“But—”
“Go back to the house now! Run!”
Brandon’s jacket fell off her shoulders as Shannon was pulled to her feet. She started to pick it up and stopped when Brandon growled impatiently at her. He scooped up her shawl and thrust it into her hands. Bewildered by the harsh urgency he communicated, Shannon picked up her skirt and began running toward the candlelit windows of the folly. Pausing once to catch her breath, she glanced over her shoulder at the clearing.
Brandon had already disappeared into the wood.
Chapter 13
Shannon had no intention of waiting in the house for Brandon to return. She couldn’t imagine what he had been thinking, to go into the wood unarmed. Clearly the animal she had heard represented some danger, one that he would not have her face. But for him to face it alone was pure madness.
Oblivious to the eyebrows she raised as she threw open the kitchen door, Shannon went straight to the closet where the muskets and ammunition were kept. She slipped a leather pouch over her head and across her shoulder and took down two rifles from the rack.
Martha threw up her hands, blocking Shannon’s exit. “Lord, give me strength! What do you think you’re doin’, Miz Shannon?”
“Brandon sent me for these,” she lied breathlessly. “He’s waiting, Martha. Step aside.”
“What can that man be thinkin’?” she wondered aloud as Shannon hurried past her. “He’s lost what he had that passed for brains.” Since Shannon was already out of the house, Martha continued her diatribe for the benefit of the staff gathered around the kitchen table.
Because she had been afraid to run with loaded weapons, Shannon waited until she reached the clearing before she primed them. Difficult as the task was in daylight, she found it nearly impossible to do at night. Remembering Cody’s warning about how much gunpowder to use, Shannon could only pray she had measured the right amount. While she worked, she kept her ears alert to movements in the wood.
The heavy silence that met her did little to ease her fears. She tried not to imagine that Brandon had already been hurt, but the thought could not be completely repressed. Carrying a rifle under each arm, Shannon moved cautiously into the woods at the point Brandon had disappeared. She swore under her breath, an explicit word she had heard Brandon utter once, and thought it was appropriate now as her foot connected with a tree stump. Her skirt snagged on the rough bark and Shannon lurched forward, trying to regain her balance. She fell on one knee, just managing to keep the rifle stocks from slamming into the ground.
She got up again and listened, certain that if Brandon were close, he would have heard her. Something moved in the trees off to Shannon’s left. She waited, breathing shallowly until she recognized the furtive scurrying of a squirrel or chipmunk. As her eyes adjusted to her surroundings, she moved more confidently, though with scarcely less noise.
Eyes trained on the ground in front of her, it was Brandon’s corn silk hair, illuminated in a narrow beam of moonshine that she saw first. The silver buttons on his waistcoat caught her eye a moment later. She ran ahead, dropping the rifles on the ground as she knelt beside him. “Brandon?” she whispered huskily, heart in her throat. Shannon bent forward, her cheek near his mouth, and felt the warm caress of his breath on her face. She touched his shoulder and gave him a little shake. “If this is some trick,” she said softly, “then it is in poor taste.” Her fingers gently searched his scalp, eliciting a groan from him when she chanced upon the knot on the side of his head.
Brandon’s hand came up to trap hers and keep it still. “No trick,” he said raggedly. “Hurts like hell.” His effort to sit up came to nothing.
“Stay where you are,” Shannon ordered, pressing him back. She could feel the warm stickiness of his blood on her fingertips. Slipping her hand from beneath his, she tore at the hem of her chemise and made a bandage, which she applied to his head. “Can you tell me what happened?” she asked, trying to keep him distracted while she worked.
“I fell,” he said succinctly.
Shannon’s eyebrows shot upward. “That is rather hard to believe.”
“Why? I am prone to moments of clumsiness, especially in the dark.”
Shannon laughed lightly, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “My dear, dear Brandon, you are rarely clumsy, and certainly not in the dark.”
Brandon smiled crookedly as her meaning sank in. “You choose the damnedest times to fire my senses, madam.”
Shannon finished securing the bandage and assisted Brandon in sitting up. “So you fell,” she prompted.
“And hit my head on something,” he said. “A rock, I think. A boulder, by the feel of it.” He rolled his stiff shoulders and stretched his arms. “What are you doing here anyway? I recall giving very clear orders that you go to the house.”
“I did go to the house,” she said defensively. “But I couldn’t permit you to give chase with no weapon. I brought two rifles.” She patted the ground around her, found one, and placed it in Brandon’s hands. “Have a care. I loaded it.”
“Sweet Jesus!” he whispered, awed. “What were you thinking of?”
“Your safety.”
Brandon wanted to be angry, but his head was throbbing. Since the danger had already passed, he could think of no good reason to rake Shannon over the coals for her good intentions and lack of common sense. “I wasn’t unarmed,” he said. “I don’t go any distance from the house at night without a weapon. There is a hunting knife strapped inside my riding boot. It is sufficient protection.”
“I didn’t realize.”
“I know you didn’t. But I’m no hero. I would have followed you back to the house if I hadn’t had it. It wouldn’t have been the first time I ran from a wolf.”
Shannon gasped. “Is that what we heard? A wolf?”
