Her little dog and another dashed about on the loch’s thin crusting of ice. And even as she barreled near, calling his name, the ice cracked. The second dog leaped to safety, but Leo disappeared beneath the loch’s smooth, gray surface.
“Holy Christ!” His own woes forgotten, Marmaduke kicked his horse in the sides and sent the beast hurtling across the frozen ground.
Reaching the lochside before his lady and those chasing after him, he leapt from his saddle, cast away his sword, and dived beneath the icy water.
Caterine reined in only seconds later…just as Leo scrambled to safety. Jumping down, she raced to the water’s edge. “Oh, Leo!” she cried, relief coursing through her.
Wet, shivering, and not at all contrite-looking, the little dog shook himself, dousing her with a spray of freezing water. Grabbing him, she thrust him beneath the warm folds of her cloak, then glanced around for her champion.
And the moment she did, cold dread more punishing than the biting winter wind clamped down on her heart, for unlike Leo, Sir Marmaduke hadn’t yet left the loch. Her braw champion was still beneath the water’s ice-littered surface.
“Ach, dia!” Panic whirling through her, she pressed a fisted hand against her lips and stared at the place where he’d vanished into the water. Frozen with fear, she willed him to reappear.
But he didn’t.
Only his words flew at her, borne on the icy wind.
…they only protect me from sword cuts and other sundry arms of evil…
They never promised to keep me safe from flying embers and sparks.
Nor had they vowed to keep him safe from drowning.
Caterine shuddered, sheerest dread churning through her. Fear squeezed her chest in a vise-like grip as she stared in horror at the silent waters of the loch.
His men ran past her and plunged into the frigid depths - only to surface and re-surface without him, her heart sinking more each time they failed.
And through it all, she looked on as if from a great, disbelieving distance.
Young Lachlan clambered out first. Trembling with cold, and dripping wet, he raced at James. Grabbing his arm, he dragged her stepson to the loch’s edge. “You have the best eyes,” he cried. “We can see nothing. The water is too dark. You must look for him.”
James blanched. His panicked gaze flashed to Caterine and then to the ice-crusted loch, to the men thrashing about in the water.
“Go!” Lachlan shoved him forward, into the lapping shore-water.
“I am…I cannot…” James began, and then, to Caterine’s amazement and relief, a look of steely determination settled over his face, and, whipping out his blade, he flung it aside, and plunged into the water.
Once, twice, over and over, he re-surfaced, spluttering with the cold, his own fear of water etched sharply onto his face, but each time he broke the surface, he drew a long breath and dived anew.
Then, just as the coldest anguish began to seize her, when she no longer cared if her shoulders shook and tears streamed, a great cheer rose from those gathered on the lochshore.
James had re-appeared, and this time, he’d found him. He held one arm slung around her champion’s neck, but his head lolled at an odd angle and – as the crowd’s ominous hush indicated – it appeared the saints had abandoned Sir Marmaduke Strongbow at last.
They’d turned their winged backs on him in his darkest hour, and left him to drown in a pitifully small, ice-glazed loch on the wrong side of Scotland.
Chapter 49
“Lady, you must rest.”
Caterine ignored her friend’s admonishment – the hundredth such plea Rhona had made to her that morning alone – and continued to massage her champion’s fingers.
A desperate attempt to force her own warmth into his hands as they rested, cold and limp between hers.
A vain endeavor, but one she’d repeated with grim patience ever since his men had carried his unconscious form abovestairs and gently settled him in her bed.
“Lady, please,” Rhona beseeched her.
“Later,” Caterine said. “I shall rest when I am certain he will not…after I am sure he will…” She trailed off, another hot rush of tears scalding the backs of her eyes, another searing lump swelling her throat.
