But who was Isobel MacDonell to fix anything, even if she could? She was nothing to Philip—his charge. Once he delivered her to Lochlaire, he would go on with his life and she with hers. She would marry Nicholas Lyon and have a whole new set of problems. She should not involve herself in Effie’s disappearance. But she couldn’t help herself.
She was digging through a chest filled with nothing more than warm woolen blankets and animal skins when Stephen arrived to take her to dinner.
“Where’s Philip?” she asked, disappointed.
“He’s been closed up with his father for hours now. There’s been some shouting—the servants are frightened. I dinna think we’ll be staying here long.”
“Is it always like this?” Isobel asked.
“Worse, sometimes.”
She looked Stephen up and down. He wore a belted plaid, his legs bare from the knees down, his feet bare. His long blond hair hung loose about his shoulders, and his beard was becoming thick. He looked a proper barbarian.
“I thought you weren’t a Highlander?” she teased.
“I’m not—but the lassies here sure like it when I put one of these things on.”
Isobel laughed. “You stopped eating long enough to notice?”
“Och, I can do both.” The sound of a clanging bell drifted through the window. “That’s dinner.”
“Stephen, wait.”
He raised an inquisitive brow and came further into the room.
“You must tell me what happened to Philip’s sister.”
“He lost her.”
“I know that—buthow?”
Stephen’s brows drew into a troubled frown. “So ye didna learn aught today?”
Isobel shook her head.
“I dinna understand. She has a whole room full of things.”
Isobel sighed and sat on the wooden chest. “Remember when I touched your father’s book? The first things I saw were of you, but beneath all that I discovered your father. But your father had owned that book for a very long time and kept it close to him. Effie’s things…well, they’ve been Mairi’s for longer than Effie was even alive. And Mairi’s feelings are so strong, they overshadow anything else.”
Stephen crossed his arms over his chest. “How did Philip take it?”
Isobel just shook her head. She would not discuss what happened with anyone. “I must know, Stephen. Tell me.”
Stephen was thoughtful, no doubt wondering how much trouble this would get him in. But his natural loquacity won out. “If Effie were alive, she’d be my age, so I wasna even here when it happened. My uncle sent me to be fostered here five years ago.”
“Five years ago? That seems a long time.”
Stephen shrugged. “Aye, I should’ve gone home by now, ’tis the truth, but I do well with Philip, and so I’m his man. My uncle isn’t happy about it, but he does like Philip, so he doesna complain too loudly. Anyway—about Effie. Philip doesna talk about this, though I ken he thinks about it a lot. All I’ve heard has come from others.”
“You said once before that Mairi told you things. What did she tell you?”
Stephen raised his brows and looked away as if it weren’t something he wanted to share. “It’s not as if she ever sat me down and told me the story. It was other things, things she said. I pieced it together from there, and asked Fergus to fill in the holes.”
“Stephen!” Isobel cried impatiently. “Just tell me!”
He came to the bench and gestured for her to scoot over. When he was sitting beside her he frowned at the wall. Isobel was ready to bludgeon him when he finally spoke.
“They were in Edinburgh for some reason, I dinna know why, and Mairi was shopping. There aren’t lots of shops out this way, I’m sure ye noticed, so if ye like books and comfits and such, ye best get them when yer in Edinburgh or Stirling or—”
