Taming The Highland Bride Part 8

"I do," she a.s.sured him with a smile as he lifted her down from the mount. The moment she was on her feet, Merry tried to move away to explore, but Alex held on to her. When she turned to glance at him in question, he smiled faintly and said, "Give your legs a minute to find themselves. You have been in the saddle all day."

"My legs are fine. I was not doing the riding, merely resting in your lap," she pointed out with a laugh and pulled free of his hold, only to land on her knees as her "fine" legs gave out under her. Grimacing, she glanced to Alex, fully expecting him to laugh at her as her brothers would have done. Surprisingly enough, however, his expression was solemn and even slightly concerned as he reached down to take her hand and help her back up.

"You need to learn to accept advice and aid from others, wife," Alex said quietly as he set her back on her feet. "Everyone needs a.s.sistance at one time or another."

The words were softly spoken and nothing like the sort of rebuke one would receive from a parent, but it had as much effect as a yell. Merry was suddenly hot with an emotion that felt part shame, part fear. It was the fear that bothered her most. She was suddenly afraid he thought less of her, and that bothered her more than she would expect. This was the man she'd thought was no better than her father and brothers. Why should she care what he thought of her? Merry didn't know, but she did care, and didn't like that caring.

Biting her tongue on the sharp words that rose up in her defense, Merry forced herself to suffer his hold until he felt she could stand alone and then quickly moved away once he released her.

"I shall tend the horses," Alex said as she moved toward the water. "You go ahead and bathe if you wish."

Any other time, Merry would have insisted that she could tend her own mount, but still stung by the mild rebuke and her own reactions to it, she didn't. Instead she continued to the water's edge and began to disrobe. Merry stripped off her gown and laid it across a boulder nearby, but then paused and cast a quick glance back to her husband. Finding he had his back to her and was busy with the horses, she then quickly stripped off her s.h.i.+ft, too, and tossed it over her gown before rus.h.i.+ng into the water.

Unfortunately, in her eagerness to be submerged before Alex turned around, Merry moved with more speed than care. She came to an abrupt halt, however, as she ran into a submerged boulder, banging her toes and s.h.i.+n under the water.

Merry hadn't realized she'd cried out until she heard Alex shout in response. She turned abruptly to see him rus.h.i.+ng toward the water's edge. Realizing she was as naked as the day she'd been born, Merry immediately dropped to hide in the water.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she gasped, the cold water taking her breath away.

"Did you hurt yourself?" Alex asked with concern, but came to a halt at the river's edge and didn't charge in as she suspected he'd been about to do.

"Nay," she lied. "'Twas just surprisingly cold."

Alex eyed her briefly, not looking as if her lie had convinced him, but then he nodded and turned back toward the horses. "I am nearly done and then I shall join you."

Merry made a face at his back, finding the words more a threat than a promise at that moment, and then turned away to move more cautiously out into deeper water. She was not used to feeling in the wrong. Merry had spent years being the only one in the right at Stewart, or at least usually in the right, and didn't like that her husband found fault with her, even if it was something as small as her being unwilling to accept aid and advice.

Shaking her head at herself, Merry rubbed her arms under the water as her body began to adjust to the water. She took a moment simply to enjoy the cool feel of it caressing her skin, but then sucked in a breath of air and plunged forward in the water. While her body was now used to the cold liquid, her head was not, and Merry nearly opened her mouth on a gasp as it flowed over her. She managed to keep from doing so and swam down to scoop up some dirt from the river bottom. Once she had two hands full of the stuff, she continued forward in a somersault and then shot back to the surface, gasping with relief as her head broke through into the early evening air.

After a couple of breaths and a glance around to see that Alex was back at the horses, she raised her hands out of the water to peer at what she'd collected. Much to her relief it was gritty sand and not muddy dirt, which would have been useless to her. Merry quickly used the grit to wash herself, running it over her arms and chest so that the sand acted like an abrasive, was.h.i.+ng away the day's dust from travel.

