Page 16 of Stolen Highland Dreams (The Highlanders #9)

15

E lla couldn’t believe the forester had seen her bathing in the loch, her fever finally broken. She’d desperately wanted to wash—and she hadn’t even seen the man! Even if she’d wanted to see Dashiell, she wouldn’t ever have left the loch naked as the day she was born. She could imagine their disappointment when they didn’t see her once they had killed the boar.

She raced to the hut and found her brother, cousin, and Mina still sound asleep. She felt so relieved, but she noted Mina seemed to be doing worse, slowing down, eating very little, and sleeping a lot. Her mind would drift off when her brother and cousin spoke to her.

She always knew who they were, which had worried Ella, but she had seemed more frustrated that Ella and her kin had not gone to the castle, beseeching Dashiell to take them all in.

Ella thought herself stubborn at times, but when it came to Mina, she was even more mule-headed about going with them. She feared Mina would soon join Ella’s family in heaven, and they would welcome her for having taken care of their kin for so many years.

For a week, Dashiell and a regular group of his clansmen hunted for the lass before and after dinner but never found her. He feared MacAfee had gotten ahold of her, but they hadn’t seen any sign of him or his men. James and his kin finally had to leave for home with their men and their bulls to take care of matters at home, wishing Dashiell well in finding the lass.

“Let us know what you learn and if we can further assist,” James said, hugging him.

Niall and Angus embraced him, offered their help, and wanted to know when Dashiell had a resolution.

“Aye, I will send word.”

After they left, Dashiell summoned his advisor. “Quinn, I know I need to marry someone soon. I am ready to begin considering a lady should one interest me sufficiently.”

“MacIntyre will be pleased to hear this. His daughter, Lantana, seems pleasant enough. If you dinna mind, may I continue to look for Ella?”

“You may look. If you find her,” Dashiell walked over to his window and looked out of it, “she is naught more than a dream, and every night, the dream seems to fade further from my mind. I can barely see her now for the mist and shadows of the trees. The light rarely shines.”

“I see the same. Everyone says the same. Their dreams of her are dying.”

“Aye, well, I must get on with business. The temptress has taken too much of my time. Lady Yvaine was right. Ella held my dreams at night and my thoughts during the day. I am finally breaking her bond over me, and I willna let her take hold of me again.” Yet he truly didn’t feel that way. He yearned to find her with every fiber of his being.

“Aye. Macintyre has said that he is sending Lantana to see you. The timing could not have been more perfect since you have had such a change of heart.”

Dashiell nodded but didn’t care to see anyone other than Ella.

His advisor said, “I will make arrangements for the lady’s arrival then, and if you dinna mind, will make a trip to the stream afterward.”

“If your wife doesna mind.”

“She has given up on me.”

“As long as you dinna neglect your business with me…”

“Of course no’.”

Christopher joined Dashiell and bowed. “May I go with Quinn?”

“No’ you, too?”

“Aye.”

“Very well, but dinna stay too long.”

“Aye, thank you.”

Christopher ran after Quinn, and Dashiell entered his solar and sat down. “You will always be a forest nymph to me, naught more, lass.”

But he could not stay away either. Losing her and the lass's dreams was too much to bear. He’d also kept waiting for her brother to return to work. If anyone saw Finnegan, they were to take hold of him, and he would force him to show him where his sister was hiding. Dashiell was certain Finnegan and Ella knew that, so the lad hadn’t returned.

That night—unable to forgo searching for the lass—Dashiell took five men, including Quinn and Fallon, into the forest. To their shock, they soon became engaged in a battle. Thieves? Dashiell became separated from his men, and two blackguards fought him until one managed to stab him in the chest.

He collapsed and didn’t remember anything after that. Not until he opened his eyes to see Ella crouched over him. He knew he was dreaming. She bandaged his chest, and then she rolled him onto a toboggan and carried him further into the woods, but all the jostling over the rough ground made him lose consciousness again.

When he woke, he saw an old woman peering down at him and Ella wringing her hands nearby, looking anxious, her brow furrowed.

