She left the tiny cottage in a rush and went in search of Mairi Bowie.
Alec had spent three days sulking like a coward, hidden away in his private study. How could Leona believe such things about him? How could she assume, after all they had been through, that one) he had taken a mistress, and two) that he was no better than a flea-ridden rat!
How? Because ye are no better than a flea-ridden rat!
For the better part of the first day of his self-imposed exile, Alec tried blaming the whisky for his actions his first night home. If I had no’ been so into me cups…
Nay, ’twas not the whisky’s fault. He had no one but himself to blame. His pride was powerfully wounded. He kept coming back to the question of how Leona could believe such horrible things about him. How could she believe that he had taken Patrice for his mistress?
Finding the woman on his lap did not help his argument.
Telling her he had lied about the contract, about signing it under false pretenses certainly did not help his argument. Coming home from his trip in a foul mood hadn’t helped any either. Not telling Leona how much he had missed her. Not taking her above stairs the moment he arrived to show her the intensity with which he had missed her was yet another mistake among many.
Now, his sweet wife had moved out of their bedchamber. Convinced she was that he would beat her, or take her against her will, or do any of the other things in that blasted contract of hers.
Back and forth his heart went. One moment, he was filled with self-hate, the next he was angry at Leona. The longer he sat alone in this stark, empty room, the worse he felt.
A knock at his door drew him out of his reverie. “Come!” he yelled, perturbed he was being disturbed. He still had gallons and gallons of self-pity in which to wallow.
’Twas Adhaira who opened the door and entered. In her arms was a tray with a bowl of stew, fresh bread, and a mug of what he hoped was good ale. “M’laird,” she said as she bobbed a curtsy. “I thought ye might be hungry.”
“Put it on the table,” he said from his seat in front of the fire.
Adhaira did as he asked. She started to leave, but paused at the doorway. “M’laird, I ken ye might no’ want to hear this, especially from me, but yer wife, she be hurtin’ something fierce.”
He drew his gaze away from the flames and stared at her.
“She has been cryin’ almost nonstop for days now,” she added.
Alec grunted. “Have ye ever been married?”
“Nay, m’laird, I have no’.”
“Then ye be the smartest person I ken at the moment. Marriage, it can be hell on earth, lass. Avoid it like ye would the devil.”
The last person he needed advice from was a young scullery maid. Adhaira smiled. “Me da used to say the same to me.”
Alec quirked a brow. “Smart man.”
“He died of a broken heart just two months after me mum passed from the ague,” she told him. She bobbed another curtsy before quitting the room.
Alec was still contemplating her words long after she left.
He thought back to the time Leona’d been locked in the north tower. Then to a few weeks ago when she’d very nearly killed herself cleaning the gathering room. He remembered, then, how distraught he’d been.
’Twas like being hit in the head with a mace. The overpowering realization that he loved his wife. He not only adored her and cared for her, he loved her. Like the fool that he was. Like the fool his father had always warned him not to be.
“I love me wife,” he told the fire in the hearth.
Bloody hell.
Chapter 31
Once Alec realized the depths to which he loved Leona, he swallowed back his pride, splashed cold water on his face, and went above stairs to tell her. Her new quarters were empty. Thinking nothing of her absence, he went around the corner to see if by chance, she was tending to Slaien and Fionn.
He knocked and waited for permission from within before he entered. Little Fionn was sitting on the bed, next to his mother. He was showing her a little wooden dirk. “Gylys carved it fer me,” he told her proudly.
“That was verra nice of him,” Slaien said, managing a weak smile.
Slaien pulled her eyes away from her son to look at the stranger who had entered. “May I help ye?”
“That be Alec, the chief of clan Bowie,” Fionn told her. “He be the one who pulled me from the ocean. I told you about that, remember, Mamma?”
“Aye, ye did tell me,” she answered. “I have much to thank ye fer, m’laird.” Her voice was breathy, undoubtedly from being so ill for such a long time.
“Think naught of it, lass,” Alec said.
“As soon as I am better, me son and I will be out of yer hair, I promise.”
