Page 10 of Stolen Highland Dreams (The Highlanders #9)

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“ N ay! I dinna need you to look me over,” Lynette screamed at the healer.

Dashiell overheard Lynette refusing to let Mai examine her injuries and said to Quinn, “Lynette isna injured.”

Dashiell was irritated with the woman for trying to get Ella in trouble when she had done nothing wrong. He wanted to take Ella into his castle more than ever and learn all he could about her.

“I would think no’, or it was so minor that Lynette would have appeared to have been making the whole thing up,” Quinn said.

Dashiell nodded.

“What about the celebration?”

Dashiell had given it a lot of thought. “We eat; those who wish to dance will dance. I willna deny our people a chance to enjoy themselves. Instead of honoring Lynette, ‘tis in honor of James and his kin’s visit.”

“Aye, I’m glad of it. I’ll make the announcement. Will you dance with Lynette?” Quinn asked.

“I will, but only one dance.”

“Aye.” Then Quinn announced that the dance honored the MacNeills' visit, and Lynette gasped.

It served her right to tell tales.

Smiling, James, his brother, and cousin raised their tankards of ale to Dashiell in thanks.

Lynette’s face was crimson. Dashiell’s people had already shared the news that she had lied to him about Ella injuring her. No one liked liars.

Fallon offered to dance with Lynette, and then the dancing began.

“How much did you have to bribe your cousin so that he would dance with the woman?” James asked, knowing how Dashiell and his people felt about Lynette now.

Dashiell chuckled. “He has free time for a week.”

James laughed.

“Believe me, no one wants to have anything to do with the woman now that they feel she has lied about Ella. What would she do if we were to marry, gods forbid, and she treated my staff the same way? Causing distress and strife? I could see that happening.”

“Aye. You canna trust someone like that. No telling what she might even say about you at some point,” James said.

“Exactly.” Even so, Dashiell and his people and the MacNeills had a wonderful time enjoying the celebration, and like he told Quinn, he left the high table to dance with Lynette one time only.

When Dashiell retired to his bed after the dance in the wee hours of the morning, he closed his eyes, wanting to employ Ella at his castle, anything to get her to join him here. But then he remembered Quinn’s words about the younger lass that Ella had protected. Where was she?

He finally fell asleep and found himself dancing with Lynette .

Still, when her black hair loosened about her shoulders, turning lighter as he held her hand in the circle dance, he saw the face of the forest nymph, her beautiful green eyes holding him hostage, and her slight smile endearing.

He couldn’t believe she was there and touched her cheek fondly. Shaking her head as her hair tossed with the motion, she backed away from him, then turned and ran into the darkness of the forest.

“ Nay!” Dashiell shouted. He woke, sat up in bed, and stared at Christopher.

“Should I send for your healer?”

“Nay. But a tankard of ale would be welcome.”

After several minutes, Christopher left the room and returned to find Dashiell pacing across his bedchamber.

“What took you so long?” Dashiell asked as he took the tankard Christopher offered to him.

“A maid was getting Lady Lynette some ale as well. I inquired about the problem; apparently, the lady has also suffered from a nightmare concerning the lady of the forest.”

Immediately, Dashiell thought of Niall’s comments concerning why MacAfee might have bartered his castle away. “Did the maid say what Lady Lynette’s dream was about?”

“Nay. She was in a hurry to return to the bedchamber. She said she was crying hysterically.”

“Over a dream?”

“Aye.”

Dashiell couldn’t understand why Lynette could have a nightmare unless it were her own doing because of her deceitfulness about what Ella had done to her. With him, Ella was all sweetness and light.

Later, in the grip of sleep, he again saw Ella as she knelt beside the stream and placed flowers in the water, humming her tune. She saw Dashiell and stood, but when Lynette came up behind him, came around in front of him, and leaned her head against his chest, Ella backed away and slipped into the darkness of the forest.

He sat up in bed. “I canna sleep any further.”

“Aye,” Christopher said, rolling out of his trundle bed.

