She burst into laughter. “Yes, indeed.”
Just as she placed her gloved palm on his forearm, a red-faced maid plowed across the grounds, her brow stitched with worry.
“My lady,” she said in a breathless rush as if she’d ran some distance. “There ye are.” One hand to her belly, she sucked in great gulps of air. “I feared I’d never find ye in this throng.” Her troubled gaze nervously hopped and skipped over the large crowd. “There are twice as many people this year, I swear.”
“What is it?” Marjorie didn’t know this maid’s name. “Is something amiss?”
Had one of the girls taken ill?
Cora had seemed a trifle warmer than usual when she’d kissed her goodnight, but she’d attributed her heated cheek to her bath and romping with the cats.
“I’m Manny, my lady, and aye, there’s a wee problem.” Her eyes round as saucers, she nervously wadded her apron.
Tempering her impatience, Marjorie prompted, “Which is?”
Manny cut Mr. Brixtone a nervous glance before licking her lips. “Sphynx needed to go outside, ye see. So Phemie took her below and asked a footman to let her out.” She paused long enough to suck in another great breath. “She swears she wasna gone more than five minutes, but upon returnin’, when she peeked in on the lasses…”
“Yes?” Would she get to the point?
Manny swallowed reflexively before whispering in horrified tones, “Cora’s bed was empty.”
Cora and Elana were not above shenanigans or other harmless devilry.
“Have you looked for her?” Well naturally, they had, else why would this maid be out here?
Manny nodded vehemently, her face waxen and pale brown eyes pools of worry.
“Aye, my lady. Phemie immediately called for two footmen and another maid—me—to look for Miss Cora.” She swiped at a tear leaking from one eye. “But we’ve searched for a half an hour, and canna find her.” Her tone had taken on a plaintive quality, causing more than one guest to glance in their direction. “So, Phemie sent me to find ye.”
Marjorie’s heart stopped for an instant and then stampeded out of control. She was already moving toward the castle.
Don’t panic, she admonished herself.
There was a reasonable explanation.
“Thank you, Manny. You may go.”
With a sniff and a nod, the maid hurried away.
Perhaps Cora had awoken and, finding the cat gone, went in search of it.
Yes, that was likely what had happened.
“Is there anything I can do?” Genuine concern puckered Mr. Brixtone’s forehead as he fell into rapid step beside her.
Marjorie strove to keep the dread from her voice and respond calmly. “Please find my brothers-in-law and Roxdale. Tell them, I need them at once.”
Chapter Fourteen
Keane had just lit the bonfire, the flames quickly encompassing the masterfully stacked logs and kindling, when Brixtone urgently demanded his attention.
“Your Grace. Your Grace!” Brixtone said, his tone low and compelling. He’d dropped his air of affected fop, a tapestry of seriousness woven across his features. “A word, please. ’Tis of utmost import.”
“Brixtone? Where is Lady Kennedy?” Keane looked past him, searching for her.
“She asked me to find you at once, Your Grace.”
His face wrinkled in disgust, Brixtone held one foot aloft, shaking it rigorously in an attempt to dislodge a hefty glob of mud stuck to the sole of his shoe. With a sickening plop, it flew off and landed squarely on Lady Constance’s cloak, midway up her thigh.
“You clod! Imbecile. Dolt.” Eyes snapping her revulsion and fury, she curled her lips into an unbecoming sneer as she held her cloak away from her person as if he’d deposited fresh cow manure on the fine, scarlet fabric. “Look what you’ve done, Samson! You’ve ruined my new cloak.”
“I beg your pardon, my lady.” Dismay crumpled his features, more for her harsh treatment than any true remorse for soiling the garment, Keane would vow.
“If it cannot be cleaned, you shall replace it. I must find a maid at once.” She spun on her heel and stomped away, muttering a string of foul, unladylike curses as she pushed and shoved, elbowing her way through the party-goers.
“Ye were sayin’?” Keane asked, grateful to be rid of the cloying termagant.
Brixtone released a beleaguered sigh.
The man wasted his time wooing that one. Lady Constance Abercrombie might dally with a mere mister, but she’d only wed a man with a title.