Alec studied her closely for a long moment. He detected an Irish lilt in her voice. “Ye need no’ worry over it. Ye have a home here fer as long as ye like.”
Fionn flashed his mother a beaming smile. “I told ye, Mamma! But ye did no’ believe me.”
With a weak hand, she patted his leg. “Shush, now, lad.”
“I was wondering if ye have seen me wife this day?” Alec asked.
Slaien gave a slight shake of her head. “Nay, m’laird. Mairi went to see her earlier, but I’ve no’ seen yer wife today.”
Alec thought that odd, but assumed that with Slaien on the mend, Mairi felt comfortable leaving her for a short while. “Thank ye,” he said, offering a bow at the waist. “I shall send Adhaira up to ye, to sit with ye until Mairi returns.”
“That might be a long time,” Fionn told him as he studied his wooden dirk. “She went to help someone have a baby.”
Now, he tells me. Alec chuckled at the boy. “And was me wife with her?”
The lad scrunched his face as he thought on it for a moment. “Nay, I do no’ think so. ’Twas Gylys who told me.”
Alec gave them each a nod, bid them a good day, and quit the room.
Neither his wife, nor Mairi, nor Patrice, were anywhere to be found. As far as Alec could ascertain, the women were not together. Mairi was miles and miles away, acting as midwife. But no one had seen Patrice or Leona for hours.
Worry gnawed at Alec’s gut. Night would soon fall, the air cold and damp. The skies held the promise of rain.
His first inclination was to search the north tower, which he did. Then the remaining towers and rooms of the keep. His search revealed nothing. As one hour turned into another, his worry and dread for his wife increased a hundred fold.
And when he learned that Leona had left without the ordered guards, he became incensed and outraged. In the barracks, he was giving his men a thorough dressing down. “I told ye she was to be watched at all times!” he yelled at them.
“She was with Mairi, m’laird,” one of the younger men said, his voice shaking with fear. “I be terribly sorry, but I thought she would be safe with Mairi.”
Alec towered over the young man, his face purple with rage. “Ye thought? Ye thought? I did no’ ask ye to think! I ordered ye to stay with me wife at all times!”
The young man looked ready to pass out. His face went pale and his hands trembled.
Alec shook his head in disgust. He turned away from him and addressed the rest of his warriors. “I want search parties formed immediately. Ye will turn this keep, every building, and every cottage upside down until she is found!”
Not one man questioned his order. Like rats fleeing a sinking ship, they hurried to do his bidding.
“The last time I saw her, Alec, she was with Patrice.”
Alec was standing at the foot of Dougall’s bed, hoping against hope that either Dougall or Effie would know something, anything that would lead him to his wife. Archibald was sleeping in a little cradle near the hearth. The older boys were out of doors pretending to be the King’s guards. Alec and his men had questioned everyone from the stable master to auld Melvin. The results were the same no matter who they spoke with. It had been hours since anyone had seen Leona or Pat
rice. Nightfall would soon be upon them. He could only pray the women were together, safe and sound.
Dougall looked like death and was of very little use. Effie put a warm hand on Alec’s arm. “Are ye certain she was with Patrice?” Alec asked her.
“Aye,” Effie told him. “They were on the path by Patrice’s cottage. They were walking north and west. I thought mayhap they were goin’ to visit our mum. She lives up that way, ye ken.”
Aye, he knew where Alyce lived. Several miles away, across rocky terrain. For the life of him, he could not figure out why the woman refused to leave that desolate place and move closer to the keep.
“I fear I have no’ been able to visit mum of late, what with the new babe and all. And we all ken how mum’s health be. One day she is as right as rain, the next, ye’d swear she was at death’s door.” Effie looked genuinely concerned.
“Thank ye, Effie,” Alec told her as he turned to leave.
“Alec,” Effie called to his back as she approached. Alec turned to face her. “I do no’ want to worry ye, but,” her voice trailed away.
“But what?”
She lowered her voice and leaned in, he supposed so she would not wake Dougall. “Mayhap it be naught a thing, but Patrice. She has no’ been right since she lost Rutger.”