"I see you know about nature's soap." That approving comment from Alex made Merry whirl in the water to find him now naked, a bare few feet away in the water and moving closer.

"That is what my mother called it, too," she said, watching him warily. "She taught it to me on our first journey to visit Kade when I was young. She said it did the trick as well as the perfumed soap at home, but I think she preferred it."

Alex nodded, but continued forward until he could reach her. Catching her hand in his, he tugged her forward through the water toward him, murmuring, "Do not look at me with such bruised eyes. You make me feel an ogre for reprimanding you about accepting aid and advice."

Merry was slightly startled at his calling it a reprimand. It hadn't sounded like the sort of reprimand she was used to giving. But for all its soft couching, his words had certainly felt like one to her, she acknowledged, and wondered if perhaps she hadn't been approaching her father and brothers all wrong all these years. Perhaps a soft, firm voice and hard eyes would have been more effective on them as well.

Nay, Merry decided in the next moment. They would have listened to that no more than her snapping, barking, and yelling. Her father and brothers were simply incorrigible. She, however, was proving to be ridiculously sensitive. Something she would never have expected. Her father and brothers could call her a shrew without penetrating her hide, and yet this man showed his disappointment and disapproval with soft words and a look and she was hurt. It was all rather bewildering to her.

"Stop thinking so hard," Alex said, and Merry did at once, though not because he'd told her to. He had tugged her against his warm body in the water and she suddenly found it quite difficult to hold on to her poor thoughts.

Her ability to think was not improved when he began to kiss her. Alex was holding her up slightly in the water so that their heads were on a level. It meant he needn't bend to kiss her, but also that her feet were now groundless and floating free in the water. They immediately b.u.mped against and tangled with his under water even as her b.r.e.a.s.t.s rubbed across his chest above, and Merry was actually startled by the sudden roar of desire that went through her.

"Should we no' go back and join the others?" she asked on a little breathless gasp when his mouth left hers and began to ease down her throat as he lifted her up farther out of the water. "They'll be preparin' the sup and makin' camp and may need help."

Alex's answer was to close his lips over her nipple and draw it into his mouth.

Merry s.h.i.+vered in the cool water and tilted her head back on a groan, giving up any further protest. If her husband wished to bed her again, it was her duty to submit, was it not? That thought had barely run through her mind when he was suddenly gathering her in his arms and carrying her toward sh.o.r.e.

"Are we going back?" she asked with surprise.

"Nay. I am hungry."

That answer merely confused Merry, but they had reached the sh.o.r.e, and her mind was taken up with further confusion when Alex moved to set her on a larger boulder next to the one she'd laid her gown on. While the water had felt cold on first entering, the evening air now felt chill on being out, and she s.h.i.+vered and quickly sat up to reach for her gown once he'd released her.

"I shall warm you," Alex said, taking the gown away. He tossed it back on the neighboring rock and then urged her to recline on the boulder as his warm body came down over her.

"Ye said ye were hungry," she reminded him in a whisper as he caught her hands and raised them over her head.

"Aye, and I am. For you," he explained in a low growl, and proceeded to try to devour her. At least that was how it felt to Merry. He started with a kiss, his mouth hard and demanding on hers as his hands released hers and slid to find her still wet b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Merry gasped into his mouth and arched into his touch, and then moaned with disappointment as he broke the kiss to begin traveling down her body. That disappointment died a quick death when he paused to graze at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s again, drawing moans and mewls of need and pleasure from her that were quickly followed by renewed disappointment and then confusion as his lips continued farther downward. He trailed kisses down her stomach, making the muscles there jump and sing. Her eyes popped open, and she peered down at him with confusion, unsure why he would bother kissing her there, but that confusion was joined by something like alarm when his kisses continued farther and began to trail to her hip and then in toward her thigh.