After Dashiell and Christopher dressed, they walked into the hall. Quinn crossed the floor to greet him. Dashiell asked, “What are you doing up at this hour?”

Quinn shook his head. “I was about to ask the same of you.”

“I canna sleep.” Dashiell sighed.

“Me either.”

“Apparently, Lady Lynette had a nightmare,” Dashiell said.

“About Ella?”

“What else?”

“Aye, well, my dreams of the lady are no nightmares; I can never quite reach her,” Quinn said.

Dashiell let out an exasperated breath. “Aye, mine are the same. I believe Lynette’s nightmare was of her own making.”

“Aye. I couldna agree more.” His advisor motioned with his head toward the curving stairs. “It appears Lady Lynette could no longer sleep either.”

The lady curtsied to Dashiell when he turned to face her. “I didna think I would find so many awake at this hour in the morning.”

“I was told you had a nightmare.”

“Aye, well, I dinna wish to discuss it.”

“Perhaps if you tell me what happened, you willna be so frightened by the dream any longer.”

“I wasna frightened.” Lynette looked away from Dashiell’s stern gaze. “Many women and children were in the castle. Soldiers slaughtered everyone. Everyone but that woman.”

“Ella? What would she be doing in a castle?”

“It was a dream. That is all. She is evil. She just stood there watching as everyone was massacred, saying naught, just watching.”

“That is all?”

“Is that no’ enough? The screams were terrifying. Every time I close my eyes, I see the horror reenacted, and the screams continue. I canna sleep any further this morn.”

“Quinn and I have business to attend to, my lady. We will see you later.” Then Dashiell saw the MacNeills coming to join them.

“Did you have dreams that woke you from your sleep?” Dashiell asked them.

“Nay. We heard all the talking and were surprised you were leaving the castle,” James said. “We will go with you. What are friends for?”

“Aye, thanks be to thee.” Dashiell grabbed Quinn’s arm and led him outside into the inner bailey.

“Where are we going to now?”

“On a hunt.”

The MacNeills smiled, looking glad to be searching for the fey woman again.

“At this hour? I thought you said there would be no more hunting…”

“We are hunting for owls.”

“Aye,” Quinn said.

After waking Fallon and having their horses saddled, they headed deep into the forest. They made their way to the stream where the noise of frogs and crickets filled the night, and the howling of a wolf set off the rest of his pack.

“There,” Quinn said as he spied four deer heading for the stream.

One of the deer watched for signs of trouble while the others drank their fill, but when Dashiell readied his arrow to his bow, Ella stepped in front of one of the deer. The arrow flew its course, and she warned the deer away and then fled.

“Gods’ wounds!” Dashiell said. “Ella has a death wish if she tries to protect the deer in my forest when we are hunting.”

“She is only here by the stream. If you hunt elsewhere…”

In truth, he didn’t care about hunting the deer as much as he wanted to find the lass, and he wanted to know the truth concerning Lynette. He stared across the stream and could have sworn he heard something. “Did you hear something strange?”

“Aye, the rustling of shrubs. Something is over there still,” James said.

“Perhaps I have nicked one of the deer after all. We will cross the stream and see.”

“It willna be good if you have injured the fey woman,” Niall warned.

Dashiell prayed he hadn’t hurt the woman.

After fording the stream, the men dismounted from their horses, and Fallon lighted a torch. While searching the ground, he found signs of blood. “You hit one. Fresh drops of blood are scattered here all over the stones.”

The men stuck close together as they walked their horses, searching in the darkness with only the torchlight showing the trail of blood. “The deer seems not to have weakened much,” Fallon said.

“If it is a deer.” Angus sounded worried.

Dashiell was too.

They reached the end of the trail, and Dashiell paced back and forth. “A wounded deer canna vanish like this. Or the woman. We will wait here until first light. Then we will find this wounded animal if the wolves dinna make a meal of him first.” Certainly, if the lass had been injured, he had to stay here at all costs to locate her and have his healer take care of her.

