Chapter Seventeen

F rom what little she’d overheard waiting for Garrick and his men to assemble, there were signs of a small battle on the road north, not five miles from Sedgeworth’s front gate. Genvieve wished she’d lived in the area longer. If this had occurred back home, she would have known who to ask for help, who to post as guards, and who to trust at her back.

Her hands trembled as she held the reins more securely in her grasp.

“Are you sure you don’t want one of us to accompany you, milady?” Anna’s suggestion was a good one, but she was afraid to leave someone she didn’t know in charge of the holding in her absence.

She shook her head. “I trust you and Beatrice to look out for our people while I’m gone.”

Her voice grated on her nerves, but for once, she didn’t care who heard her and what they said about it.

“What about Mary?” Anna asked.

“Is there anyone else who could act as healer in her place?”

Anna shook her head.

Genvieve wouldn’t leave them without their healer. Accidents happened, on a daily basis, and she knew the smithy’s wife was close to her time.

“We can’t let Jean have her baby without Mary’s help.” Though she wouldn’t mind having Mary accompany her.

“What about Kelly?”

“Have I met her?”

“You’ve met me,” a deep voice answered.

Genvieve looked up and nearly swallowed her tongue. The man was huge, and had a black look on his face. “I have?”

“Aye,” he insisted walking his horse over to where she stood with the women.

Merde. She remembered when she’d met him. “You came to help Mary when I…”

She let her words trail off, not wishing to bring up with subject of the attempted murder when the killer was still at large.

Kelly bent down and grabbed a hold of her hand. “You mustn’t doubt The MacInness; he’s a force to be reckoned with all by himself.”

Her throat tightened, so she nodded.

“Besides,” he said, dropping her hand, “he has me cousin with him.” Kelly’s horse started to prance and moved closer to Genvieve, nudging into her.

She moved to the side so the horse wouldn’t knock her off her feet. “I thought Eamon was your cousin.”

Kelly petted his horse’s neck in rhythmic movements to calm him. “Eamon’s me brother, Sean and Patrick are our cousins.”

“And all of you are O’Malleys, part of the group that used to report to Garrick?” Genvieve hoped she finally had the story straight, but doubted it. There were so many new names and faces to learn, now that she was Mistress of Sedgeworth.

“You truly aren’t trying to make your voice sound like someone was killing a cat,” Kelly asked. “Are you?”

The heat suffusing her cheeks must have been answer enough, the warrior apologized. “I meant no disrespect, milady.”

She shrugged.

“Don’t stop talking just because you sound like a…”

She glared at him, waiting for him to finish his statement. When it was clear Kelly wouldn’t, she motioned for him to watch her lips and asked him if he was indeed as talented a healer as Mary.

It took three tries for him to read her lips, but finally, he answered her. “Aye, but I’ve had more experience with the type of wounds MacInness and Patrick are liable to have.”

Her stomach cramped and a desperate need to hold onto something solid enveloped her.

As if he knew why she was asking, Kelly leaned down and whispered, “There was a lot of blood spilled.”

Tears welled up and flowed over before she realized she was crying.

Kelly’s shocked expression didn’t make her feel better. “You care?”

I married him , she mouthed.

“Can you move your lips just a bit slower, milady?” he asked. “I didn’t understand you.”

“Kelly!”

“Over here, Garrick!” he answered the summons.

When the other man joined them, he still refused to move from where he stood in front of Genvieve. “Say that last bit again.”

Genvieve wanted to smack the man in the head with something hard. He’d insulted her and now expected her to repeat what she’d very carefully told him twice already?

“Is there a problem, Lady Genvieve?” Garrick asked looking back and forth between them.

She decided to rest her voice. Mayhap she had used it too much and would be ruining it. Mayhap it would never heal. That thought had ice sluicing through her veins. Winslow would always know when his wife was in the room; even if the man were blind, the screeching would surely give her away.

She hugged Anna and then Beatrice and mounted her horse.

“Kelly, you’d best not upset MacInness’s bride,” Garrick warned.

The other warrior had the audacity to snort and then laugh.

As the men mounted and waited for the rest of their party to do the same, Garrick grumbled, “This is no laughing matter. MacInness will have my head and yours if you upset his wife.”

Genvieve watched the byplay between the warriors, but didn’t say anything. Her mind wandered while she wondered what they fed these men from birth that had them standing a full head taller than her father or her first husband.

“Apparently, my being here is reason enough to upset the woman,” Kelly mumbled.