"Husband, I-" Merry began uncertainly, for some reason feeling suddenly vulnerable. It was as far as she got, however. In the next moment, she was sucking in a startled gasp as his mouth dipped between her legs to trail up her thigh. Merry was too shocked to speak at that point, and then he reached and pressed a kiss to the very core of her, and she completely lost the ability of speech. Merry was suddenly torn between the urge to catch him by the hair and tug his head away, and the equally strong urge to catch him by the hair and urge him on. This was like nothing she'd ever experienced, and certainly nothing she'd ever imagined might happen between a man and woman, but it was also...

"Dear G.o.d," she gasped, dropping back on the rock and grabbing for something, anything to hold on to as he began to lave and nibble at the very core of her. He was eating her alive and she liked it.

Oh, this had to be a sin, she thought a bit hysterically, and then gave up thinking altogether as he caught her by the hips and drew her closer to the edge of the boulder so that he could bury his face between her legs and do unspeakable things to her. Truly, they were unspeakable. She had no idea what he was doing, but it had just raised her temperature almost unbearably high and left her mind a ma.s.s of feverish mush in her head.

Merry found herself shaking her head madly from side to side on the hard boulder, her nails sc.r.a.ping over the stone she was trying to hold on to, and legs s.h.i.+fting almost violently in his hold as she tried to escape the caress and grind herself into it at the same time.

It was more than a relief when the tension he was stoking inside her suddenly snapped. Merry screamed out as it poured over her, white lights exploding behind her eyes as her mind took a brief hiatus and her body shuddered and pulsed with the sensations coursing through her. When she came back from her pleasure trip it was to find Alex standing between her legs and using his hold on her hips to drag her across the boulder's surface until she reached the edge. Her eyes dropped to half mast as she spread her legs wider for him, and then he was thrusting himself into her and stirring her tender pa.s.sions all over again.

Merry immediately sat up and wrapped herself around him. Still panting and gasping breathlessly from the first round, she clutched at him desperately as he drove her back into that land of pleasure again. This time, however, he joined her there himself.

chapter Seven.

W e should rejoin the others." Alex spoke the words reluctantly as he watched Merry emerge from the river. She'd barely rested a moment after their lovemaking before scampering back into the water. He'd been more reluctant to move himself, and had simply sat on the boulder and watched her splash about in the chill water. Now his eyes swam over her body as she hurried back to sh.o.r.e, noting how the cold made her nipples erect and how the water s.h.i.+mmered like diamonds on her skin under the last rays of the dying sun.

It soon became obvious that, despite what they'd done last night and just now, his wife was still shy before him. Merry didn't actually raise her hands to cover herself, but did move quickly and then positioned herself so her back was to him as she swiftly used her s.h.i.+ft to dry herself. Deprived of the vision of her generous b.r.e.a.s.t.s, Alex found his eyes dropping to her behind as she ran the cloth over her body in a cursory effort. His gaze slid over the rounded cheeks, remembering how they had felt in his hands, until she suddenly tossed the s.h.i.+ft aside and tugged her gown on over her head.

Alex sighed with disappointment as the pale blue cloth dropped like a curtain, ending his view, but knew it was probably a good thing. Just those few moments of watching her naked had made interest slide through him again, stirring his shaft to half mast, and he knew that much more and he would have propelled himself off the boulder, strode over, and given her reason to clean up yet again.

Not that that was a bad thing, Alex thought, but it was growing dark and he was hungry for food, and they should really get back to the others before they sent out a search party. By now camp should be set up and a meal would be being prepared. Besides, he could always have her again later, in the comfort and privacy of their tent. Out here in the open, privacy was something of an uncertainty. Any of the men could have stumbled on them in their search for game to cook for the sup, or a private spot of their own to tend to personal matters.

