound making his head pound and the morning sunlight feel like daggers plunging into his eyes.
He put a hand on the gate to hold himself up while he waited for them to decide what to do. He hoped they’d hurry.
He thought he must be imagining hearing a woman’s voice on the wall walk, but in minutes he caught a glimpse of a lass peering over the wall at him. She ducked back out of sight.
Why was she up there?
He heard her voice again and looked up. She was back.
The first thing he noticed before he squeezed his eyes shut against the light was her hair, hanging in a thick braid over one shoulder.
Not blonde, not red, something in between.
She was nearly as tall as the guards flanking her.
And her face—how to describe an angel? Would she be an angel, take pity on him, and make the guards open the gate to him? He prayed so.
Ailsa Sinclair cursed her father as she looked down on the bedraggled man leaning heavily on the oaken door below her.
She added a softer curse for her mother, too.
Why had they gone to Orkney without her?
Couldn’t one of them have stayed at home?
And why had her brother Boden chosen today to go hunting?
Though he was three years younger than Ailsa, he was the heir, which meant he was responsible for Sinclair.
If he was here, she would not be faced with this conundrum.
She wouldn’t be in charge. She wouldn’t be the one to risk Sinclair castle.
If this went wrong, if anything happened to anyone within its walls, she would be blamed for the decision she made.
She could always deny the man entry. But he seemed exhausted.
He was injured and likely unable to leave Sinclair land under his own power.
There was no stray horse in view. He was wet.
Had it rained overnight? Aye, it had. A storm.
She recalled the noise and the bright flashes of lightning that penetrated between the slats of the shutters over her window.
So, he’d been out in the storm, and now that she looked more closely, perhaps he’d slipped and fallen on wet ground.
Several times. She could see blood on his face and clothes.
Or had he fought someone? Was he dangerous?
Silly question. All men were dangerous.
But the more she studied him, the more she wondered.
He stood with his back to the door now, resting his head against the wood, eyes closed.
Despite his battered condition, he was the most handsome man she’d ever seen.
Tall, muscular, broad-shouldered and long of leg, his dark hair was plastered to his head by rain or blood, exhaustion making his lips thin and pale.
But his jaw was strong, his nose straight, and his hands wide and powerful.
A shiver of—what?—ran down her ribs. Fear? Nay. Desire? Surely not.
He didn’t seem threatening. But her mother had told her again and again that all men were dangerous. And this was most definitely a man.
“Have ye looked yer fill, lass?”
How dare he! How did he know? His eyes were closed. Besides, it was her job to look. To weigh what she saw and decide. Did he want her to deny him entry?
“Why are ye here?”
“I dinna ken where else to go.” He lifted his head from the door, opened his eyes, winced, and looked up at her.
“Who are ye?”
“I dinna ken that, either.” He lifted a hand to his head and shrugged. “Sorry. I’m bereft of answers at the moment. If I could come in, get dry, have yer healer tend to me, perhaps some answers might come back to me.”
Was he deliberately refusing to answer her questions?
Bargaining for entry and for care? And taunting her, too?
She opened her mouth to tell him to go away, but hesitated.
What if that was not what he meant? He looked, well, gorgeous, but also exhausted and beaten.
How far could he go on his own? Sinclairs were not inhospitable.
Her mother was one of the kindest people she knew.
Her mother would let him in. She would argue with the laird, Ailsa’s father, if need be.
What would the laird do?
So many questions and conditions ran through her mind, she feared she’d been staring at the man far longer than was proper, especially when he stared back.
“I dinna think I’ve ever seen hair the color of yers,” he said suddenly, “and I ken many lasses. ’Tis beautiful.”
He looked ready to collapse, and yet he complimented her hair?
He was trying to flatter her into letting him inside Sinclair’s gates. That decided her. “Ye’d best be on yer way,” she told him with a frown.
On her clan’s bible, she would have sworn she saw tears glint as his expression fell to hopelessness.
Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he dropped to the ground, loose-limbed.
He’d made no effort to catch himself. He must have passed out.
Or had he? Dear God, what if he’d just died?
“Go get him and take him to the healer,” she commanded the nearby watchmen.
“But Lady Ailsa—”
“Dinna argue. Fetch him to the healer. Now!” What if her indecision had killed him?
Her heart broke, guilt swamping her. Dear God, had she killed the man?
Her mother would never forgive her. Depending on who he was, or where he came from, her father might not, either.
Surely someone would come looking for him.
She picked up her skirts and made her way to the stair down to the bailey in time to see the stranger carried in under the iron spikes of the portcullis. It took four of her men to move him. They continued toward the keep as she ran down the steps, then followed them inside to the Sinclair herbal.