“Wonder what that’s about,” MacKay said.
Randolph intended to find out. He arrived just in time to hear his uncle say, “Take whomever you need. I hope there is another explanation.”
Walter shook his head. “I don’t think so. Izzie came to live with Douglas because she expected something like this. We all just thought he’d given up. Alexander said he would conscript Langton to help find her—he will have even more reason to find her once my message arrives that she has agreed to marry him.”
Randolph’s heart had stopped at the mention of Izzie, but at the words “marry him,” he knew that he must have been mistaken.
“What is going on here?” he asked in a far calmer voice than he would have otherwise.
Young Walter turned and looked at him with a very worried look on his face. “It’s my cousin, Isabel.” Not realizing his words had stopped Randolph’s heart again, he continued. “She still hasn’t arrived at Bonkyll. The message I sent ahead of her to her brother got there, but she and the men I sent with her are missing.”
Missing? Randolph felt as if every drop of blood had drained from his body. “What do you mean missing? She left two and a half days ago. She should have arrived yesterday.”
Randolph was too agitated to pay mind to the look of confusion on Walter’s face. The lad must be the only one in Edinburgh who hadn’t heard about Randolph’s rejected proposal.
“There was some trouble a few months back,” Walter explained.
Randolph felt like he was trying to contain a volcano that was about to explode within him. “Trouble? What kind of trouble?”
Walter explained about the young knight who’d tried to erase his debts by marrying her and hadn’t been pleased to have his plans foiled. “He’s an unscrupulous sort,” Walter added. “Alexander—Izzie’s eldest brother—had broken with him some time ago, but Izzie didn’t know when she became, um, involved with him.”
How could no one have told him, damn it? The thought of her in danger made everything inside him turn upside down. It shattered whatever last doubts he might have had about his true feelings. He tried to stay calm, but inside he was a mad rush of twisting, terrifying emotions—foremost among them panic. “And you think he is the reason she has not arrived?”
Walter nodded. “I hope not, but it seems likely.”
“I’ll kill him.” Randolph’s voice left no doubt that he meant it. “I’ll find her,” he told Walter. To his uncle, he added, “I’m taking Lamont.” It wasn’t a question, but Bruce nodded as if it had been. Ewen “Hunter” Lamont was the best tracker in the Highlands. If anyone could find her, he could.
I will find her, damn it.
“That is gracious of you to offer, Randolph, but it isn’t necessary. I can—”
Randolph took the lad by the arm and held him up almost off the ground. “I’m going.”
Wisely, Walter just nodded.
Randolph started to move off before something niggled. He turned back. “You mentioned a betrothal.”
“Aye. With Sir William de Vipont, Lord of Langton. She told me to accept him right before she left. I just sent the missive yesterday.”
It was strange how a body that was burning could turn instantly to ice. She’d agreed to marry someone else? Randolph’s chest twisted for one long painful moment before he turned to his uncle. “I’ll need MacRuairi, too.” The former pirate was nearly as good at tracking as Lamont, and despite being from the Isles, he was one of their best riders. Then he explained to a clearly confused Walter, “She isn’t going to marry him.”
Walter frowned. “Yes, she is.”
“No, she’s not. She’s going to marry me.”
Randolph didn’t realize Hawk had come up behind him. He could practically hear the bastard laughing. “I thought the lass rejected you, Randy.”
Keenly aware that everyone in the Great Hall was watching, Randolph spoke loudly so that they would all hear. “She has to marry me. I ravished her, and I have every bloody intention of doing so again when I find her.”
The shocked hush that descended over the Hall was almost comical. The reputation that Randolph had so carefully built since his return to his uncle’s fold had just been shattered.
But for the first time in eight years, Hawk smiled and gave him a nod of unmistakable approval.
Izzie didn’t die of heartbreak. Although for a few days it felt as if she might. By the time Walter had arranged for men to escort her home, she was glad to leave Edinburgh Castle—and Sir Thomas Randolph—behind. His angry declaration of love had been the final nail through her heart. That he could utter the words she so longed to hear as if they meant nothing and with such obvious insincerity was proof of his lack of feeling. He would tell her whatever she wanted to hear to prevent her from refusing him and save his pride and reputation.
Still, she wouldn’t have embarrassed him by making her refusal public. She’d said nothing of the incident, but the men who’d overheard their argument had obviously not been so closemouthed. It had been the talk of Edinburgh—which is also why she’d left. She grew tired of the stares and whispers and hoped that with her gone, the talk would die down.
“Thatis the woman who refused Randolph?”