Fallon and Quinn made a campfire while Dashiell backtracked the trail of blood. After re-examining the trail for half an hour, he returned to the campsite. “I have found no sign of my arrow. It didna graze the beast. It must be embedded in him.”

He sat down with everyone at the campfire, watched the eerie glow in silence, and then frowned to see a mist rising from the forest floor.

Fallon cleared his throat. “None of us can believe that Ella harmed Lady Lynette.”

“I have to agree with Fallon,” James said, “though I have no sound basis for it. Still, she seemed genuinely interested in befriending Lynette, no’ doing her harm.”

“Aye, I dinna trust Lynette at all.” A sudden movement in the leaves accumulated on the forest floor nearby made Dashiell and the others stand. Dashiell picked up his bow and arrow and readied it. Fallon and Quinn unsheathed their swords. “Get the torch,” Dashiell whispered to his cousin. “The sound came from over there, did it no’?”

“Aye.” Fallon led the way, holding the torch.

James, his brother, and his cousin likewise took out their swords and circled where they’d heard the sound.

All of them searched the forest floor. Seeing Dashiell’s arrow poking out of a pile of leaves, Dashiell waved to his companions to encircle the wounded animal. Using their swords, Fallon and Angus pushed the leaves aside.

“It canna be.” Dashiell stared at Ella, who lay still half-buried by the leaves.

Dashiell reached for the arrow still lodged in her arm, but the lady shook her head and held her hand out to keep him away. He didn’t blame her for being afraid of him when he never wanted her to feel that way.

“Hold her down. I must free the arrow and stop the bleeding, or she willna live,” Dashiell said.

Quinn grabbed the lady’s good arm, and Fallon held the torch for Dashiell to see while James held her injured arm against the ground. After cutting the arrowhead off, Dashiell and Angus pulled the rest of the arrow free, then Dashiell held his hand to the lady’s wound.

“Does anyone have something to bind the wound?” Dashiell asked.

“Here.” Niall offered him a slip of cloth.

“We must get her to Cairn Castle. I will have my healer see to her at once.” Dashiell saw that she had passed out. “She hasna died, has she?”

His heartbeat quickened, and he felt sickened all at once.

“Nay. When you pulled the arrow free, she passed out from the pain,” Fallon said.

“She uttered no’ a sound.” Dashiell was thoroughly mystified. No hardened warrior could feel that kind of pain and remain silent.

“Nay,” James said.

“I tell you, she is of the fey,” Niall whispered.

Dashiell remounted his horse, and then Fallon handed the lady to him. After they extinguished their campfire, they returned to the castle. Everyone was beginning to do their early morning chores when they arrived, but the word soon spread of Ella’s capture. Several men met Dashiell in the inner bailey to see the injured woman.

A young lad Dashiell had never seen before seemed the most distraught. He had pushed through the growing crowd of men to see the lass, and all Dashiell could think of was that the lad would have dreams of her now.

“Who are you?” Dashiell asked, feeling he should recognize the boy because he seemed familiar.

“Finnegan,” the lad said.

“He’s working with the blacksmith,” one of his men said.

Two of his men rushed to Dashiell’s side and took the lady to one of the guest chambers while the healer was sent for. When Dashiell entered the bedchamber minutes later, his healer shook his head. “She has lost a lot of blood. She may no’ live.”

Dashiell stared at Ella, hating that he had done this to her when he only wanted to know everything he could about her. “See that you do everything for her that you can.”

“Aye.”

James and his kin were waiting downstairs, looking as concerned as he felt.

Dashiell told them, “She may no’ live.”

“If she truly is of the fey, she will heal herself,” Niall said. “What would you have us do?”

“There is naught that you can do. We’ll break our fast in a little while.”

James patted him on the back. “Let us know if we can help in any way.”

“Thanks to all of you. I know you wish for the best.” Dashiell had never felt this disheartened ever.

Several of the members of Dashiell’s clan approached Dashiell. “They say you shot her to capture her finally.”

“I aimed at a deer. She got in the way.” Dashiell quickly brushed past them.

