Page 144 of Wicked Highland Heroes

“Where are my parents?” he demanded of Mrs. Henderson.

The room went quiet.

She froze in opening the oven door. “We took tea to them in the drawing room.”

Without a word, Erroll whirled and headed for the drawing room. In the moments it took to race there, he thought he would lose his mind. He burst through the door and stopped cold. Eve, his mother, Olivia, and Grace sat on the sofa, swaths of fabric spread across their laps. The rest of the family—Eve’s father and Somerset included—were gathered in the room. Everyone looked at him.

“Erroll, what’s wrong?” His mother set aside the fabric and rose, as did his father and Ash.

Erroll ignored them and strode toward Eve. “Where have you been?”

She frowned. “Here? What is amiss, my lord?”

“You were gone when I awoke.”

She glanced at his dusty clothes. “I do not understand. Have you been in the fields? What—”

“Where have you been?”

She glanced at Ash. “I went riding with Olivia and Ash.”

“Olivia and—” Erroll looked at his brother. “The three of you?”

Ash lifted a brow. “Aye.” Amusement twitched the corner of his brother’s mouth. “Your wife didn’t tell you?”

Erroll swung his gaze back onto her. “She did not.”

Her expression darkened. “I didn’t realize I had to report my every move to you, my lord.”

“You do when you threaten to leave for France.”

She—along with the other ladies—gasped. Ash laughed.

“By God, Eve,” her father thundered, “if you said—”

“Not a word from you, sir,” she cut in. “You married me off, so you have no say in my domestic affairs.”

Tolland’s gaze sharpened. “As you say. Lord Rushton, she is yours to reprimand as you see fit.”

Satisfaction shot through Erroll. “I have plans for you, madam.”

She sipped her tea. “What might those be, my lord?”

“I am certain you would rather I didn’t say in public.”

Eve snorted a laugh. “As if it won’t get around anyway.”

He blinked. “What?”

“Everything you do has a way of getting around. Don’t you have a ship to catch?”

The desire to turn her over his knee flared. “Not without you, Wife.”

The echo of hurried boot steps sounded outside the room. “Move aside, lass,” said a gruff male voice Erroll knew all too well. He whirled as the door opened and Jean appeared with his son, nephew and, glory be, Sheriff Laine.

“Laird,” Leslie began, but Jean and Laine pushed past her as Tolland and Somerset rose.

“We came as soon as we heard,” Jean said.