CHAPTERSEVEN
Bryce’s mind was so full of thoughts of Lorna that when she pointed away from him, her hands pushing against his chest, he couldn’t quite understand what was going on. He blinked at her for a few seconds before she said it again.
“Look. In the river there. It is something large and dark. What could that be?” She stepped out of the circle of his arms, and Bryce’s heart fell.
Lorna was perhaps right to have stopped him, but he had wanted nothing more in that moment than to kiss Lorna McAdam for the first time and follow whatever strange feeling that had been going on inside of him since he’d first seen her again. With a sigh he turned around and followed her gaze.
He frowned. She was right; it was large and dark and looked almost like a big seal coming to the edge of the overflowing river. He looked down at Lorna’s boots. “Stay clear of that mudhole again, lass. Come here,” he reached out a hand for her. “This path looks a bit drier.”
Together, hand in hand, they walked around where Lorna had gotten stuck, and walked closer to the thing in the water. Bryce squinted his eyes at it, wondering if it could have been something that had rushed down the overflowing river during the storm. Their boots touched the edge of the water, and he stopped and crouched. He reached out to touch the dark thing, and when he pulled on it, a face bobbed to the surface.
Lorna screamed, rearing back, her hands over her mouth as she stared down at the dead woman in the water. Bryce was grimacing. The poor woman had not come to a good end, and he didn’t like the tremble he could see in Lorna.
“Step back, lass. Let me pull the poor woman to the bank here.”
Wordlessly, Lorna did as she was asked, and with a few heaves, Bryce was able to haul the woman out of the water, her waterlogged woolen skirts making her even heavier. Finally, she was laying out on the soggy riverbank looking up at a sky she would never see again.
“Bloody hell,” Bryce said, wiping a hand over his beard. Lorna stepped closer to him, and she reached out a hand to clasp his arm.
“How awful,” Lorna said. “That is Marianne Creech. She is the midwife, has been for almost thirty years.”
Bryce nodded and reached down to close the dead woman’s eyelids. It felt less shocking that way, and they both had to think clearly. He didn’t like the look of things. He had seen much death in his time at war, both natural and forced, and this didn’t look natural to him at all. He put an arm about Lorna who was still shaking, and she let him hold her tight.
Instinctively, he kissed her on the top of the head, and she didn’t seem to mind the intimacy. “I am sorry ye had tae see this, lass. It is a difficult thing tae see the dead, especially the first time.” He took her shoulders and turned her to face him. “Will ye do this for me, lass? I will have tae wait with the body, but ye must go and inform yer family. We need help tae remove the body.”
“Aye,” she said, nodding her head and stepping away, her eyes still on the body. “Of course. I will do so at once. Poor Mrs. Creech,” she said, a little squeak in her voice before she hurried away.
Bryce waited, but it wasn’t long before a few men from the nearby village arrived with a cart at Fergus’s instruction. “She will be kept at the keep until someone can be called tae assist us in the matter.”
“Aye,” the young, dirty-faced boy said. He jumped down from the cart, and together, he and Bryce hauled Mrs. Creech onto the back of the cart, and the driver laid a thick, woolen blanket over her.
“Poor creature,” the older driver said, his white whiskers wiggling as he shook his head sadly. “She was a good one.”
Bryce, still trying to catch his breath a bit, hit a fist on the side of the wagon. “Tae the keep, lads. I will meet ye there.”
“Aye, sir.” The older man ducked his head as the young boy scrambled up beside him on the driver’s seat. Bryce watched them drive away for a few seconds before he turned back to the bank of the river. He walked closer to where Mrs. Creech had been found, but he didn’t see anything else that might give him a clue to her attacker. Likely she had been hurt in the village and pushed into the river to rush speedily away in the storm before getting caught on the bank.
“Come, Gaisgeachd. We are nae going anywhere today.” He felt a little grim satisfaction at that fact, even though he pitied poor Mrs. Creech and her sad end. Once he’d settled the horse in the stables again, Bryce brushed off his coat and tunic and stepped through the castle gates. He wanted to assist Fergus in the matter as best he could. It wouldn’t have felt right to return home now, leaving Lorna to have to deal with it all on her own.
I am just doing a service, he told himself, even though he knew perfectly well he was happy to remain with Lorna just a little bit longer. Striding into the main hall, he found Fergus in conversation with a soldier, a light-haired man with English colors on his coat. Mrs. Creech had been laid out on a low table in far corner, and Lorna was nowhere to be seen.
Bryce stepped closer and cleared his throat, “Laird, I would—” he paused when the light-haired man turned around, and his familiar face creased into a smile.
“Bryce MacDowell!” the man called out, and Bryce laughed as his old friend pulled him into a warm embrace. Bryce clapped him on the back.
“Tobias, lad, it has been some time!”
“It certainly has,” Tobias replied in his smooth, English-accented tones. There was only the slight tinge of the Highlands in his way of speaking, but only a true Highlander would have noticed. “You have returned.”
“Aye, back from France. Although surprised tae see ye here after all that has happened.” His mind flashed back to the sight of Joan of Arc being burned at the stake, being punished by English soldiers. Scotland was a friend to France, not to England, but in truth, Tobias Jones was a friend from long ago, and Bryce would never hold his partial Englishness against him.
“Welcome back. Aye, it must be surprising tae see me here. The English have built a fort nearby, and it must be keep filled with some English soldiers for the sake of keeping France from hiding here. We do not want any surprise attacks on England if we can help it. War still rages on,” Tobias said grimly.
“Aye, so it does. Well, it is good ye are here then tae assist us.” Bryce gave his friend a warm smile.
“And I am here to offer my services as magistrate.”
Fergus didn’t look over happy at having an English soldier in his home, whether the man had a Scottish mother or not.
