Page 67 of Dark Side of the Laird
“She told me,” Emma murmured.
“All of it?”
“Yes.”
My stomach dropped. Even knowing all of Isabella’s lies she’d still come after me.
“Ye must listen…”
“Shh, not now, Logan. Let’s get out of here first.”
I shook my head and reached for her shoulders, pulling her toward me. “’Tis all lies, love. She tried. She drugged me. But I remember everything. I remember her shoving me to the floor, of her trying to…” I short laugh escaped me. “’Twas the first time I’d not gotten hard for a willing wench. And I never thought I’d be grateful for such a thing. I could never betray ye, lass. Even poisoned, my body responds only to ye.”
“Logan,” Emma said, pressing her forehead to the crook of my neck, her arms sliding around me. “I never believed her. And even if it had been true, I wouldn’t have left you here to die.”
“We must go,” Hilde hissed from outside the alcove.
Renewed strength filled me, and I pressed a little less weight on Emma as we traced our steps back to the servants’ stair and down to the courtyard. Hilde summoned my men closer. Those who’d accompanied me had been found in the dungeon, and though they looked a little worse for wear, none of them were in bad shape.
All held horrified expressions when they saw me. I feared what I might see in the reflection of the loch.
“He canna make the journey to Gealach like that,” Gregor said. I was surprised but pleased to see him. He must have accompanied Emma. I tried to argue that I’d make it, but all of them naysaid me.
“We must find a shelter where he’ll be safe and can be healed,” Gregor said to Emma.
I couldn’t have been more proud that they looked on her with such respect. She’d risked her life to come after me, and she’d found me. To them, she was a goddess, just as she’d always been to me.
“I know a place,” Hilde said. “’Tis my cottage. Deep in the wood, no one will look there for him.”
The men looked skeptical, turning to myself and Emma once more.
“Let us go there,” I said.
Within a quarter hour, we were half a mile from Falkland and on our way to freedom.
21
Logan
Four weeks later
We arrived back at the castle in mid-afternoon.
As we rode past the clan who’d gathered in droves from the gate to the castle stairs, they bowed, they called out greetings and prayers. Most of them looking to Emma as their savior.
I, too, stared at her. “Ye saved us, love.”
She blushed and smiled. “No, Logan. We did it together.”
I smiled, giving in to her, though I knew that without her, I wouldn’t be where I was. Likely, I’d be in the hands of that fucking lunatic beneath Falkland Palace, but I needn’t disappoint her with that knowledge.
We were greeted not only by the swift shouts and elated calls of the clan, but by Ewan himself. He stood at the top of the entrance stairs, leaning against the large wooden doors to the keep. A huge grin split his face. I was relieved to see him standing there, to know that he’d not died at Isabella’s hands. For such a thing to happen would have been my own fault.
“Glad we are to have ye back, my laird. As well ye, my lady,” he called.
“Glad we are to finally have returned,” I said.
Ewan’s grin faltered. “Ye have a visitor, my laird.”
