Chapter 13
Lachlan stormed down the stairs, ready to give his sister and Oliver the scare of their lives. As he neared the door, he slowed and took a deep breath. Oliver seemed a good young man, even though he let Catie lead him around by the nose.
Lachlan paused a moment before barging in to remember when he first saw his darling wife. He’d just arrived in her time and didn’t know up from down. Her odd accent had thrown him and he hadn’t trusted her one bit. All he wanted was to return to his proper time. The more he got to know Piper, the more he realized he’d never go back. Not without her. He would turn the world inside out for her, so he supposed he could understand why Oliver put up with Catie. The lad must honestly love the wee brat.
Instead of throwing the door open and giving them his most fearsome snarl, he merely pushed it open a bit abruptly and raised a brow at them. They still jumped and scrambled away from each other.
Before he could say a thing, Catie threw her arms around him. “Ye must congratulate me, Lach. Oliver has offered to make an honest woman of me at last.”
Oliver cleared his throat. “Not that she was ever dishonest, sir. I mean— I hope you understand.”
Lachlan laughed and patted Catie’s back before setting her aside. “What an inconvenient time to get betrothed.” When Oliver’s face turned red, he quickly added, “But I’m pleased for ye, dinna think I’m not. It’s only I think we should keep it our secret until we’ve sorted out this ancestor business.”
“But why?” Catie asked, trying to look abashed but too happy.
Lachlan was glad to see it. She’d always been an unruly child and the last time she’d visited, she had a constant restlessness about her. Thinking she’d want one thing but changing her mind and flitting after something else. Trying to run away to Spain was probably not even the most dangerous thing she’d ever done. But now she finally looked at ease.
He hated to steal her joy, but it was only for a little while. He prayed it would only be a little while longer until they had some solid answers about Bridget’s and her husband’s whereabouts.
“Because Piper has enough to worry about without planning a wedding in the back of her mind. And I promise if ye were to tell her this joyous news, she’d instantly start tallying up how many garlands to festoon the castle with, how many twinkle lights she can manage to have without blinding anyone, and other such nonsense. The woman is addicted to shopping and planning a wedding apparently takes a lot of shopping.”
His sister got a gleam in her eyes. “I didna even think that far ahead yet. But of course we must have a wedding here so ye and Piper can attend. And then we can have another on the farm and another in London so Oliver’s family and Aunt Amberly won’t feel left out.”
“Or they could just travel to Scotland,” Oliver croaked.
He didn’t look anywhere near as excited as Catie did about the prospect of three weddings. Lachlan smiled fondly at them, wondering if he should let them tell Piper. Perhaps it would take her mind off the current worries. The poor love had looked positively green when he’d left her.
Bloody hell, he thought. Why had he left her? She shouldn’t be alone in her distraught state and he felt better when someone could keep an eye on her. If Piper started to disappear, he meant to grab on and not let her go. Lachlan could not let his beloved Piper go.
“Ye wee fiends made me lose my focus,” he grumbled. “Go along downstairs and get us a table before they’re all taken. I must bring Piper something to change into.”
Catie looked down at her own dressing gown, looking stricken. “Goodness, I completely forgot what I was wearing.”
Lachlan sighed and shooed Oliver away to the dining room. Catie hurriedly gathered up an outfit for Piper and promised she wouldn’t tally.
“I’ll meet ye in the dining room,” she called as he hurried back to his own room.
Terror struck his heart when he found the room empty. She wouldn’t have gone to the common areas of the inn in her dressing gown, and he would have passed her on the stairs if she wanted to go back to her own room to change. Like a madman, he looked under the bed and behind the curtains.
“As if she would hide,” he muttered. There was no way she’d scare him again like she had that morning, going off without telling anyone. “And not dressed as she was,” he reminded himself, feeling sick with dread.
He went to the far end of the hall and looked in the broom closet. He knocked on the other two doors on that floor. No one answered the one and a gruff old man told him to bugger off when he answered the next one.
“I’m looking for my wife,” he asked, sticking his boot in the doorway.
The old man looked him up and down, then gestured to himself. “And why would she be with me when she has a braw young man like yourself? Now leave me be.”
He hurried downstairs, telling himself she must have somehow slipped by him and got back to her room. He knew it couldn’t be the case, but he kept repeating it nonetheless.