“One of Lady Kennedy’s daughters has wandered from her bed and cannot be found,” Brixtone explained, his forlorn gaze on Lady Constance’s retreating form.
Keane didn’t bother asking more questions before charging through the teeming crowd. Once beyond the masses, he broke into a run, taking the entry stairs two at a time. There probably wasn’t a cause for concern.
After all, he’d positioned watches everywhere.
No’ the nursery.
Aye, not the nursery, and that was quite possibly a stupid, stupid oversight on his part.
Convinced he was Lorne’s sole target, Keane hadn’t thought it necessary to assign guards to the nursery, as well. Marjorie was certain to have fretted if he had, and since there hadn’t been a single sighting of the blackguard since the day of the fire, he’d kept the extra security to the lower levels.
Damn my eyes.
He burst into the nursery, expecting to see Marjorie there. Instead, he found two maids hunched into chairs, holding hands, their faces tear-stained.
“Where is Lady Marjorie?”
Phemie unfolded slowly from her chair, and voice quavering said, “We havena seen her.” She glanced at the closed door at the far end of the chamber. “Elana still sleeps, though Chimera is also gone now.”
Keane wasn’t worried about the cats. They could take care of themselves, and should any fool antagonize them, they’d receive a nasty surprise by way of needle-sharp teeth and equally lethal claws.
He advanced farther into the tidy chamber, taking in every inch from the shelves of toys to the rocking chairs placed before the fire burning in the hearth. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
In short order, Phemie apprised him of the situation. “I swear, my laird. I wasna gone for more than five minutes. I dinna even go below stairs but handed Sphynx to a passin’ footman.” She shook her head, and withdrawing a handkerchief from her apron pocket, noisily blew her nose. “I dinna see the lass in the corridor as I returned, so she must’ve gone in the other direction.”
Or, had someone made use of a secret passageway and spirited her away?
So far as he knew, only Bothan, Mrs. Dunlap, and Nevin were aware of the passages’ existence.
His breath stalled as his pulse ticked up considerably.
Odin’s bones, teeth, and toes.
Had Bothan told Lorne about them?
Had Lorne used them on previous occasions?
Perhaps to spy on the activities within the keep?
To spy on Keane?
Mayhap there wasn’t an informant at all.
Perchance his wily cousin—brother—he’d never become accustomed to that foul truth, had been sneaking around the castle with no one the wiser for years.
Why hadn’t Keane considered that before?
What an unforgivable oversight on his part.
Camden and Graeme stepped into the room, countenances attentive and somber. As one, they directed their resolved gazes to Keane, their eyes demanding answers for the hundred questions their disciplined tongues held in check.
“Marjorie sent for us?” Graeme asked, taking in every inch of the nursery just as Keane had, his warrior’s instinct evident in his defensive posture and battle-practiced scowl.
Formidable opponents, the Kennedys were good men to have on one’s side in a crisis.
“Cora is missin’. We dinna ken if she wandered off in her sleep, or—” Keane cut a speaking glance at the str
icken maids then jerked his chin toward the doorway, indicating he wanted to finish the conversation in the corridor.
At once, their faces impassive, the Kennedy brothers complied, filing out, their huge shoulders filling the doorframe.
Before stepping into the passageway himself, Keane addressed the maids. “Bolt this door after me, and do no’ open it for anyone but me. Do ye understand? Make sure the windows and other doors are also secured.”
The maids exchanged fretful looks, but bobbed their heads as they said in unison, “Aye, Yer Grace.”
He gave a terse nod and joined his cousins in the corridor. The scratch and scrape of a bolt sliding home met his immediate departure.
Good. Better the maids tremble in fear than make another careless mistake.
Ears flat and to the side, Chimera sauntered down the corridor, her striped tail low and flicking back and forth. She was in a feline snit for some reason.
Where was her sister?
Still outside?
Sphynx detested crowds, and she’d be clawing at the kitchen door in short order if she was.
After prowling near, Chimera nudged his leg hard, emitting a low-pitched growl. Keane didn’t have time to ponder what had her riled.
