pan into the fire.”
“Take me,” Niall said in a soft voice. “I’m as close a blood relation to Connor as either Ian or Alex.”
Sileas felt as if her chest were caving in on itself. She stopped and turned to look into his face, though she could barely make out his features in the dark.
“Aw, Niall,” she said, reaching up to touch her fingers to his cheek, “ye can’t mean it.”
“What, do ye think I’m too young?” he said, sounding hurt. “Or is it that I’m not as good as my brother—even after what he’s done to ye?”
“No, it’s not that,” she said, though he was far too young. She rested her hand on his arm. “I grew up wishing every day I had brothers and sisters. Having you become a brother to me has been one of the great blessings of my life. Don’t ask me to give that up.”
“You’ve been a sister to me as well,” Niall said, and she could hear him fidgeting in the dark. “But… well, ye are so pretty that I believe I could overcome it.”
“I do appreciate the offer,” Sileas said, taking his arm to hurry him down the path. “But I don’t believe I’ll want another husband for a verra, verra long time.”
“Where is she?” Ian shouted, as he pounded on Gordan’s door.
No candlelight shone in the window or under the door. If Gordan had taken Sileas to his bed this very night, Ian would murder the devil’s spawn on the spot.
He pounded the door again until the windows rattled. “Come out and face me like a man!”
When the door swung open, Ian clenched his fists, ready to pound Gordan’s pretty face to a pulp. He choked back his fury when Gordan’s mother peered up at him from under her nightcap.
“I’ve come for my wife.”
“Sileas?” Gordan’s mother clutched her nightshift about her throat. “Don’t tell me the lass has left ye. I always knew she was trouble.”
It occurred to him that Sileas and Gordan would know this was the first place he’d look for them. If they weren’t here, then he would track them down—to hell, if need be.
“I must ask ye to step aside, so I can have a look about,” Ian said.
Gordan suddenly appeared behind his mother.
“What in God’s name do ye think ye are doing,” Gordan said, as he pushed his mother aside, “showing up at my door in the dark of night and threatening my mother?”
Ian slammed his fist into Gordan’s face, dropping him backward into the house. As he stepped inside, he picked Gordan up by the front of his shirt.
“I’ll ask ye but once,” Ian said an inch from Gordan’s nose. “Where have ye got my wife?”
“Sileas? Is that what this is about?” Gordan said, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. “Has she finally left ye, then? Good for her.”
“Don’t try telling me ye didn’t know it,” Ian said, as he scanned the room. She was not in sight, so he released Gordan and crossed the room. “Where is she?” He stuck his head into the empty kitchen.
“No one’s here but the two of us,” Gordan’s mother said.
Ian heard her fumbling with the lamp. When the flame took hold, Ian caught the look of worry on Gordan’s face.
“She left in the night alone?” Gordan said. “What have ye done to her, man?”
A blade of fear cut into Ian’s belly. “Are ye telling me the truth, that ye don’t know where she is?”
“I swear it on my father’s grave,” Gordan said.
Ian swallowed. “I must find her before any harm comes to her.” At the door, he turned and said, “Will ye tell me if she comes here?”
“I will,” Gordan said. “But if Sileas has chosen to leave ye, I won’t send her back.”
“Where could she have gone?” Ian ran his hands through his hair as he paced up and down the hall. He was always clearheaded in a crisis, but he couldn’t think at all.
“Let’s go up to her bedchamber and see if she left something that will tell us,” Alex said.
Ian ran up the stairs with Alex on his heels.
When he reached the bedchamber, he picked up her gown from the floor. Before he could stop himself, he held it to his face and breathed in her scent. He closed his eyes. Missing her was a physical pain, like a razor’s edge slicing into his heart.
“Take a look at this,” Alex said behind him.
Ian joined Alex at the small table where Sileas kept the accounts. Alex had ruined her neat stacks, tossing the parchments haphazardly across the tabletop.
“Read this one,” Alex said, tapping his finger on a sheet that rested on top of the scattered parchments.
Ian’s heart sank as he read it. God in Heaven, what was Sileas thinking? It was a letter to the queen, begging for her support in obtaining an annulment from one Ian MacDonald. She also asked for the crown’s assistance in removing her stepfather from her castle and lands.
“It looks as though this was her first attempt,” Alex said, pointing to where the ink was smudged. “I didn’t find her final version.”
