Sorcha’s eyes were glazed and tired-looking when she focused again on her husband.
“Thank ye, Seamus.”
He wrapped his long arms around the wildfire that was his wife. “And we shall make sure Adaira always knows her worth. If no’ for her, then for ye.”
Sorcha crumpled into his chest, sharing her burden with him.
Which was exactly what he wanted her to do. She should not carry that weight alone. As Adaira’s father and Sorcha’s husband, it was his burden to share.
Seamus ran his finger through her loose tresses at the base of her neck in the way he knew Sorcha liked.
“Reade wants to kill him,” she said, her voice muffled by his chest.
He snorted. “Mayhap we should let him. If we ever find him, that is.”
Chapter Nine
WhenSeamus’ssonsreturnedlater that evening, Seamus left Sorcha to her emotional musings and gathered them into his study. Their extended kin, Ian and Ranulf and their families, had offered their condolences before departing. Their faces showed their condolences, yet Seamus could sense their underlying feeling — gratefulness.
Grateful it was not their daughters who were left standing at the altar, shamed and embarrassed.
Rumor ran like floodwater in the Highlands, and news of Adaira’s embarrassment had surely reached many already.
Now having his itinerant sons ride all over Scotland, announcing that they were searching for the man who was the cause of all this distress did not help matters at all.
Furious was not a harsh enough word to describe Seamus’s anger at his lads.
“Ye disobeyed me,” Seamus announced as he closed his study door.
All three of his sons protested at once.
“Father, that bastard —”
“I only tried to ask —”
“I thought we could —”
“Haut yer wheest!” Seamus boomed, his voice echoing off the walls.
Properly chastised, his sons fell immediately silent and dropped their gazes.
Seamus strode to his desk and leaned over it, supporting himself with one hand as he ran his fingers through his graying hair.
Grayer now, he was sure. This, whatever it was with Adaira, had certainly added more gray hairs than he cared to admit.
He was more frustrated with his sons than he cared to admit as well. When he gave a command, he expected it to be obeyed. Their behavior only compounded the fury already bubbling in Seamus’s gut.
Yet his lads had ridden off first thing in the morning. Sorcha had mentioned it before he exited her solar, and it had taken all of Seamus’s willpower not to punch a hole in her finely crafted door.
“I told ye no’ to do anything. No’ yet. I told ye to await until the Keppochs had time —”
“I knew he would do something like this. For all they are MacDonalds, ye canna trust a Keppoch,” Reade bit out.
Maddock shot Reade a look, but before he could speak, his father pointed his finger at him. “And ye used it as an excuse to visit the brothel? Of all things! And ye a married man!”
Maddock had the good sense to look abashed. He knew little happened in the keep that his father did learn about.
“I went with Arran and left immediately after asking about Sawny’s whereabouts. I figured they might know something, aye?” Then he flicked his gaze to Reade before returning his eyes to his father, eager to change the subject. “Sawny’s family are searching for the lad, too. The Keppochs. They found his horse, but they dinna know where Sawny is.”
