Page 103 of My Highland Love

He hurried along the footpath. Despite exhaustion last night, he had missed Elise. He entered without knocking and went directly to the drawing room where, as expected, Sophie sat on the couch facing the window overlooking the gardens. Elise, however, wasn't present.

Sophie looked up. Her brow furrowed. “What is amiss?”

“The only thing amiss,” he replied, “is that my wife isn't here. Is she still abed? It is nearly—”

Sophie's eyes widened and she gave a soft gasp.

Marcus felt an instant of confusion, then his heart leapt into a furious rhythm. “What is it? Where is she?”

Sophie stood, the needlework in her lap falling to the floor. “She left yesterday, a short time after we arrived.”

“What?” Marcus's head spun. “I instructed her to wait until I came for her.” He broke from the cold hand of fear and strode to Sophie. She looked up at him, panic on her face. He grasped her shoulders. “Why did Justin allow her to leave?”

“He wasn't here. Elise was concerned about you.”

“And you let her go?” Marcus shook her hard enough to loosen several hairpins. Two curls struck her shoulder.

“It was still light,” Sophie said, her voice so shaky Marcus realized she was close to tears. “I travel between Whycham House and Ashlund often. Marcus!” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “You know it is true. I have never feared traveling on that road, even at night.”

Marcus released her, his hands working and reworking into fists.

“She took three of our men,” Sophie went on. “I told her to keep them as long as needed at Ashlund. It was early. I had no reason to—”

“No reason to think!” he roared, and stepped closer. She didn't retreat. “She is not to travel alone,” he shouted. “There have been threats—”

“Threats?” Sophie's gaze hardened. “Threats you say? I ask you, then, why we weren't told? Should Justin not have been informed? Should not some provisions have been made? My God, Marcus, why have you kept silent?”

He struggled to answer, but the words—his mind—nothing worked.

“What are these threats?” Sophie asked in a voice so reasonable, so firm, Marcus snapped from his indecision.

“There's no time for explanations.” Sophie opened her mouth to speak, but he said, “First, we find her.”

Chapter Seventeen

Marcus followed Elise's carriage tracks from Whycham House onto the road leading to Ashlund. Where a heavier-trafficked crossroad joined the Ashlund road, a myriad of tracks, all muddied by the night's rain, obscured hers. Marcus ordered Justin to return to Whycham House and check all farms and cottages near the road, while he continued onward and did the same. Two hours passed before he heard the pounding of hooves over the sound of his own mount's gallop. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Justin approaching. Sophie rode alongside and Kiernan followed with a dozen more men behind. Marcus slowed his stallion as they neared. He observed the haggard look on Sophie's face when they came alongside.

They had discovered no news.

“There are four farms between the point you left us and Whycham House,” Justin said. “I did not wish to diverge too far off the road until we could better ascertain where she might have gotten lost.”

Marcus's head jerked to the side and he glared at Justin. “Lost?”

“You have found nothing?” Justin went on.

Marcus looked forward again. “Nae.”

“We are but midway between Ashlund and Whycham House,” Justin said. “There is much territory yet to cover.”

Two farmhouses down, they encountered a peasant who remembered Elise's entourage.

“When?” Marcus demanded.

“Yesterday,” the man replied. “I was returning from MacLellan's down the road. Later afternoon, four-thirty or five, I would say.”

“All was well with her?”

“As far as I could see.”