“Go find yer sister.” He pointed down the passageway.
With a disdainful flick of her tail and a censuring look from her slitted citrine eyes, she presented her back end and trotted away. Several feet along the carpet, she paused, looking over her shoulder and yowling.
“Find yer sister,” he said again. “I havena time for ye right now.”
“That creature makes my hair stand on end,” Camden muttered, eyeing her dubiously. “I’d hate to have her peeved at me. Are ye positive those cats are domesticated?”
“Aye, but they dinna like a lot of people around. It tends to make them tetchy.” Rather like himself. “I need one of ye to stand guard here until my men come up.”
Keane indicated the thick panel with a jab of his thumb.
“I shall.” Camden volunteered, a hand on the Bollock dagger at his waist. His sword hung at his side, and another dirk protruded from his right boot.
Keane faced his other cousin.
“Graeme, unobtrusively inform my guards inside the castle what has happened and send one to alert the sentries outside that we are tryin’ to locate the lass. Have them inconspicuously begin searchin’ the back stairways. I dinna want those celebratin’ Hogmanay to get wind of this. It doesna take much to send a crowd into a panic. In all likelihood, the child wandered into a nook and fell asleep.”
The harsh lines etched onto Camden and Graeme’s rugged faces suggested they didn’t believe that the case any more than he did.
“Is Cora kent to sleepwalk?” Keane shifted his gaze between them, his stomach sinking when both shook their heads.
“Nae,” Graeme said gruffly.
Och, that would be too damned easy.
“Did either of ye see Marjorie on yer way?” Keane asked, mentally ticking off the most likely routes in and out of the castle, as well as the secret passages.
They shook their heads again, trading tense glances.
Their answer unnerved him more than he wanted to admit, even to himself. So help him God, if Lorne had touched a single hair on Marjorie’s or Cora’s heads…
There were only three hidden passages: one from the master chamber to the great hall, and another from outside the bailey to the kitchens. That was probably the one Lorne had used if he’d accessed the keep. Two sets of back stairways led from the kitchens to other levels of the keep, and that was where Keane would have his men start searching.
The third wasn’t truly a passage, but a secret room accessed by panel in the gallery. In prior eras, spies, political refugees, and the like had used the chamber during tumultuous times and rebellions.
He’d shown his guests the smallish hidey-hole during the house tour earlier today.
Cora and Elana had been particularly intrigued and had begged to be permitted inside.
He couldn’t deny their big, pleading blue eyes. After procuring a candle, he’d stood inside, holding it high as the girls, their mother, a few of the more inquisitive guests, and his cats investigated the space. Elana had whispered to her younger sister, quite loudly, that it was a perfect place for little girls to play hide-and-go-seek.
He doubted Cora, small for her age, could reach the secret latch to open the panel concealing the nook. Nonetheless, he’d search there first. According to Marjorie, her girls had a precocious streak, and the lass may have decided to play hide-and-go-seek.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, he flexed his jaw. “Ye should ken, I discovered Lorne is responsible for the cottage fire, and this mornin’, I found evidence that someone had searched my study. My uncle also arrived unexpectedly, in quite an agitated state, and advised me my cousin had vowed to kill me.”
No need to tell them Lorne was his brother. Keane hadn’t come to grips with that ugly truth. Recalling that cur’s blood ran in his veins sickened him.
“Christ on the blessed cross,” Graeme swore beneath his breath, bracing his massive square hands on his hips. Annoyance crinkled his eyes and bracketed his hard, turned down mouth. “And when did ye plan on informin’ us of these facts?”
Breathing out a long puff of air, Keane splayed a hand across his nape. “I was hopin’ I wouldna have to. I dinna believe Lorne’s slipped by my guards, and I think ’tis more probable the lass wandered off and couldna find her way back.”
If that were the case, where the hell was Marjorie?
Chapter Fifteen
While Camden stood guard outside the nursery and Graeme hastened to alert the guards, Keane headed directly to the gallery, two stories below. As a child, he’d often hidden away in the cupboard-like room. In truth, on many, many occasions, he’d avoided stern nurses, punitive tutors, and a neglectful father by secreting himself there.