A murmur from Merry drew Alex's gaze her way, and he frowned as he saw her moving off into the trees. He was about to call her back when he realized that she'd said something about tending to personal matters. Realizing she was looking for a private spot to relieve herself, he merely called out to her not to go far and then forced himself to get off the boulder and get moving himself. A quick dip in the river took care of the fledgling erection watching his wife had brought about, and then Alex, too, dried off and began to dress. He'd just donned his braies when he realized he, too, had some relieving to do.

Alex paused and glanced around. He was less concerned about privacy than embarra.s.sing his new bride by accidentally stumbling onto her spot in the woods, so shrugged and moved to a small copse of bushes growing at the base of the small cliff that backed the clearing. He'd just finished tending to business and begun to tuck himself back in his braies when he heard a slight grinding sound from above. Pausing, Alex raised his head. He couldn't see anything but the face of the cliff from this angle, however, so started to step back, and then sucked in an alarmed breath and turned to run as a boulder suddenly rolled off the cliff and plummeted toward him.

He wasn't quick enough. While Alex managed to save himself from having the boulder slam down directly on his head, it still caught him on the edge of the shoulder. He grunted in pain as it struck and then grunted again as he fell under the weight and slammed his head on something hard.

Anxious at the idea of anyone stumbling upon her in such a private, undignified moment, Merry took her time about choosing her spot. She also went a little farther into the woods than she normally might have. But it wasn't a worry since she knew she merely had to follow the sound of the waterfalls to find her way back to her husband, so she wouldn't get lost. However, by the time Merry finished and headed back, she was sure Alex was probably dressed and waiting impatiently for her return. An apology was trembling on the tip of her tongue as she stepped back into the clearing, but it died unspoken as she heard a grinding sound and saw her husband peering up at the cliff he stood facing. She followed his gaze, eyes widening in alarm as she saw the boulder plunging down at him.

Merry thought she caught a glimpse of a figure disappearing into the trees on the cliff above, but paid it little attention, her concern with her husband as she saw the boulder crash down, hitting his shoulder in a punis.h.i.+ng blow and knocking him to the ground.

Crying out, she rushed forward at once, flying across the clearing to kneel at his side and eye his still body where he'd sprawled. He lay on his stomach in only his braies, and the first wound she saw was the one to his shoulder and upper arm. The boulder had sc.r.a.ped away a layer of flesh and she knew it would be sore, stiff, and bruised by morning, but was more concerned by the blood just visible on the side of his forehead. She could see a good-sized rock sticking out from under his head and cursed as she realized his head had crashed into it as he fell, just worsening matters.

Merry turned Alex onto his back, the ch.o.r.e taking enough effort that she was a bit breathless by the time she finished. Truly, her husband was a large man, and limp as he was, turning him was difficult. But she managed the task and then leaned forward to peer at his head wound. It didn't look terribly bad. However, head wounds were tricky, and the fact that all her pus.h.i.+ng and prodding to turn him hadn't woken him up was troubling.

Worry knitting her brow, Merry sat back and glanced around the clearing. She then got back to her feet and rushed over to grab her s.h.i.+ft from where it lay across her mare's saddle. Alex must have put it there. She'd left it lying on the ground where she'd dropped it earlier, intending to pick it up when she returned. Now she carried the cloth to the water's edge and quickly wet it in the river before hurrying back to her husband.

Merry cleaned the blood away, her eyes narrowing on the wound left behind. It wasn't really very deep and looked much less nasty once the blood was gone, but that didn't make her worry lessen. Head wounds were a serious business and he was still showing no sign of waking. She held the cold damp cloth to his forehead and spoke his name, but he didn't even stir. After repeating both actions several times, she finally sat back and peered around the clearing again.

The sun was setting, the day darkening, and the clearing that had been so bright and sunny when they'd entered was growing chill and taking on shadows that were making her anxious. It would soon be full dark. While Merry was relatively sure that so long as there was light she could find her way back to the clearing where she thought Alex had intended to camp, she was less certain of being able to do so in the dark. It was so easy to get yourself turned around in the woods at night.

