Page 9 of The Scot Who Loved Her

Still bent over, Olivia said, “I need your help.”

“Are you ill?” His tone was full of concern as he rushed forward. The tips of his mud-caked boots came into view.

“I’ll be fine but...I’ve...” Her throat seized, and she swayed. “Daniel, I’ve done something awful.”

“What is it?” He reached toward her, then jerked his hand back. Empathy caused him to extend a hand in help and propriety yanked it away.

Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, squeezing them shut as if blindly saying it would make it come out easier. “I’ve shot a man.”

“What?” The word was an uttered gasp of disbelief.

“In the forest. I was aiming for the boar, but the man got in the way.”

Daniel muttered a curse and then apologized. “One of his lordship’s party?”

“No. A stranger—a Scot. He was trespassing through the forest.”

Another oath, this time a little louder.

“I cannot let him die, Daniel.” She managed to stand upright, looking into the warm brown eyes of her oldest friend. His sandy hair was filled with hay or wheat, and more mud splattered on his work clothes. “I need you to help me.”

“All right.” Daniel surged into the cottage and returned moments later with a black leather bag. “The kit I had in the war, but now we use it to tend the field workers.”

Olivia nodded, and getting back on Dancer, this time with Daniel’s help, didn’t take quite as long.

Daniel went to the small stable beside the cottage and came out a few moments later with an older horse. “Lead the way, my lady.”

They found the massive Scot exactly where she’d left him. He lay on his side, one hand clutching his dagger and the other covering the wound on his broad shoulder. Blood slipped through his fingers, and the pallor of his visage was as white as a sheet. Dark hair fell over his broad forehead, shading his closed eyes and noble nose. Even closed, she remembered those eyes.

Bright green and full of fury and accusation. The man had truly thought she’d shot him on purpose. Why would he think such? Had he been accosted on her land before? She supposed it wasn’t impossible given her father’s dislike of the Scots and his penchant for only employing English people from across the border, as well as only ever having English guests. But then, if that were the case, what was this stranger doing there? Wouldn’t he have learned his lesson the first time? Unless he was daft, but he’d not seemed so to her.

Daniel was quicker to move than she was, swinging out of the saddle and kneeling beside the Scot. Her old friend paled in comparison, looking like a lad beside a grown man. The Scot was simply enormous.

Daniel placed the back of his hand beneath the Scot’s nose and then, frowning, pressed his fingers to his neck.

He was so still. So pale. “Is he...” She couldn’t bring herself to say the words.

“He lives. Help me move him.”

Olivia nodded, moving to stand at the foot of his body. His feet seemed longer than her arms, his legs like long tree limbs. She grabbed hold of the underside of his ankles at the boots, her tiny hands barely able to hold on. His boots were scuffed and covered in mud from battling the boar, and the sole of one boot looked to have come off. Daniel lifted him underneath his arms, straining hard as he hoisted the massive warrior—for that was what he seemed to her—and they slid him away from the boar so that he lay flat.

Olivia knelt beside the unconscious man, her hand involuntarily resting on his boot-covered calf. Dear heavens... She jerked her hand back, realizing what she’d done. She should not be touching him in so intimate a way.

“The bullet is still inside,” Daniel muttered, digging in his leather satchel. He pulled out a pair of silver scissors. Starting at the neckline, he cut away at the man’s once-white shirt—now stained crimson—until he reached his middle. Enough so he could get at the wound.

Olivia’s breath caught in her lungs, refusing to leave. Tanned, muscled skin emerged with every inch Daniel cut. Two cut-from-stone muscles spread beneath his collarbones topped with...nipples. Oh, why did it seem so shameful?

There was a mark just over his heart. On closer inspection, she determined it was a tattoo. How perfectly taboo. She’d never seen a tattoo before, though she’d heard of them. She couldn’t imagine the men of the ton marring their delicate skin.

This masculine, rugged Scot.

Momentarily stunned, she wiped away the blood from the mark, shocked at the feel of his skin, soft yet hard. There was something infinitely disturbing about it. The tattoo was shaped like an eye; the iris and pupil were made of intricately designed Celtic knots. It gave the impression of being watched. Quite unsettling.

Olivia swallowed, and her gaze was drawn back to the damage she’d done to this magnificent specimen of male creation. She forced her gaze to follow the path of crimson rivulets until she spied a gaping hole just beneath his left shoulder. She’d done that. In her idiocy. In her hope to help him. She’d thought herself good with a pistol, but clearly, she was mistaken. Why had she ever thought she might be able to save him?

She’d never glimpsed a bullet wound before. Involuntarily, her gaze flowed from the all-seeing eye to the rippled bands of muscle that made up his stomach. It made her feel...odd. Light-headed.

It had to be the blood. The sheer magnitude of her having harmed another. Even if by accident. There was no other reason, besides one she didn’t want to contemplate—sheer madness—that would have her so addled. A moment’s cold chill had her wondering, was this the start of her journey to the asylum?

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