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Sarah inhaled a slow breath, overwhelmed by the sudden opportunity to aid in the search. “Thank you,” she whispered, drawing strength from the confident look in Lady Adele’s eyes. “Thank you for everything.”
Lady Adele nodded. “No gratitude is necessary, my dear. It is what family does, is it not?”
With tears in her eyes, Sarah hurried from the chamber, returning to her own. There, she quickly pulled on boots and draped a thick cloak over her shoulders before hurrying back out into the corridor. Quick steps carried her down the stairs and across the great hall. There, she spotted Heather standing by the fireplace. Her gaze was focused as she spoke to one group of volunteers after another, directing them to different places upon the island. “Where can I go?” Sarah inquired as she hurried toward Keir’s mother. “I want to help.”Ineedto help. This is my family out there.
Heather smiled at her, grasping her hands and squeezing them tightly. “Follow them.” She nodded toward a small group of two men and three women who were preparing to depart. “They’re heading land inward. Many are already searching the coastlines.” She turned around and then handed Sarah a torch. “Light it in the hearth,” she told her with a nod toward the enormous fireplace at her back. “And be careful. Dunna go too far.”
Sarah nodded, doing as Heather had bid her, the torch sizzling and crackling as it caught fire. Sarah hurried after the small group of people heading outside. She turned back to look at Heather as she stepped through the arched doorway, nodding to Keir’s mother, hoping that the next time they saw one another, all of this would be behind them, and the girls would be back safe and sound.
With the sun absent, the air felt chilly as Sarah stepped outside. She blinked and squinted her eyes, trying her best to see through the dark. The torches’ light only cast a small circle, and everything beyond it lay in shadow. “Stay together,” one of the men reminded them as he waved them onward. “And watch yer step.”
Everyone nodded, and they hurried out of the castle, turning westward. The path sloped upward for a bit before it once more fell, curving to the south. To the north, a forest loomed like a dark wall in the distance, impenetrable and threatening, while the south seemed guarded by a tall outcropping of rock, the sound of waves drifting to their ears.
Sarah moved slowly, tripping every so often over her own feet. Unlike the others, she was not familiar with this terrain, her eyes darting from side to side and often down to the ground, afraid something might be in her path. “Don’t rush,” Sarah reminded herself, knowing that it would serve no one if she tripped and hurt herself, forcing the others to abandon their search and assist her. “There’s nothing to worry about so long as you can still see the others’ torches,” Sarah murmured to herself, as she lifted her own torch, squinting through the darkness.
The path sloped farther down toward a meadow. It was open ground, and she could see the others fanning out a little, the light of their torches like little dots moving onward. Sarah quickened her steps, carefully lighting the ground in front of her, when she suddenly heard a sound that gave her pause.
She stopped and listened, and for a long moment, all she could hear was the sound of the waves nearby. Yet all Sarah could see as she turned toward it was an enormous rock formation blocking her path. “This is where I found Faerie,” Sarah murmured to herself, relieved to have discovered her whereabouts. Indeed, in the dark, everything looked different, and she had felt completely confused by her surroundings.
Remembering how Faerie had gotten trapped in the thorny brambles, Sarah crouched lower, wondering if perhaps the girls had found a way inside, their sense for adventure making them careless. Had they become trapped? “Augusta! Dorothea! Bonnie!” Sarah called out, wanting nothing more than to hear their voices, to have this day come to a happy end.
Yet no sounds echoed to her ears beyond the lapping of the waves, and Sarah’s heart sank. She called the girls’ names a few more times, each time listening intently, hoping against hope that they had perhaps not heard her before. Still, each time, only silence met her.
With a heavy heart, Sarah made to turn around and head after the others when suddenly something caught her eye. Squinting into the darkness, Sarah crouched down and raised her torch, trying to see.
At first, she feared it had only been a trick of light, something there one second and then gone the next. After all, it had been only a spark, as though someone had struck flint, trying to light a fire. Had she imagined it? In the next moment, though, there was another flash of light somewhere in the thicket, and Sarah stilled.
Squinting even harder, she fixed her gaze upon it, afraid to lose it once more. It moved and grew larger as it headed her way. And then, Sarah saw it was not one light but two. Two glowing disks in the dark, heading her way.
Sarah’s heart tripped over itself as she stared, terror filling her heart as Mrs. Murray’s ghost stories echoed through her mind. “What is this?”
Chapter Forty-Nine
NOT A TRACE
Keir and Eoghan pulled the horses to a halt in the courtyard, then jumped down and rushed inside. They took the stairs two at a time, then raced along the corridor toward Katherine’s chamber. Keir slowed his steps, reaching out his hand to hold Eoghan back from bursting through the door. He quickly knocked, then stepped inside without waiting for an answer. Inside, he found his grandmother and Mrs. Murray seated by Katherine’s bed, the young woman upon it, her eyes closed in slumber. Frederica lay sleeping in the crib beside her, and Sarah—
Keir felt his heart constrict. “Where is Sarah?” he demanded as he moved into the chamber, his eyes finding his grandmother’s.
His grandmother rose to her feet and stepped toward him, her gaze moving from him to Eoghan and back. “She decided to aid in the search.”
Keir cursed under his breath. He ought to have known. She had never remained behind and out of danger before. Of course, wanting to help was something Keir understood, and yet the thought of her in danger killed him.
“Is she all right?” Eoghan murmured as he stepped toward the bed. His gaze narrowed as he looked at Katherine then back at Keir’s grandmother. “She seems…”
Mrs. Murray patted his arm. “Dunna ye worry. The lass is fine, but she could do with some sleep. It serves no one if she walks a hole into the floor.”
Keir could not resist the chuckle that rose in his throat. “Ye drugged her,” he exclaimed, shaking his head in disbelief. “Why would ye do that?”
Mrs. Murray met his gaze, her own steady. “Because she needed it.” She exchanged a glance with his grandmother before she stepped toward him. “Ye dunna know what ’tis like to fear for yer child, dear lad, and I pray that ye never will.”
“What are you doing here?” Keir’s grandmother inquired, a shrewd expression coming to her face. “Clearly, you have not found the girls. What is happening?”
Keir looked at Eoghan and then met his grandmother’s eyes. “We canna be certain, but we think that perhaps taking the girls is to serve as a distraction. After all, Birchwell is after his wife, not his daughters.”
His grandmother nodded. “You think he will send word to her, urging her to come to him, or she will never see the girls again?”
Keir exhaled a deep sigh, well-aware of the tension that lingered in Eoghan’s shoulders. While they were fairly certain that Lord Birchwell would not harm his own children, Bonnie was a different matter. She was nothing to him, a complication at most. Would he stoop so low as to harm a child?