On top of that, she wasn't positive the camp would be where she thought. She hadn't asked at the time, but had just a.s.sumed. What if it wasn't there and she had to hunt up the camp? Would she find it in the dark? And even if she did, could she find her way back here to bring help to her husband?

Merry had barely had the thought when she recalled the grinding sound she'd heard as she'd entered the clearing and the quick flash she'd had of someone disappearing into the trees on the cliff above. Biting her lip, she lifted her head to peer up. The grinding suggested the boulder had been s.h.i.+fted deliberately, and she had caught a glimpse of someone hurrying away. Unfortunately, she hadn't seen the person clearly enough to even say if it had been a man or a woman. Whatever the case, it suggested this hadn't been an accident, which meant leaving Alex here alone while she went for help wasn't a good idea.

Merry fretted over the worries as she peered back at Alex. He looked so helpless lying there half clothed and unconscious. If she couldn't leave him here while she went for help, she would either have to stay here with him or find a way to take him with her.

Her gaze slid around the clearing again. It was probably her imagination, but it seemed to her to be even darker than it had been moments ago. She was also suddenly aware of a rustling in the woods. Her sensible self told her it was probably small animals moving about and foraging for a last bit of food before the day ended, but a less sensible part was imagining villains and wood sprites sneaking about, ready to pounce on her the moment the last light of day died.

A cool breeze brushed across her skin and hair, lifting several strands in what seemed to her to be an almost taunting manner, and Merry felt her lips compress. She had no desire to stay out here alone with her unconscious husband waiting either for him to wake, or for daylight to dawn. She had to somehow get him on his horse and go find the camp. But how was she to manage that?

Merry's gaze slid around the clearing again, looking for inspiration. There was no way she was going to be able to lift the man onto his mount using her own muscle. Just turning him over had proven to be an effort. Lifting him up and tossing him over his saddle...Well, she just couldn't do it.

A soft snicker drew her attention to the other side of the clearing where her mare, Beauty, and her husband's mount both waited patiently for their owners to reclaim them. Merry's eyes narrowed on the animals as she considered her options, and then she was suddenly on her feet and crossing the clearing once more.

Merry murmured soothing words and offered each horse a pat as she quickly untied their reins from the tree Alex had fastened them to. It was enough to soothe Beauty, but Alex's mount kept tossing its head and taking nervous sideways steps as she worked, and she wished she knew the animal's name. Unfortunately, if her husband had used it in her presence she hadn't been paying attention and caught it, so she had to waste a moment trying to soothe the beast before leading both horses back to her husband. Merry then tied the reins of Alex's mount to a nearby tree before leading her mare to stand on the far side of the stallion so that the larger horse stood between Alex and the mare.

The bit of rope Alex had attached to the end of her mare's reins earlier in the day was still fastened. Merry now pa.s.sed the undone end of it over the stallion's back and then rushed around the animal to see that it was long enough to reach all the way to the ground where her husband lay. Relieved, she caught the end of the rope and then considered her husband.

Her thought was that if she tied the rope to Alex and then had her mare back away it should drag him up off the ground and across his saddle. That was if his stallion stood still and her mare cooperated and backed away when she ordered and then stopped when she ordered it as well. Otherwise, this could be something of a debacle.

Pus.h.i.+ng away such negative thoughts, Merry began to tie the rope around his wrists, but then paused and undid that to wrap her s.h.i.+ft around his wrists first as she realized that the rope might burn him and injure him further. Once satisfied that she'd done all she could to keep from further harming her husband, Merry straightened and moved around to her mare to begin urging her away from the stallion. She tried to watch what was happening to her husband as she worked the mare, but the stallion was in the way, and after only a couple of steps, she made the mare halt and then ran back around the stallion to look. Alex's arms were now raised, but that was about it.