“Who are you and the lass?” He still wasn’t sure if he was dreaming or not.

“I am Mina and this is Ella. You two have met.”

“You have always lived here?” he asked Mina, looking around at the small hut.

Mina glanced at Ella. She shook her head. “I was the healer for the Gunns. MacAfee slaughtered Ella’s people. She, her brother, baby cousin, and the blacksmith were the only ones who survived.”

Dashiell immediately thought of Lynette’s nightmare. She had seen everyone killed in battle at the castle, all but Ella. “And you?”

That was what Ella had been trying to tell him. That MacAfee would kill her, not because she had done anything wrong to him. She had been a witness to the massacre.

Mina frowned. “Aye. The blacksmith had been badly wounded. I had been caring for a woman in labor in the village and later gathering herbs in the forest. The gates were closed, so I returned to the hut and escaped the attack. Tannon, the blacksmith, barely made it out alive. Ella came to Tannon’s aid, fighting the brigand battling him, and at some point, she lost her ability to speak.”

Dashiel couldn’t believe it.

“If it hadna been for Ella, Tannon wouldna have made it. She’d brought her baby cousin Amelda and her five-year-old brother Finnegan through the secret tunnels. Before the onslaught, Ella had spoken, laughed, and played and had grown into a lovely young lady.”

Dashiel would make it his duty to make MacAfee pay for his deeds.

“She was fifteen summers when it happened. We helped Tannon recover in the makeshift lean-to I stayed in when I had finished my business in the village if the castle was closed for the night.”

“I’m surprised the gate guard wouldna have let you in, given the importance of your job.” For any healer who was as important as she was, most chiefs would leave word to allow them in at any hour.

“I didna want to disturb them. When Tannon was well again, he, Ella, and I created this hut, building the fireplace with stones gathered nearby to keep us safe should MacAfee look for any of us who had survived and fled the ordeal.”

“And the blacksmith?”

“Tannon knew it was too crowded for us to stay at the hut and too many of us to visit the woods without being caught. He moved into the village and met a maid, and for a time, he helped us out.”

Which would be dangerous, Dashiell could imagine.

“Eventually, he worried MacAfee’s men might be looking for us, and he was afraid they would recognize him and attempt to force him to reveal where Ella was. He married the maid and moved away. He did everything he could to make the hut comfortable and well-hidden for us before they left,” Mina said.

“How old is Ella now?”

“Twenty summers.”

“Where did the battle occur?”

“The castle you call yours is hers.” Mina applied a poultice on his wound, and it burned something fierce.

He didn’t even remember passing out, but then Ella was gently wiping his brow and then his bare chest except where the bandage was covering his wound.

Ella motioned to Mina, who was sleeping now on her pallet. Then Ella wrote in the dirt— Mina is frail. Will you … She paused.

“Will I what?” he asked, unable to sit up.

Let us stay with you?

Dashiell couldn’t believe Ella wanted to stay with him after she vanished from the castle. He realized then that Mina was why Ella had returned here. And because of her young cousin, who must be five now. He hadn’t seen her yet.

He couldn’t believe MacAfee had killed her kin. Mina would be just as much at risk if MacAfee had also learned she was alive and had seen what had happened. Mina was a witness too, but MacAfee must have realized Ella had escaped his ruthlessness and was hiding in the forest.

“Aye, you will stay with my clan.” Dashiell would send a missive to the king to see if anything could be done to MacAfee. It would help if Ella could explain everything to the king. “I must get word to my men to come for me and you, Mina, your brother, and Amelda.”

He didn’t want to delay this because he was sure now that the men who had attacked him and his party were some of MacAfee’s men, not common thieves as heavily armed and skilled with the sword as they’d been.

He wanted to ensure the lasses’ and lad’s safe passage if MacAfee and his men were still roaming through the forest, and he hoped the rest of his men had survived the ambush.

Ella wrote in the dirt: When it is safe for us to send word, I will tell your men to come for you.

He didn’t want her to go out on her own. She was the real target. “Nay. I must return home and bring a force to bring you there.”