Alec’s brow drew into a thin, hard line. “What do ye mean?” The fretfulness in her eyes was bothersome.
“’Tis no’ just one thing that bothers me, but many. Sometimes, I catch her cryin’ as she talks to herself. Which, I admit, even I have done a time or two. She talks about Rutger all the time, and how much she loved him. On and on she goes about him. Sometimes, I think it be too much.”
’Twas unusual that anyone could have loved his brother, at least the last months he was alive.
“But after the other night, when Leona accused her of bein’ yer mistress, and then callin’ her a whore, well, ’twas like somethin’ inside Patrice snapped. She had this odd look in her eyes. She told me she would get even with Leona, if ’twas the last thing she ever did.”
Alec’s chest tightened. “Why did ye no’ tell me this sooner?” he ground out, his voice rising.
“Wheest,” Effie told him as she glanced back at Dougall. “I did no’ think ’twas anythin’ to worry over. I thought she was just angry and rantin’ like we all sometimes do.”
Alec’s clenched his jaw as he tamped down his anger, studying Effie closely. “What is it ye are tryin’ so hard no’ to say?”
Effie took in a deep breath before answering. “I do no’ want to speak ill of me sister, Alec, fer I do love her. But I worry that maybe she be no’ in her right mind. Her grief over losin’ Rutger and then with ye marryin’ Leona instead of her—”
“Are ye tellin’ me that Patrice thought I was goin’ to marry her? I never gave her any indication of such a thing!”
“I ken that,” Effie said as she placed a hand on his forearm. “But Patrice thought ye should. She told me so many times. She felt ’twas yer duty to step in and marry her, what with ye being chief and Rutger’s promises.”
Was it possible that it had been Patrice who had turned the clanswomen against his wife? How had he not seen it?
“I love me sister,” Effie said again. “But I fear… I do no’ think she can be trusted.”
The dread he had been trying to avoid came crashing into his heart. If what Effie was telling him was true — and he had no reason to doubt it — then his wife was in grave danger.
Kyth and five other men were waiting for Alec outside of the cottage. He was as furious as a rabid bear. “We need horses,” Alec told Kyth. “Send someone ahead to gather as many men as ye can. We leave now.”
Kyth grabbed one of the men and gave Alec’s order as they hurried down the path. “What happened?” Kyth asked.
Alec told him all that he had learned from Effie. By the time he finished explaining, they were almost to the drawbridge.
“Patrice?” Kyth asked disbelievingly.
“Ye do no’ believe she is capable of such a thing?” Alec asked, his voice laced with anger.
Kyth gave a slow nod of his head. “Aye, in truth, I do no’.”
“And who would know better than one’s own sister what a body is capable of?” Alec asked as they thundered over the drawbridge. He drew upon his experience with Rutger. He’d been a good man once. But greed changed him. ’Twas just as likely that a broken heart had changed Patrice.
When Alec and his men crashed into Alyce Bowie’s wee cottage, the poor woman was given the fright of her life! She screamed as she grabbed her broom, holding it out as if it were a broadsword.
“Get out o’ me house, ye heathens!” she yelled, though weakly and with a good deal of fear.
“Where is Patrice?” Alec shouted at her. He didn’t give a wit if the woman was afraid or not. “Where is me wife?”
He knew at once, from her confused expression, that she had not an inkling what he was talking about. “Patrice? Yer wife?” she stuttered with fear. “I have no’ seen Patrice in days. And as fer yer wife, I have ne’er met her!”
Kyth stepped forward, a dirk in his hand and a scowl upon his face capable of making a grown man shake. “Do no’ lie to us, woman! We ken they came here!”
“The bloody hell they did!” she shouted back. “I tell ye, I have no’ seen Patrice in days. She has been up at the keep, takin’ care o’ some woman and her son.”
Alec studied her closely for a brief moment. Though he did not know Alyce well at all, his gut told him she was telling the truth. “Ye have no’ seen Patrice, but have ye received word from or of her?”