His senses honed to every creak and groan of the castle, he slowed his pace as he neared the gallery. Head cocked, he listened for voices, the sound of muffled footsteps, or the friction of moving clothing.
Silence met his concentrated scrutiny.
Still, he stayed near the wall as he edged to the short door concealed in the panel. He should’ve brought a lamp or candle with him. Pulling his dagger from his boot, he inched toward the rectangle, cleverly concealed amongst the dark paneling.
A child’s frightened cry, accompanied by an enraged female’s muffled shout, made him jerk his head up, his gaze boring into the molded plaster ceiling.
Cora? Marjorie?
The sounds had filtered from a chamber above.
Alarm pounded through Keane, scraping his spine with sharp claws of fear and fury, and he cursed furiously when a thump and bang echoed overhead. Sprinting, forbidding his mind to conjure images of what might be happening at this very instance, he bolted to the stairwell, dirk raised and his blood ablaze. His breath rasping harshly in his ears, he made the landing.
A swift, covert scan confirmed the absence of the guards that should’ve been on duty.
He rounded the corner and pulled up short upon seeing a pair of booted feet. Further inspection revealed McTibbons was only unconscious. An egg-sized lump had formed on the back of his head, but his breathing, though shallow, was even.
Slowly rising, Keane did a swift visual search for the second guard.
He didn’t have to look very far.
He found Forbes around the next corner, also insensate, but thank God, not dead. He suffered a gash to his forehead, as well as a knife wound to his shoulder. The bleeding had congealed, but from the size of the slash, he’d need stitches.
Keane removed his handkerchief and, after folding it, wedged the make-shift bandage inside Forbe’s shirt, covering the wound. As much as Keane loathed to leave his injured men, at least they were alive, and he was confident Graeme would be along with the others soon.
What was most urgent at this moment was finding Mar
jorie and Cora. The air burning in his lungs and his heart buffeting his ribcage with the force of a blacksmith’s hammer, he approached the bedchamber on silent feet.
Marjorie’s bedchamber.
He pressed an ear to the door, almost certain he’d hear Lorne’s grating voice. He was as certain, his cousin—brother—had acted alone.
“You’re…mad…I…” The heavy walnut muffled Marjorie’s speech, yet he detected fear and rage in her tenor.
“Mama…help…,” Cora sniffled, and at the sound of her wee frightened, tear-laden voice, Keane erupted into action.
Half-expecting the door to be locked, he slammed his hand down upon the handle even as he kicked with all of his might. The door flew inward, crashing against the wall, causing a stifled yelp from Marjorie and a frightened screech from Cora.
He stopped in his tracks at the macabre tableau before him.
Relaxed and indolent, Lorne sat in a chair beside the fire, an ankle casually hitched on his knee. With one arm, he held Cora’s fragile little body next to the chair. He nonchalantly fiddled with a dagger with his other hand, swinging it back and forth, then hitching the blade up and down with his middle finger.
The firelight cast a sinister glint on the red-tinged steel with every upward swing.
“I’ve been expectin’ ye,” Lorne said, almost conversationally.
Fat tears rolled down Cora’s sweet cheeks. Absolute trust he’d save her in her blueberry eyes, she imploringly held her little arms out to him, her lower lip trembling as she whimpered, “Keane.”
Not your grace or duke or laird. Keane.
Lorne shook her roughly, causing another flood of tears.
“He canna help ye, ye stupid brat.” He brandished the blade before her terrified face, snarling, “Hold still, or I’ll use this knife to carve patterns on yer face or take out an eye.”
Her waxen features riddled with terror, the child clamped both tiny hands across her mouth, trying to mute her sobs.
Keane shifted his focus to Marjorie, standing at the end of her bed, hands tied behind her to the bedpost. Her hair cascaded to her shoulders as if she’d been roughly handled or shaken. Or as if she’d struggled with Lorne, which given the sounds Keane had heard a few minutes ago, he’d wager was the case.
To Defy a Highland Duke Page 13
