At Conall’s words, both Brodie's and Roy’s faces twisted in matching masks of confusion.
“Why would we behidinghim?” Brodie snapped. “We’re as excited about this wedding as ye, probably more. And I have never seen Sawny as happy or excited for something in all his life.”
Reade snorted. “’Tis no’ saying much. Your kind grow excited at the prospect of stealing a Highland cow. A wedding to the Glenachulish MacDonalds would only raise your station.” Reade earned another glare from Sawny’s kin at the implied insult. They lunged toward Reade.
Maddock raised his hand and waved it between them to quiet his brother. “Reade,haut yer wheest.” Then Maddock shifted his attention back to Sawny’s brother, eyeing him narrowly. “We presumed that this promise of a wedding was to keep the MacIntosh and Campbell’s off your back until decisions were made regarding the king across the water.”
Brodie and Roy exchanged a quick glance and their horses shifted beneath them, stomping in the muddy road.
“Aye, I can see how such a thing might seem to be the case,” Brodie explained in a strained tone. “But ye did no’ see how Sawny was whenever he spoke of your sister. ‘Twas not merely a political match. Nor an arranged marriage.” At this, Roy flicked his gaze from Reade to Maddock, making silent comment on both of their arranged marriages. The Glen Coe MacDonalds were not the only ones who could suggest insult. “This was a love match, the type that rivaled legends and myths.”
Reade snorted again at Brodie’s poetry.
Brodie dropped his chin and fiddled with his reins. He opened his mouth to speak but Roy interrupted him.
“’Tis why the Keppoch MacDonald's are searching all of the Highlands. Because nothing but death would keep Sawny from your sister.”
His statement mollified Reade little. His lips thinned, but he remained silent.
Both his brothers knew exactly what he was thinking. Reade rarely saw the good in anyone. And he certainly did not see it in a rakish MacDonald who had set his lofty sights on the daughter of a chieftain. His kin might think that only death would keep the man from Adaira, but Reade had other beliefs. Using his thighs, he guided his steed towards Brodie more directly.
“As we are searching for your brother, mayhap ye would accept our aid in doing the same. No matter what I believe about Sawny or his intentions or why he did no’ show up at the kirk, I canna look at myself if I came back to Adaira with no answers.”
Reade’s emotional request must have moved Brodie and Roy.
Brodie nodded curtly. “Fair enough. We will take all the aid we can. We just want to find the lad.”
That night, Seamus found Sorcha in her solar. She was not reading or sewing or doing much of anything. Her clear, sad, green gaze stared out the window at the evening sky to the stars hiding in the clouds. Her worry for her daughter wafted off her as a heavy smoke from a fire. Not that he blamed her.
Seamus’s own fury and concern rivaled that of his wife’s.
Nay, in that he was wrong. Sorcha’s ire was far more furious because it was shaded with her emotional distress over Adaira’s heartache. The pain the daughter felt, the mother reflected tenfold.
As such, Sorcha had spent the past day catering to Adaira, anything the lass might have wanted. Not that any of it mattered. Adaira had not spoken a word, left her chambers, or even eaten in the past day. Yet her chambers were littered with bright flowers and sweets and fruit – cheerful and overly scented.
And to no avail.
“You spoil that lass,” Seamus observed. “She is given too much, including too much of your emotion.”
Sorcha lifted her water eyes. “Should she no’? Dinna blame her for this situation. Should no’ any lass know her worth and be treated as such? Look at what happened to me when ye entered my life and swept me off my feet. Ye told me I was the grandest among women and treated me as such. And what happened?”
Seamus’s eyes softened. “Ye flourished and became more than I could have imagined. More beautiful, more clever, more understanding, more powerful. More ye than when I first met ye.”
He lifted her hand and kissed it.
“Every lass should have that. If no’ from an intended or husband, then from her family who loves her. I want Adaira to be the fullness of herself, no matter what man comes into her life. Or those who leave it. I want her to know her worth and be treated accordingly.” Sorcha’s face soured. “Especially after all this.”
Exhaling a heavy sigh, Seamus moved around his desk and placed a finger under his wife’s chin to pull her livid gaze to his. “Ye have always been a force to be reckoned with, a trait that has served me well in all aspects of our life together. I would trust ye in this more than anyone else. Fine. Spoil our daughter all ye must, but please pull her from this precipice of sorrow.”
She licked her lips and her sorrow over Adaira’s predicament emanated from her in waves that brushed against his skin, prickling it.
“Ye love too much, Sorcha. Ye love ferociously, me and our family. And I love ye all the more for it.” He glanced to the side before returning his gaze to her face. “I dinna think I ever told ye that.”
At his words, she broke, her fury crumbled into desperate sorrow, and a fat tear slid partway down her cheek before she wiped it away with the back of her hand.
Sorcha could be hard, a rock for the family, and to see her brought to tears fanned the flames of Seamus’s fury.
Hewanted ten minutes alone with the lad.