Grimacing, she ran back to her mare and urged her forward half a dozen steps this time before running back to check. Merry was glad she had when she saw the peril her husband was in. While her trick seemed to be working and Alex was half off the ground with his wrists almost to the top of the saddle, his head was hanging down and forward just below his mount's belly. Another step or two and the back of his head would have caught on his horse's stomach, and if she'd continued to move the mare forward, forcing him upward...well, it was just a good thing she'd stopped to check.

Merry gave his stallion a pat for standing so perfectly still during the operation, and then moved to Alex's side to bring his head up and back a bit so that it wouldn't catch on the horse. However, the moment she released it, it fell forward again.

Cursing, she glanced around, her eyes falling on a branch that lay a few feet away. It was a good three feet long and about an inch thick and should do the trick. Letting Alex's head fall forward once more, she rushed over to grab the item. Returning to his side, Merry then lifted his head again, muttered an apology to her unconscious husband, and held his head in place by catching a handful of his hair while she placed the stick across his upper arms. She then eased her hold on his hair. A slow breath of relief slipped from her lips when his head moved forward, only to be stopped by the branch.

Satisfied that she'd taken care of the problem, Merry then ran around the stallion to urge Beauty forward another few steps and kept doing so, urging the mare forward a step or two and then rus.h.i.+ng back to check on Alex before urging her forward again. The exercise took much longer than she'd expected and the sun was gone from the sky, its last dying rays casting a shadowy light by the time she had her husband lying across his mount's saddle.

Eager to get moving before that last bit of light was gone, Merry quickly untied the rope from her mare's reins and then bent to reach under her husband's stallion to fasten the other end to his ankles so that she needn't fear his falling off the beast and having to go through all this again on the way back. Once she had him trussed up to her satisfaction, she then caught his stallion's reins and mounted her mare.

While the sun was now gone, the moon was up and the clearing was still light enough to see in when she finally put her heels to her mare's side and urged her to move slowly out of it. However, the path along the river had thick woods on one side and a light scattering of trees along the water's edge on the other. It was enough to make it quite dark and a bit scary as she urged her mare forward at little more than a walk. Merry wanted to go faster but worried that doing so might jostle her husband enough that he might slide off the saddle. Tied as he was, he would merely hang under his horse's belly, but then there was a risk of his being unintentionally kicked by one of his horse's hooves as the animal walked, and she didn't wish that.

Still, Merry would have liked to go faster and found her gaze sliding nervously over the dark shapes surrounding them as they moved. She'd had the uncomfortable feeling that she was being watched as she'd worked to get Alex on his horse, and recalling the figure on the cliff, had kept glancing warily to the trees. But it had slowed her down, and she'd finally forced herself to ignore it and concentrate on what she was doing. Now, however, she eyed the darkness crouching all around her with more than a little anxiety.

She couldn't get the memory of the grinding sound out of her mind. If it weren't for that, she could have convinced herself the whole thing had been an accident, but the grinding suggested moving the boulder had been difficult, not a result of someone leaning against it and accidentally sending it plummeting off the cliff. Someone had deliberately pushed it down on Alex. She had no idea why anyone would want to do that, but it seemed to her to be the most logical deduction and raised a wagonload of anxieties and worries in her mind. Why would someone wish to kill Alex? And more importantly, might they still attack now despite her presence? Were she and Alex in danger?

Merry forced herself to take a few deep breaths to steady her nerves, telling herself that if they'd intended to strike with her there they would have done so back in the clearing while she was distracted with trying to get Alex onto his mount. She then concentrated on the dark landscape around her. Merry hadn't been paying much attention to where Alex had left the woods for the path along the river's edge, but it didn't seem to her that they'd ridden along the river for this long on the way to the clearing. She reminded herself that she was moving much more slowly now than they'd been riding on the way out, but was still starting to worry that she'd ridden right by the path without seeing it.

Merry was just starting to think she should stop and turn back when someone stepped out onto the path before her. She wouldn't even have seen him in the darkness had a stray ray of moonlight not caught on the sword he carried. Tense as she was, she couldn't hold back a short shriek of surprise as she yanked on her mare's reins to draw her to a halt.

