Celtic Bride Read Online Free PDF Page B

experienced so far, one that seemed to be the result of the earl’s gentle touch. But how could that be? She’d never heard of such a thing.
    “Aye,” Marcus replied. “He sliced you when you fell.”
    “Wh-what happened back there?” Keelin asked. She felt shaky and light-headed now that the threat was done. “How did I…Why did the scoundrel let me loose?”
    “We heard your scream,” Marcus began. One of his men handed him a clean cloth and a stoppered crock of ointment that he used to daub at the thin slice on her neck. “I came after you, as did Marquis Kirkham—the Englishman who routed the Celts after they attacked our party.”
    Keelin furrowed her brow and shook her head in puzzlement. “Where did the marquis come from? How did he—”
    “I know as little as you, my lady,” Marcus replied. “Kirkham arrived in the woods behind you and the Celt, just about the time I got there.”
    “Aye, my lord,” one of the men said. “Lord Kirkham rode up just as we heard the lady cry out.”
    “I kept the Celt distracted,” Marcus continued, “while Kirkham used his whip on the man.”
    “That was the crackin’ sound that made him drop me?”
    Marcus nodded. “Kirkham has a fondness for the whip,” he said, “though he’s a skilled swordsman as well.”
    Keelinwinced at the stinging caused by the ointment. “Sword or whip,” she said as he wrapped a clean length of cloth around her neck. “I’m grateful to the man for comin’ along when he did.” Then Keelin stayed his hand with one of her own as she looked into his light-blue eyes. “You have my thanks as well, Lord Wrexton.”
    She saw color burst in his cheeks, then flush down his neck and out to the tips of his ears. His diffidence endeared him to her as much as his strong, powerful presence had done earlier.
    Keelin would have touched the bit of golden hair that had fallen over his forehead, but she dropped her hand midway when Marquis Kirkham arrived in the clearing. He was tall and powerfully made, with a visage as fierce and dark as the very devil. Keelin could almost believe the man had routed the Celtic mercenaries single-handedly.
    “What say you, Marcus?” the big nobleman said, slurring his words. Keelin realized the man was drunk! “I’ve been mopping up after you all day!”
    Marcus did not respond to the man’s sarcasm, for he was accustomed to Kirkham’s brooding and sarcasm. Instead, he merely finished tying Keelin’s bandage in place. Keelin, however, took exception to the drunken newcomer’s speech. Such loose and foolish talk would never have gone unchallenged in her father’s keep. She stood and faced the man.
    “M’lord,” she said firmly, “can ye not know of the young lord’s loss? His own father was slain this very day, yet here ye jest—”
    “Is this true, Marcus?” the marquis asked earnestly. Thecaptious mischief in his eyes faded and his posture straightened. “Did Eldred fall to those savages?”
    Marcus gave a curt nod and turned away. Kirkham followed, and the two men disappeared from Keelin’s view.
    Keelin sensed a terrible turmoil in the marquis, in spite of his drunkenness, but she was unable to understand any more of the man. Perhaps, she thought, he had good reason for overimbibing, but her intuition failed to give further insight.
    She touched the bandage at her neck and thought again how close she’d come to losing her life. What would have happened to the clan then, if Ga Buidhe an Lamhaigh was lost? Keelin’s urgency to return to Carrauntoohil doubled, though the means by which she was to get there were unclear. Somehow, Keelin would see her uncle safely to Wrexton, and then make the trip to Kerry on her own.
    Marcus did not feel the chill of the early evening. He was never one to be subject to the cold, but in the last few minutes, he’d been suffused with heat.
    It was entirely the woman’s fault.
    He would have liked a few moments to himself to savor the experience of holding