The Bride Hunt by Margo Maguire Read Free Book Online

water to keep them from crashing into the rocks as they approached the narrow projection of land. The boat wobbled dangerously as Anvrai raised himself and reached out to take hold of a sharp projection of rock, and the force of the rocking knocked the oar out of her hands. “ Sweet Gesu! ” she cried.
    The boat slammed into the promontory and pitched toward the land. “Jump for it and pull in the currach!”
    Isabel eyed the shore. Anvrai asked the impossible. She couldn’t possibly make it.
    “You can do it, Isabel!” The wind and rain tore at his tunic and whipped his flaxen hair across his face.
    “’Tis too far!” And there was no gradual increment of land. The water off the ledge was deep.
    The boat jerked suddenly, swinging closer to the land. Isabel stood abruptly and jumped, then quickly reached out for the currach. Anvrai extended the remaining oar to her, and she managed to take hold of it.
    “Pull!”
    “I am!”
    A moment later, the side of the boat hit the rocky ridge of land, and Isabel used both hands to grab hold of it. “Hang on to it!” he shouted over the wind. “I’ll get Roger.”
    Ignoring the pain in her hands, Isabel braced herself against a low shrub and watched Anvrai lift Roger from the currach, talking to him, cajoling him to help himself until they were free of the currach.
    “Don’t let go of the boat!” Anvrai and Roger collapsed onto the ground, but Anvrai did not rest. With inhuman strength, he took Isabel’s place and hauled the front of the boat out of the water. Then he levered the back of it onto the ledge. When it was safely on land, he draggedRoger as far inland as they could go, mayhap ten paces, to the rocky wall.
    There was a small sheltered area, under an earthen ledge, beside a sturdy pine tree. It protected them from the worst of the wind and rain, and Isabel collapsed there, shivering beside Roger, and watched as Anvrai pulled the currach all the way up to them. He positioned it on its side in front of the shallow enclosure, then slipped in beside Isabel.
    “Your hands are bleeding.”
    They were too cold for her to notice the pain anymore, but Anvrai took them between his own hands, raised them to his mouth, and blew his warm breath upon them. Isabel was too exhausted and cold to feel repulsed by the touch of this scarred and barbaric man. She concentrated her attention on the top of his head, away from the ugly scars that marred his visage.
    “Roger is ill.”
    “Aye,” Sir Anvrai replied.
    “Is there anything we can do for him?”
    “Not here. We must rest and wait out the storm.”
    “Then what shall we do?”
    “We’ll get back in the currach and continue on.”
    “We cannot.”
    Anvrai stopped working on her hands and frowned at her. “Why not?”
    “Because the river flows west,” she said. “It has carried us miles out of our way.”

Chapter 5
    ’T was nearly noon when Anvrai awakened. The rain had stopped, and the sky was beginning to clear. Isabel continued to sleep, and Roger was likely not merely asleep, but unconscious. The bruise on his head boded ill for him, if that was what had caused his vomiting. Anvrai had some skill at healing, and he knew a blow to the head could cause death many hours after the fact. But there was naught to be done for the lad. Anvrai had no herbs or potions. He could not even keep them warm. If the boy died, Isabel would have to find herself another husband.
    The lady’s hair had dried, though ’twas a tangled mass of dark curls. She was muchcleaner than when he’d discovered her climbing from the chieftain’s hut.
    He wondered what had really happened inside that cottage. Surely the lady had not killed the man as she thought. No Norman woman, especially not one as gently bred as Lady Isabel, could have overcome the dark-bearded chieftain and killed him with his own knife. There had to be another explanation.
    Isabel lay on her side with her head pillowed upon one arm, her hands tucked together under