“Nay, m’laird, I have no’!” she shook her head so rapidly, her graying hair fell loose from her braid. “Now, what in the bloody hell be goin’ on? Ye come crashin’ in here in the dead of night and scared ten years off me! And I do no’ have ten years to spare!”
Alec was not about to share his suspicions with her. “Me wife has gone missin’,” he said. “We think she be with Patrice. If ye see either of them, please, send word.”
“Now how am I to send word, m’laird?” she asked, her tone saying she suspected his level of intelligence was that of a piece of wood. “I be here all alone. Do ye wish me to walk all the way to yer keep?”
Alec rolled his eyes. “Alyce, if ye see them, tell them they need to return to the keep at once.”
“Verra well,” she said, as she finally lowered her broom. “And the next time ye come here, ye better wipe yer feet before ye enter! I’ll be wearin’ me sword from now on.”
Alec took her warning to heart. He could not help but think Effie had gained her fierceness from her mother. With a nod of his head, he led his men out of the cottage.
They had thundered across the countryside to get here, only to come up empty-handed. There had been no sign of either woman along the way. Where in the bloody hell has Patrice taken Leona?
“What now, Alec?” Kyth asked as they took to their horses.
Alec pulled on Ares’s reins as he answered. “We spread out. Mayhap they turned somewhere along the way.”
Kyth looked up at the moonlit sky. Thankfully, the dark rainclouds that had passed overhead an hour before moved on without leaving more than a mist in their wake. “I have a better idea,” he said as they headed back the way they’d come.
“At this point, I be willin’ to listen to anything,” Alec ground out as his stomach churned with worry.
“Instead of traipsing across the world lookin’ fer them, I say we go back to the keep and release Patches.”
Alec pulled rein, feeling as though he’d just been hit in the head with a tree trunk. Why had he not thought of that before?
“It worked once,” Kyth reminded him. “And we all ken that Patches has a keen fondness fer yer wife.”
“The dog’s name is Satan,” Alec reminded him. But if he can find me wife, she can name him whatever the hell she wants to!
Alec had sent word ahead of them to warn Seamus and ha
ve him prepare Satan to search for Leona and Patrice. Alec could only pray that Satan would be able to track down his wife. It had rained earlier, but he hoped it had not been enough to wash the scent away.
He kept thinking the events of the past few months. First the salt, then Leona locked in the tower. Had it been Patrice all along? Had she been the one to turn the clanswomen against his wife?
Anger boiled in his gut, along with the turmoil of not knowing where Leona was, until his stomach was nothing more than a cauldron of fire.
She could be anywhere, lost, alone, injured.
She could be dead.
Nay! He told his heart. He could not, would not allow his thoughts to turn in that direction. She had to be alive. He needed her.
He loved her.
As they tore across the drawbridge, one of his men came rushing up to meet him. “Alec! We found Patrice!”
Alec pulled Ares to a halt and slid from his back. “And Leona?” he asked, holding his breath as he waited for the answer.
“Nay,” he replied solemnly. “She swears she does no’ ken where she be.”
Furious, he demanded to know where Patrice was.
“She be in the gatherin’ room,” he replied. “I have five men watchin’ over her.”
Alec handed the reins off to him as he stormed across the courtyard and into the keep.
Patrice had been sitting in a chair by the hearth. As soon as she saw Alec, she leapt to her feet and started toward him. “Alec! Thank God ye are here!”
He stopped just inches away from her. Her relief at seeing him changed to confusion when she saw the anger in his eyes.
“Where. Is. Leona?”
“That is what I have been tryin’ to tell everyone,” she said. “I do no’ ken!”
“Ye were the last person she was seen with, Patrice,” Alec said through gritted teeth. “Do no’ lie to me.”
Stunned, she took a step back. “I have no’ seen Leona since the night the two of ye fought!”
“Mairi dropped her off at yer cottage door this afternoon,” Alec told her. “I have witnesses who say they saw the two of ye together.” ’Twas a partial lie. Thus far, there was only one.
The Bowie Bride: Book Two of The Mackintoshes and McLarens Page 40
