Page 8 of The Scot Who Loved Her

She shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut. “I can’t.”

She wouldn’t, was what she meant. After his mother had abandoned him as a child, he’d decided that most women were cruel in that way. There’d been only a few he’d met in the last couple of years that had made him think there was hope. However, the wives of his friends Lorne, Alec and Euan were obviously taken.

By God, he was going to make her help him. She would not abandon him here. “Ye shot me. Yewillhelp me.”

“But...I don’t know what to do.” Her pretty blue eyes glistened. “I’m not a physician.”

“Ye are now.” He glowered, willing her to straighten her spine and do as he commanded. He’d had less trouble with recruits than this woman. “Ye’ll have to get the bullet out.”

She wobbled on her feet. “Nay...” She started to back away, hands outstretched and waving at him as though he were a bad omen. Waving at him, just the same way he would if he were trying to escape the scene of mayhem. How convenient that he would be shot when he carried vital information in his boot.

“Did ye shoot me on purpose?” Damn it, he must be losing a great deal of blood to ask such a thing. Would he admit it if he were caught red-handed? He’d feign confusion. He was a bloody spy; he’d never admit a damn thing.

Her hands flew to her cheeks. “I would never.”

Yes. Just like that. Now he knew—shewas a spy, too. But unlike him, she was working against the good England and Scotland. Why else would she shoot him? She was a traitor. A she-devil like all the rest.

His vision blurred, and he blinked away the cobwebs that wished to ensnare him.

“Who sent ye?” he demanded.

The lass was a good pretender; he would give her that. She looked stunned. But he knew better. He reached for the dagger at his belt and found it missing, realizing too late that it was still inside the boar. His pistol was on Kelpie, somewhere in the woods behind him. How was he going to capture her when his lifeblood was flowing away? He’d just have to brazen it out. “Stay where ye are. Do not take another step.”

Malcolm’s vision faded again, tiny dots of black and white fading in and out of the dull, forested background.

Panting now from pain and a sudden wave of exhaustion, he lifted into a sitting position, leaning against the boar for support. He tugged at the dagger in the animal’s neck, the jerking motions sending pain ricocheting through his injury. A sudden gush of blood burst from his wound. And the last thing he heard, perhaps the last thing he would ever hear, was the harridan saying, “I’ve killed you.”

3

“I’m going to get you help!” Olivia cried, but the man had already slumped over, unconscious.

Oh, God, she’d shot a man. A Scotsman. Spilled his blood. He was going to die. She was a contemptible human being. Perhaps a mad one. Who would ever believe otherwise now? She ran blindly through the forest, fear dogging her every step.

Why couldn’t she stay put in her room as her father bade her? Why had she even pulled the trigger? Taking her father’s pistol from his desk drawer had been a last-minute decision in case she ran into trouble. Butthiswas not the type of trouble she’d expected! The stranger seemed to have the boar in hand in the end. But when she’d come upon him, she’d been certain he was going to be gored. Pulling the trigger had been instinct.

Of all the bacon-brained, idiotic ideas she’d ever acted upon, this was the most heinous. Her instincts could not be trusted. Hands outstretched, she shoved at branches as she ran back toward her horse, tripping over unearthed roots. At last, she reached her mare. Frustration mounted as she repeatedly jammed her foot into the stirrup and missed. “Come on!” she growled at herself.

As much as she didn’t want to, she needed to find her father and get help for the poor man.

In the distance, she could hear the men of her father’s hunting party. The crack of a musket or pistol. She should have remained inside. This never would have happened if she’d only listened. When she’d begged her father to let her go out on the hunt, boredom reigning after being cooped up in their Scottish country house for three weeks, he’d flatly refused. Olivia had waited until he and his male guests had departed with their horses and hunting dogs, and then she’d saddled Dancer, tied her father’s pistol to her calf and sneaked out.

Lord Helvellyn had protested that hunting was a male pursuit. That she should remain behind with the other ladies. Sew, read, gossip, nap. Things she might normally find enjoyment in. But she longed for exercise and adventure—her true passions. The manor house walls had started to feel as if they were closing in around her. She couldn’t take it.

And now she’d shot a man.

Foot finally in the stirrup, she hauled herself into the saddle. No, she couldn’t tell her father.

Lord Helvellyn hated the Scots. She had no ideawhyhe hated the Scots so much, considering their blood ran through half his veins. Probably some ancient grudge that had lasted centuries. Being that their lands were close to the border, ancestors on both his sides had perhaps been plagued by Robert the Bruce or Longshanks five hundred years ago, and the grudge never left their lifeblood. It didn’t matter.

What did matter was that a man’s life was hanging on by a thread. Her very future was at stake. If the man died, she’d be charged, rightly so, with murder. Even if it had been an accident. And murder! They’d do worse than toss her into the asylum with Marian—she’d go to crumbling Old Tollbooth gaol. She’d be hanged!

She needed to find someone else to go to. But who could help her? Who would keep this secret from her father?

Immediately, her mind went to their groundskeeper’s son, Daniel. She and Daniel had grown up together; she and Marian often included Daniel in their childhood games. What she needed was someone she could trust, and Daniel and his father seemed her safest, and only, choice at the moment. She kicked her horse into a gallop, steering Dancer toward the groundskeeper’s cottage and trying valiantly at the same time to avoid the sound of the other hunters. She prayed Daniel was inside having luncheon rather than working the grounds. Olivia leapt from her horse and charged up the walkway to bang on the blue-painted door. There was no answer. Nor did she see any movement inside the tiny glass windows with matching blue shutters.

Tears stung her eyes. The Scot could be dead now for all she knew. Her hands started to shake, and she bent over, placing them on her knees as a wave of nausea caught her. She coughed, her stomach roiling.

“My lady?”Daniel. His footsteps were muted on the grass as he approached from behind.

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