CHAPTER ONE
“Me Laird, ye need to hear this, it’s important.”
The study door slammed open with such force that it cracked against the stone wall.
Noah MacGregor, Laird of Clan MacGregor, snapped his head up from the contract he’d been reviewing, his hand instinctively moving toward the dirk at his belt. But it was only Elliot, his man-at-arms, stumbling through the doorway with his chest heaving as if he’d run up every stair in the castle.
“This better be good, Elliot,” Noah growled, though alarm was already prickling at the base of his spine. Elliot never ran. Not for anything short of a crisis.
“It’s Esther.” Elliot leaned forward, hands on his knees, catching his breath. “She’s... the guards... they’ve lost her. Yer niece is missin’, me Laird.”
The words didn’t make sense at first. Noah’s mind refused to process them.
“What did ye just say?”
The guards and the nanny took Esther to the nearby village as ye approved, but...” Elliot straightened, his face grim. “She wandered off at the market. They lost sight of her.”
The contract slipped from Noah’s fingers. “They did what?”
His voice was dangerously quiet, the kind of quiet that made seasoned warriors take a step back.
“They searched for over an hour. When they couldnae find her, they thought maybe she’d headed back toward the castle on her own. Ye ken how she gets when she’s frightened; she wants to come home. So they made a choice.” Elliot’s expression was carefully neutral. “Two guards stayed in the village to keep searchin’. The nanny and one guard rode back to alert ye and get more men.”
“And?” Noah’s hands clenched into fists.
A flicker of fear pierced his rage—what if they were wrong? What if Esther hadn’t gone home? What if she was still out there, alone and scared, thinking she’d been abandoned again?
“She didnae make it back. She’s still out there somewhere, me Laird.”
Noah’s jaw tightened. “They should have sent one rider back to report while the rest stayed to search. Four adults against one eight-year-old lass, and they couldnae keep track of her?”
“They made a mistake,” Elliot said quietly. “They panicked. But two are still searchin’ the village.”
“Two isnae enough.” Noah was already heading toward the door. “Lock up the ones who came back. Two days in the dungeons. They should have stayed with her, all of them, until she was found or until I got there.”
“Me Laird, that’s a bit too much, daenae ye think?”
“Two. Days.” Noah’s voice cracked like a whip as they descended the stairs.
They rushed into the courtyard where three guards and Esther’s nanny huddled nervously. When they saw Noah’s face, two of the guards turned pale.
“Me Laird, we can explain—” the nanny started, her voice trembling.
“Explain what?” Noah’s voice was cold and controlled, but beneath it ran a current of something darker—fear. “Explain how ye made the choice to leave two people searchin’ for me niece instead of all four of ye stayin’ until she was found?”
“We thought she’d come home, me Laird,” one of the guards said quickly. “She gets frightened in crowds, always wants to come back to the castle. We thought if we rode fast, we’d find her on the road, or she’d already be here safe.”
“And if ye were wrong?” Noah’s hands clenched at his sides, and for a moment, he saw Esther’s face from two years ago—pale, terrified, abandoned.
The thought of her out there now, thinking he’d left her too, made his chest tighten with a fear he refused to name. “If she wasnae on the road? If she’s still out there, lost, thinkin’…”
He cut himself off, his jaw working.
When he spoke again, his voice was rougher. “She’s eight years old. She’s been with me for two years, and every single day I’ve tried to show her she’s safe. That she’ll nae be abandoned again, and yer mistake might have just undone all of that.”
The nanny’s face crumpled. “Me Laird, we never meant for it to happen.”
“I daenae care what ye meant.” Noah turned to Elliot, needing to move, to act, to do something other than stand here drowning in the fear that he’d failed her. Again.