“Lady Genvieve,” Garrick bit out. “It’s Lady—”

“I know,” Kelly answered before turning to her. “I beg your pardon, milady.”

She didn’t quite know what to do about Kelly. He seemed to be having trouble looking at her. Had her voice been so horrible sounding that he couldn’t look at her without laughing?

A half hour later, she stopped wondering.

“I didn’t mean to upset you, Lady Genvieve,” he said pulling up alongside her to ride with her, their horses’ steps perfectly in time with one another.

She grunted, still not feeling a warmth of forgiveness toward the man. Three hours later, she’d changed her mind.

The attack surprised them all. Arrows were flying at them from all directions.

“Kelly,” Garrick shouted. “Protect Lady Genvieve!”

“Milady,” Kelly’s hoarse shout had her concentrating on the sound of his voice instead of the panic welling up inside of her as a second volley of thin shafts of wood followed the first. He dove off his horse with his arms out in front of him. One wrapped around her and the other broke their fall as the two of them hit the ground with him on top of her.

She heard a faint crack and felt her ribs give way, but she’d cut out her tongue before she said a word as the pike protruding from the tree beside her horse—right where she had been seconds before—wobbled. Taunting her. She’d be dead if not for Kelly.

Genvieve tried to draw in a breath, but couldn’t, and didn’t know if it was because of her ribs or the weight of the warrior protecting her with his body. When he jolted, she knew he’d been injured.

Pushing out from under him, she demanded, “Tell me where you’re hurt.”

“Don’t move,” the warrior ground out, pulling himself back as if to cover her again. But before he could, the battle cries died as suddenly as they had begun.

Genvieve looked around her then and could not believe the carnage. Bodies lay at odd broken angles, littering the ground between where she and Kelly sat and where Garrick stood, his sword dripping with blood.

A young Norman knight made his way over to where she sat holding her ribs, but she didn’t recognize him.

“Lady Genvieve,” he offered his hand, but she shook her head.

“Don’t you trust me?” he sounded incredulous at the very idea.

“It’s not that,” she said, hoping no one would notice how short of breath she sounded. “Kelly’s hurt.”

“Aimory,” Garrick called out, “see what you can do for Kelly.”

“And for Lady Genvieve,” Kelly ground out. “I hit her harder than I meant to.”

She tried to smile. “You did what you had to.”

He grimaced and that’s when she noticed the arrow protruding from his shoulder. “Oh, Kelly!”

“We’ve got to see if we can find out where they came from,” another man called out and Garrick nodded. “Aimory, see to them both.”

But Genvieve was already ripping the bottom of her bliaut to help staunch the flow of bright red blood from the warrior’s shoulder. So much blood from such a thin shaft of wood. Her hands trembled as she pressed the fabric around the arrow.

Aimory went to Kelly’s horse, grabbed the satchel and brought it over to where she and the other warrior were sitting. Her knees were caked with mud, but she didn’t give it more than a passing thought because all of her energy was focused on breathing in and out while stopping the bleeding.

“We don’t have time to remove the arrow now,” Aimory told her. “We’ll wait until we are safe.”

Kelly groaned, and she realized the news would not be welcomed by either of them. She hurt for the Irishman. When she started to rise to her feet, something shifted inside of her, making her head light and the ground spin.

“Easy,” someone said, bracing her against him. The last thing she would remember was the lovely cadence of the man’s voice.

She came to when someone was prodding her side. Her moan of pain had the dark-haired man stopping to look at her. “Yer awake then, lass?”

“Winsl—” She shook her head. “Not Winslow.” And the man definitely was not, but he was Scottish. “Do I know you?” she asked.

He tilted his head to one side and finally shrugged. “I canna say.”

She closed her eyes, missing the lilting sound of her husband’s voice. He’d been gone for days.

“Dinna greet for the mon, he’s no’ dead yet,” the voice told her.

Genvieve remembered her husband telling her not to greet, to cry, once before. But he wasn’t here. She slowly opened her eyes and let them focus on the man who had ceased to prod her aching ribs, but was instead now reaching for her bliaut as if to lift it off of her. She pressed a hand in between her breasts and shook her head.

“But ye’ve hurt yer ribs, lass,” he said. “I need to be wrappin’ them.”

“I’m not going to take off my clothes off in front of all of these men.” Her voice cracked and squeaked, but not one of the men showed a reaction to the sound of it.

“Iain!” Garrick shouted, “What’s keeping you?”

“Lady Genvieve,” he answered. “She won’t let me take care of her ribs.”

“What’s wrong with her ribs,” Garrick asked, walking toward them.