“Will she live?” Yvaine asked as she walked behind him.

“You will have to ask Mai that question. I am certain no one knows the answer for sure.”

Lynette caught up to him when he walked up the stairs. “I hear you have captured the devil.”

“She may no’ live.” Dashiell saw that the woman had no empathy for Ella after he had accidentally hurt her.

“She doesna deserve to after what she did to me.”

Dashiell couldn’t believe Lynette would say that to him. Dashiell might have killed the lass. The way Lynette showed no compassion at all for the woman who could very well be dying was telling.

“Ready my bath,” he said to Christopher when he walked into his bedchamber. He needed to clean off the blood from the lass’s wound before he ate with his people, though he had no appetite. He had to be there for his clan.

“Aye.”

Dashiell cleaned himself off in his wooden tub, and Christopher said, “I understand the lady is truly beautiful.”

Ella was, only now, she was pale as Lynette, and he prayed to every god and goddess known to man to save her.

“The lady I heard tell of was supposed to be so ugly even a charging wild boar would turn and run away at the sight of her.”

“This is no’ the same lady.” Ella was beautiful.

“She is said to have magical powers, the lady I have heard tell of. She has driven sane men mad, though no one knows how.”

“And women?”

“I have never heard of her harming a woman.”

“Who is this woman supposed to be? Has she a name?”

“No’ that I ever heard of. My mother always referred to her as the lady of the forest.”

“And she is evil?”

“Oh, nay.”

“But you said…”

“Oh, I am sorry. She was always kind to anyone who deserved her kindness. It was those that tried to hurt her that she retaliated against.”

“I see.”

“She protected the deer in the forest. They were her favorite animal.”

“Like my forest nymph.”

“Aye. I wondered, once I had heard of her, whether she could be the daughter of the one I knew of.”

“She is too beautiful if what you say is true about the other.”

A knock on the door made Dashiell wave his hand at Christopher to get it. From there, Christopher said, “Fallon wishes to see you about Ella.”

“Send him in.”

When Fallon entered the chamber, he said, “Your healer says the lady is awake if you wish to see her. She had to have Ella tied to the bed as she tried to run away.”

“In her condition?” Dashiell jumped up from the tub. “I will be right there.”

He slipped into his shirt and belted his plaid, yanked his boots on, and Quinn met up with him as he strode through the hall. “I hear she has come to. May I see her also?”

“Nay, no’ just yet.” Dashiell entered the room, expecting to question the lass, but her eyes were closed. “I thought she was awake,” he said to the maid attending her.

At hearing his words, Ella opened her eyes.

Walking over to the bed, he said, “Your eyes are green, just as I remember in my dreams. Who are you?”

When she didn’t answer, Dashiell looked at the maid and she shook her head. “She will say naught. Your healer believes she canna speak.”

“She is mute, then?” Dashiell couldn’t be more surprised. He frowned and looked back at the lady. “Can you no’ speak to me?” To the maid, he said, “She isna deaf, too, is she?”

“We dinna believe so. She seems to listen to all that is being said.”

He considered Ella’s wrists tied to the bed frame. “Is this necessary?” Did his people believe that she had hurt Lynette after all?

“Your healer said if she tries to run away any further, she willna live.”

“Run away?” Dashiell said to Ella, “I willna release you until you tell me who you are. You have naught to fear of me or from us. We dinna believe you harmed Lady Lynette.”

Ella’s eyes widened, and she shook her head, indicating she hadn’t hurt Lynette. He was glad to see it.

“Has she eaten?” he asked the maid.

“Nay. She had just now regained consciousness.”

“See if you can get her to eat something.”

When the maid left the room, Ella closed her eyes.

He pulled a chair beside the bed, sat down, reached over, and touched her hair. She opened her eyes. “I am no’ going anywhere. Tell me your name.” The lady’s lips parted as if she was going to speak, but the words would not come. Dashiell shook his head. “I must know who you are.”

Even now, under his roof, she was his captive, and he still knew no more about her than he did before.