"My lady?"

Merry let her breath out on a slow, embarra.s.sed breath as she recognized the voice of her husband's squire.

"G.o.dfrey," she breathed with relief.

"Aye, my lady." He put his sword away and moved up beside her mare's head. "Why are you alone? Where is-?" The second question ended on a gasp as G.o.dfrey spotted his lord lying over the saddle on the second horse. He was at his lord's side at once, lifting his head to take in his unconscious face. His voice cracked with alarm as he asked, "What happened?"

"Someone pushed a boulder off the cliff in the clearing where we stopped to bathe," Merry said bluntly.

"What?" G.o.dfrey asked, turning an alarmed face her way.

She nodded unhappily. "It struck Alex on the shoulder and knocked him down. He hit his head on a rock on the ground when he fell."

"He is not-?" G.o.dfrey turned back to his lord, hesitating to even speak the fear that the man might be dead.

"Nay, of course not," Merry said at once, and then quickly dismounted. She joined the boy at her husband's side to be sure that was true. Alex had been alive when they'd left the clearing, but with head wounds one could not be certain. Thankfully, he was still breathing. His warm breath on her hand when she put it before his face told her that.

Merry let her hand drop and then glanced to G.o.dfrey. "'Tis glad I am ye came along. I was beginnin' to fear I'd missed the path back to the clearin'."

"Nay. 'Tis just ahead. You would have seen the fire through the trees in another moment."

Merry raised an eyebrow at this and asked curiously, "Where were ye headed?"

"To drain the dragon," he murmured, his distracted gaze still on his lord. Then, realizing what he'd said, he glanced at her quickly. "I mean-"

"'Tis all right," Merry a.s.sured him with the first smile she'd managed since her husband had been knocked unconscious. "I ha'e brothers and they've said worse in me presence."

G.o.dfrey did not look like her rea.s.surance made him feel much better. Merry gave his shoulder a soothing pat and then turned back to gather her mare's reins in hand. She didn't ask why he'd had his sword out if he was just going to find a spot to relieve himself. She would have been grateful to have a sword for this ride through the dark woods. It would have eased her fears some, and she suspected that was the reason for it with him. Not wis.h.i.+ng to embarra.s.s him further by making him admit it, she wished him good eve and began to urge the horses forward again, but then glanced to him with surprise when he remained beside her.

"I shall see you safely back," G.o.dfrey said, his shoulders up and back and his head held high in a fas.h.i.+on she supposed he thought was manly.

"There's no need to trouble yerself. If 'tis close by I will find it. Ye go on about yer business," she urged quietly, but wasn't surprised when he ignored her suggestion and continued at her side.

They'd walked no more than half a dozen steps when Merry spotted the path as well as the glow of firelight through the trees. Another couple of steps and the smell of roasting meat reached her and then they were stepping out of the trees and into the clearing.

Merry's eyes widened as she glanced around. A lot had been accomplished while she and Alex were by the waterfall. The horses were all tended, several rabbits had been caught and now roasted over the fire, and a tent now stood on the far side of the open area. Her eyes widened further with surprise at the luxury of a tent and then moved over the men who had all suddenly stopped moving and were now peering back as wide-eyed as she was. And then everyone started moving and talking at once.

Merry took a step back at the confusion of questions suddenly shot at her. It was a relief when Gerhard suddenly came from the side, his voice louder and carrying more authority than the others as he asked, "What happened?"

"I believe someone pushed a boulder down on Alex after we finished bathing," Merry admitted as he lifted Alex's head to peer at his face. She then explained what had taken place before adding, "I didn't actually see the person push the boulder down, but..." She shrugged unhappily.

Expression grim, Gerhard nodded and released Alex's head, allowing it to hang down again as he bent to untie the cloth from his hands and feet. Several men stepped forward to help ease Alex off his horse's back and then they glanced to Gerhard in question.