“Nothing,” she lied.

“Cracked,” Iain answered at the same time, with a nod in her direction.

“MacInness isn’t going to be happy with you, Kelly,” Garrick predicted.

“Oh, milady,” Kelly began, “I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t do it on purpose.”

He laughed, then groaned, as the movement shifted the arrow in his shoulder. “True, but to ensure your safety, I’d probably do it again,” he said, rising to his feet.

“Iain,” Kelly said, “I’ve got a length of clean, thin linen in my satchel, you can wrap it around her bliaut, so she only has to remove her chainse.”

“What guid will that do the lass?” the Scotsman demanded.

“Until we get to a safer place, her ribs will be immobile,” Kelly said, “especially if we make her promise not to move unless we tell her to.”

Genvieve hated being spoken to as if she wasn’t there. “I will most definitely move.” She shifted, and saw stars, as her ribs flexed where they’d broken.

“Are ye sure, then, lass?”

She sighed. “What do you need me to do?”

“I’m going to slice off yer outer garment so ye don’t have to lift yer arms, or remove yer under garment.”

Having trouble drawing in a breath, she whispered her thanks.

In a matter of moments, her bliaut was ripped beyond repair, but the warrior was wrapping the length of linen around her aching ribs. Bound and immobile, she did feel a little better.

“Who do you think did this?” she asked, watching the men help Kelly to his feet and up onto his horse.

“I have a few suspicions,” Garrick said. “But will need your cousin to confirm them.”

Later that night, she would wonder why Augustin would have the answers.

*

“Do you think they’ve forgotten about us?”

MacInness shrugged. “I dinna know.”

“How’s your head?”

“How do ye think it is?” MacInness bit out. He was deeply worried. Who had attacked them and why? But more, was Genvieve safe at home? Was there more of a plot afoot than they’d realized?

Patrick nudged him with his shoulder and MacInness grumbled, “Dinna start.”

Patrick nudged him again and MacInness chuckled. “If me head didn’t feel like I’d split it open again, I could take ye down, mon.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“ Aneuch ,” MacInness said. “I think the bastards hit me in the same spot on the back of me head.”

“No wonder you were seeing double and puking up your guts.”

MacInness didn’t really need the reminder; he remembered the humiliating way he’d been on his hands and knees just hours before. Patrick was a friend, but like as not, would repeat what had happened to more than just his cousins and, the next time he saw him, his brother.

Far too many people for MacInness’s liking, but it couldn’t be helped.

A sound echoed from what had to be a long passageway. “Did ye hear that?”

Patrick stood and pulled MacInness with him. He wobbled, but found his balance.

“Well then, they’ve finally decided to pay us a visit, laddie.”

Patrick cocked his head to one side, listening. “I think we should welcome them, when they come to call.”

MacInness chuckled. “Aye, me mother, God rest her soul, would be proud of ye.”

The men lowered their voices and had the plan before the keys jingled just outside their door indicating their visitors had arrived.

The door swung open. “Get up you lazy Scot!” a deep voice shouted.

MacInness didn’t move, but he moaned for effect.

“You too, Irish bastard!” a second voice ground out.

Patrick grunted when someone kicked him, but he didn’t move either.

“Do you think we hit them too hard?” the one man asked the other.

“Maybe we’ve saved Lady Annaliese the trouble of having him killed.”

“Shut your trap!” the deep voice ground out.

“They aren’t awake, and can’t hear us,” the other man answered.

“We aren’t to take any chances until we have Lady Genvieve back where her mother wants her.”

MacInness’s stomach threatened to rebel on the spot. Her mother was behind the attack and abduction?

“What does she have planned for her daughter?”

“You don’t want to know.”

The chill of those words raced up MacInness’s spine, leaving him light headed. Her own mother had plotted against her! He could not conceive of it. He’d just learned he’d lost his mother and now he was going to have to lie to his wife and tell her she’d lost hers as well. It would be far kinder than the truth that Genvieve’s mother plotted to have him killed and who knew what the woman planned to do to her daughter.

He tensed and cracked his knuckles, twice. As one, he and Patrick shot to their feet and overpowered their captors. MacInness smiled as they pummeled the men and then cracked their heads together.

“Not very hardheaded,” he mumbled to Patrick. “It only took one crack. Most Scots or Irish would take at least two or three cracks against another man’s skull before they’d lost consciousness.”

“Aye,” Patrick agreed. “They must be Normans.”

Using the length of leather that had bound their hands behind their backs earlier, MacInness and Patrick tied the men up and made their way down the passageway to freedom.