The hair at the back of Jeannie’s neck stood on end and gooseflesh ran along her skin, but she forced herself to stay calm. “She begged off her lessons, telling me that you were taking her to see Mary’s new baby.”
Jeannie saw her own rising panic reflected in the young nursemaid’s face. Beth’s eyes widened and she shook her head.
There’s no reason to panic, Jeannie told herself. Oh God. Her heart raced in her chest but she wouldn’t allow herself to think until they searched the keep.
A quarter of an hour later, however, she knew there was no mistake. Ella was gone.
“Where could she have gone?” the distraught nursemaid asked, her face white and tears barely repressed.
The possibilities ran through Jeannie’s mind and stopped on one.
Duncan and his men had gone hunting in the forests near the Grampian Mountains and Ella must have followed him. She thought Ella had forgotten. In the security of Duncan’s taking control of the castle, Jeannie had forgotten her daughter’s stubbornness—and her resourcefulness. During the day it wouldn’t be difficult for her to slip away. People passed through the gates all day and the guardsmen were more concerned with who was coming in than going. She would be on foot, unless—
“One of the ponies is missing, my lady,” Adam informed her on cue, his face somber. “She must have taken it when they were grazing outside the gates.”
Now panic set in. Ice-cold panic that chilled her blood and penetrated her bones. Panic that made her unable to think. She felt as if she were spinning in a whirlpool trying to claw her way out.
Think…
“How could you let this happen?”
Jeannie turned at the sound of her mother-in-law’s voice. The Marchioness had been roused from her embroidery to join Jeannie in the yard when the hue and cry had been raised to search the castle for the missing child. “I warned you that something like this could happen. Helen has been allowed to run wild—”
“Not now!” Jeannie snapped, for once heedless of offending the older woman. “You may chastise me to your heart’s content when we find Ella, but right now you are only wasting precious time.”
To say the Marchioness was taken aback would be an understatement. Profound shock was more apt. But she took Jeannie’s set down with surprising grace. They might have their difficulties, but in their love for her children they were united.
“What can I do to help?”
Jeannie would remember to be shocked by her capitulation later. “We need to organize search parties.”
Adam, the captain, stepped forward. “’Tis done, my lady. I started the moment I heard the child was missing.”
Too terrified to feel anything other than a breath of relief, Jeannie thanked him. “She’ll have gone after them. Do you know where they’ve gone?”
“Aye. The Muir of Dinnet.”
Minutes later most of the remaining guardsmen who had not accompanied Duncan on the hunt rode out through the gate.
Duncan.Where was he? She wanted—nay, needed—him desperately and was too terrified to allow pride to stop her from admitting it.
Adam was one of the last to go. “Don’t worry, we’ll find her, my lady. She couldn’t have gone far.”
But they both knew she could. Ella was an excellent rider. Jeannie nodded mutely, trying not to think about all the horrible scenarios that could harm a seven-year-old child alone in the mountains and forests. What if she took a wrong turn and got lost? The paths were fraught with danger and if she veered off she could fall down a ravine, off a mountainside, or even into the River Dee if she wasn’t careful. Only the knowledge that Duncan had cleared the land prevented her from thinking about brigands.
As Adam and the last group of men galloped away, Jeannie ran up to the battlements to watch them go.
She wanted to go. To do something. Anything other than this horrible waiting.
But as a woman waiting was what was expected of her. Adam would never have allowed her to go—she would have only slowed them down.
And Duncan…
She shuddered. He would be furious at the mere suggestion.
This was what it meant to be a woman. Forced to sit and wait while your life played out beyond your control.
Once before she’d felt this way—this horrible helplessness. She recalled standing at the window in the tower chamber, eyes glued to the countryside, waiting for news of Glenlivet. And that’s what she did now, standing at the battlements, scouring the countryside for any sign of riders. Her mother-in-law and the other women had gone inside, but she could not. Inside she would go crazy. She needed to be outside where the walls could not close in around her.
