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"Left me?" His brain seemed to creak under the pressure of the words and his eyes wove circles around the room, finally landing on her wardrobe. With one great lunge, he yanked the doors open and shook his head at the crush of dresses inside. Left him. . . No, she couldn't have. Her things were still here, her trunk still lurked at the foot of the bed. Her maid was sitting not ten feet away. She couldn't have gone anywhere.
No, she hadn't left. She was probably hiding in the turret room even as he stood here reeling.
"Danielle!" The door burst open under his palm with a sharp crack. "Damn it, is she here?"
But his wife was not in the tiny round room, only her maid staring at him past her tears. Danielle, crying? What was this? A shaft of ice pierced his churning gut. "What the hell is going on?"
"I told you!" She sprang to her feet to face him, a tear dripping from her chin. "She has left you."
"But all her things are still here. You are still here. Where could she have gone?"
That narrow shaft of ice split and widened. She had left him, run away. Left in the dead of night for all he knew. And where could she go with just the clothes on her back? Back to Kirkland Hall?
A suspicion struck him, terrible in its familiarity, and comfortable despite that. Fergus. Fergus who liked her so well and defended her and who hadn't yet shown his face today. Fergus who lived not two miles from here and was missing from his post.
Collin's hand shot out to grip the maid's arm. "Has she gone to him? Has she?"
Her face flushed and twisted into an ugly snarl as she reared back, pulling herself from his tight fingers. She did not answer his question. Instead, she drew herself up and spit full into his face.
Rage clawed at him, tearing his gut into ribbons, urging him to slap her, to punish her for the pain that ground his mind into dust. Frightened by the violence that stretched into his muscles, he growled at her wide-eyed stare and swung about to hunt down his wife and her lover.
By God, he'd been right. Right all along and she had actually made him feel sorry for her. His wife and his best friend.
But, no! his small, stupid heart cried. No, there is a mistake. And perhaps there was. He'd never really thought she could do this. He'd only been so afraid of it.
His vision darkened and he blinked around, startled by the change in light. The stable. He was in the stable. A groom stared, eyes round with question.
"Has Mrs. Blackburn been here today?"
"Aye, sir. Off for a ride on that mare o' hers."
"When?"
"When? 'Round about ten. Maybe before."
"Ten this morning?"
"Ahh. . . Yes, sir." The man's eyes rolled to meet briefly with the boy mucking out the first stall.
"Saddle Thor. Quickly."
Collin's mind worked itself into knots while he waited, examining the possibilities. Fergus's house first, but they couldn't be stupid enough to stay there. Of course, Collin usually stayed busy all day between the horses and the new house, so perhaps they'd counted on a few more hours of secrecy. But surely this was all a misunderstanding. He'd go to Jeannie's. Likely Alex was there. And it would sting to have to retrieve his woman from a neighbor, but he would deserve that. He'd deserve it for expecting such terrible things from his own wife.
He blinked again and there was Thor, held by the worried groom and tossing his head in impatience. Ten minutes to ride to Fergus's home and then he would know.
The ground passed beneath his feet, tumbling nearly as fast as his flailing soul. Don't be there, he found himself praying. Don't be there. Please, Alex, don't be there.
Thor flew down the road, bursting up over a hill and back down the other side, neither horse nor rider sparing a thought for the danger of such speed. A gust of wind caught them at the next hill and slowed their pace for a moment, a cold hand that forbore snow and ice. The road wound down then, slipping them into a valley and out of the force of the breeze.
He could see the house from here, could see the curl of smoke from the chimney and the low bench where he'd passed many a summer evening over a glass of whisky. He could see the apple tree and the window below it that looked in on Fergus's small room and his bed.
Dread closed his throat.
Thor slowed, winded already from being run cold, and Collin guided him to the left, down the narrow path and closer to the place he did not want to be.
"Don't be here," he whispered into the smoke-spiced air and drew the horse to a stop.
Knees weak and body nearly too heavy to catch, Collin slipped to the ground. The door opened to him—the third door today that he'd suspected of hiding his wife. And there was the fourth, just to his left. A narrow square in the wood and daub wall. It was firmly closed, and why would that be? Why close a door against the home where you lived alone?