As he pounded on her door, Catie opened it, buttoning the top button of her blouse.
“What is it?” she asked. “I’m going as fast as I can. Is Piper dressed already?”
His heart plummeted to find she hadn’t been back to her room As Catie peered around him to the empty hall, he shook his head and raced down the stairs. The sitting room was occupied but not by Piper. The dining area was nearly full and he spied Oliver sitting at a table in the back corner.
“Has Piper been down?” he asked. “If she went on another flower-picking adventure…” He trailed off when Oliver shook his head, looking worried.
“She wasn’t in your room?”
“Nor in Catie’s,” he answered. He didn’t admit to harassing the other guests or checking the closets. He stopped the nearest serving lass. “Have ye seen my wife? Petite, with dark hair? Might have been in her dressing gown?”
The girl looked embarrassed and shrugged. “I’ve not seen her. I think I’d notice a guest in her night clothes.”
He ran to the kitchen and grilled Lisbet and the cook. Then searched the barn and ran around the inn twice. He returned to the dining room winded and sunk into a seat beside Catie. He couldn’t make himself say the words. Catie was cluelessly chattering about what she wanted to eat, but Oliver looked anxiously at him.
“You didn’t find her?” he asked, rising from his seat. “Let’s all split up and check the shops. Some haven’t closed yet and she might have thought of something she needed.”
“She wasna dressed,” Catie said, also standing. As if standing was the same as doing something. But what could they do?
“She wouldna have left the inn without telling one of us,” Lachlan said, his bones aching as he held himself still and rigid. He didn’t want to go to pieces, collapse again in front of everyone. It took all his will not to black out with fear. “Is she— did she—”
“No,” Oliver said forcefully. “We’ll check the shops.”
Lachlan pushed the chair back, shaking as he tried to stand. “Aye, we’ll check the shops.”
“Stay here,” Catie told him, pushing him back into his seat.
He barked at the serving girl when she asked him if he’d like a drink and sat staring at the brick fireplace until his vision blurred. It might have been minutes or hours before Catie and Oliver returned, red-faced and breathing hard from exertion. Catie dropped into the chair next to him and crossed her arms on the table, hiding her face in her sleeves. Her muffled sobs made their way to his ears as if from a great distance.
“We asked everyone we saw in the street,” Oliver said. He stayed standing, gripping the back of the chair. “Checked every shop that was still open and went down every alley.”
“Go out and look again,” he said hoarsely. “Please. I’ll search the inn some more.”
He knocked on all the doors, not caring how looked to the other guests. He must have looked wild because a good lot of the ones who answered their doors tried to slam them again the instant they saw him. He stuck his boot in and asked the same question over and over.
“Please. My wife is missing. Have ye seen her?”
No one had. Despite his common sense telling him she wouldn’t be hiding in closets, he checked every one, even breaking the lock on the door leading to a dusty, cobweb-filled attic. There was old furniture crammed from corner to corner and all the way to the roof. He crushed his way through the rickety pieces, coughing from the dust, his eyes watering from the thought that it might be time to give up.
He ended up at her room and searched it again, foolishly calling her name. He sat down on the bed and lifted one of the pillows to his face to see if her scent lingered on it. An envelope lay on the mattress, addressed to him in Piper’s familiar handwriting. He’d been stabbed quite a few times and the pain he felt as he took out the note and unfolded it was far worse.
My dearest, dearest Lachlan, I think you must know how much I love you and how much I want to have a long life with you. But just in case that isn’t to be, let me try and tell you how much you mean to me here in this letter …
Tears blinded him and he couldn’t continue reading. He clutched the note to his chest and shook his head. Catie and Oliver hadn’t returned yet. There was still hope.
As if to mock him, they burst in before his thought was even completed. Catie came in first, a devastated look on her tear-streaked face. She flung herself onto the bed next to him and cried into her hands. Oliver followed, more subdued but looking equally bereft. Lachlan stared past him, waiting for Piper to show up next. She didn’t.
Lachlan wanted to ask the obvious and stupid question, did they find her? But his teeth were tightly clenched to keep them from chattering.
It was clear they did not find her. It was becoming clear that they never would. Because she was gone. He held the note as tightly as he should have held onto Piper and waited for the heartache to kill him.
The end.