Search
Shona was whisked along the corridor to her chamber by what seemed like an army of angry men, one of them carrying Ruadh. She trembled with fear, despite Ewan’s firm grip on her hand. Ailig Morley had somehow managed to infiltrate the castle again and he’d taken her darling aunt. She didn’t want to contemplate the suffering the cruel coward might be inflicting on Jeannie—if she was still alive.
On first hearing the news of her disappearance, Ewan had protested he’d watched Jeannie enter her apartment. The color drained from his face when the truth dawned. No amount of reassurance could dissuade him he’d allowed the worst to happen. “The bastard was already there,” he growled. “Just waiting.”
She wasn’t guiltless either. Ewan’s preoccupation had been with her.
She sorrowed too for Fynn who strode alongside his laird, his face as grim as death.
Ruadh sighed his contentment when he was put down on Shona’s bed.
Ewan bestowed a brief kiss on her lips once she and Moira were safely inside. “Bar the door. Ye’re to remain here and open to no one but me,” he told her, handing her his dagger.
She watched her maid drop the bar after he left, then stared at the heavy blade in her hands. “I canna move, Moira.”
A gentle hand took her arm. “Come, lie down a wee while. We must pray all will be well. Ruadh will comfort ye.”
“They have to be in the castle somewhere,” she murmured as Moira bade her sit on the mattress, took the dagger and eased off her shoes.
“Aye. Every entry and exit has been guarded since ye returned. They’ll find him.”
Shona wiped away a tear trickling down her cheek as she curled up with her beloved hound. “It’s like he’s a ghost.”
*
With Walter’s help, Ewan organized a thorough search of Creag Castle. Intuition told him the tower was the likeliest place to search. Ailig had apparently taken Beathan MacCarron by surprise there, which seemed strange since Shona’s father obviously knew the tower well.
With Fynn and David, he combed through every stairwell, alcove, landing, storage room and chamber—twice. To no avail.
Exiting the door to the rooftop, they paced the length and breadth of it, peering into every sentry box, and opening the lids of every iron chest.
Nothing but rusted lances and arrows with decayed fletching. The defensive arsenals would need to be refurbished once the crisis was over.
Fynn seemed to retreat into his own private hell. Ewan understood. If it were Shona in Ailig’s grasp again…
David wisely refrained from offering sympathy, simply expressing his solidarity with a firm hand on his kinsman’s shoulder.
As arranged, they met up with Walter and his men in the Map Room, frustrated to learn the search had turned up no trace of Jeannie or her abductor. He was surprised to see Kendric slumped in a chair, a plaid thrown over his nightshirt, pain etched on his face. “I insisted they carry me here when I heard the news,” he explained. “I felt useless in bed.”
Unable to pace in the tiny room, Ewan’s feeling of helplessness grew. He blurted out a question that was on everyone’s mind. “And where the fyke is Mungo?” he thundered. “The Morleys canna just appear and disappear like phantoms.”
He was at a disadvantage in a castle he didn’t know at all. He was familiar with every nook and cranny of Roigh Hall, though the Mackinloch seat had been added on to by successive generations. He knew every hidey-hole and…
“Wait,” he exclaimed. “The tower was built after the castle, right?”
“Aye,” Kendric confirmed, “but that was hundreds o’ years ago.”
“Think back,” Ewan exhorted the men crowded into the room. “Who were the masons of the clan at that time? Who designed the tower?”
“I dinna ken,” Kendric replied, “and I doot anyone alive today kens that.”
Ewan’s hopes fell. “I was thinking mayhap if alterations were made that only certain folk had knowledge of.”
Shona’s uncle scratched his beard. “Weel, the whole castle was refurbished by the thirteenth chief.”
Ewan tried to work out his place in the order of MacCarron chiefs. “When was that?”
“Funny thing,” Kendric mused, “his name was Ewen.”
The muttered agreement in the room did nothing to lessen Ewan’s impatience. “And?”
“Aye,” Walter added. “Ewen MacCarron of Lochisle. Fifteen hundred and something as I recollect. There’s an escutcheon over the main door of the tower with the date the improvements were completed. Funny how ye see something every day and pay scant attention.”
Ewan clenched his fists, not sure if this new knowledge was significant. “Not that long ago,” he said hopefully. “Mayhap there were plans, sketches?”
He wondered if he’d spoken in Greek when silent stares greeted his question. Men scratched heads, chins, earlobes, even crotches. The air reeked of impotent worry.
“Didna end well for that chief,” Walter muttered. “Executed for treason in Stirling after the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh.”
Fynn broke the ominous silence. “Lady Jeannie is in the tower.”
“But ye’ve searched,” Kendric countered.
Ewan couldn’t ignore the pleading look in Fynn’s eyes. “How can ye be so sure?”
Fynn shook his head and swallowed hard. “When a mon cares about a woman, he kens things about her. The way she says things, what it means when she tilts her head or fidgets with her sleeves.”
A murmur of agreement scythed through the gathering.
Kendric shifted his weight in the chair. “But what’s that to do with the matter at hand?”
Fynn braced his legs. Ewan admired the dour warrior who had already disclosed more of his feelings than most men ever would, but sensed there was more.
“I’d recognize Jeannie’s scent anywhere,” Fynn declared.
Ewan knew exactly what he meant. “Ye detected her perfume in the tower?” he asked.
“Aye. Without a doot.”
*
Ruadh’s familiar doggy smell was comforting as Shona raked her fingers through the wiry fur. The ostler had stitched his wound and it seemed to be healing well. The hound sighed deeply as Shona scratched his belly. “Daft dog,” she teased. “Did I thank ye for saving my life?”
He looked at her with soulful eyes as if to let her know he didn’t mind the oversight.
“All in a day’s work, I suppose,” she whispered.
He startled, actually raising his head when Ewan’s voice preceded a rap at the door. “Shona. Let me in.”
Her heart stuttered at his grim tone.
She slid off the bed and went into his arms as he crossed the threshold after Moira lifted the bar. “No sign?”
“Nay,” he confirmed, “we’ve searched high and low. It sounds unlikely, but Fynn seems to think he caught a whiff of Jeannie’s perfume in the tower.”
“Rosemary,” Shona replied. “She uses it when she washes her hair; however, she hasna set foot in the tower since Da died.”
His eyes widened. “That supports my theory there’s a secret passage or concealed room in the tower.”
She gripped his hands, almost afraid to hope. “Mayhap when they refurbished the castle in the last century.”
“That’s a possibility we discussed, but we have no records of the work that was done. I need Ruadh’s nose.”
“But he canna climb so many steps.”
“I’ll carry him,” he countered. “Come with me to Jeannie’s chamber and find something of hers he can track.”