Constantine heard only four words. His tongue felt like it was swelling up when he spoke. “They dinna take lads? They take lasses?”
The patron nodded, keeping his eyes on the shiny merk. “Aye, lasses. They carried her off and put her in the carriage.”
This couldn’t be! She’d been kidnapped? Nae! Nae! He had to find her. “Where did they take her?”
The patron shrugged his shoulders. “I canna be certain, but I think they were headed south.”
Constantine paid the patron and sprang from his seat. He stopped before he hurried out. “Who is the proprietor of this establishment where women are absconded in the night and taken away?”
“Ewen Campbell. I am told.”
Constantine nodded. “Thank ye.”
The patron looked into his hand and smiled. “Nae. Thank ye.”
Constantine searched for her day and night, hoping, praying she was safe in his house.
Once, he was haunted by Alison but now Ismay alone invaded his thoughts. Her smile and her laughter. The way she hadn’t let her childhood keep her in some prison of her own making. As he had done. She was understandably mistrusting. But she trusted him, and it made him feel important and worthy again.
When he slept, he dreamed of her. He laughed in his dreams. He loved her in them and relished in thefreedom of it.
He finally reached the home that he’d built below Ben Nevis. He wasted no time leaping from his moving horse and running toward the door.
He went through every room. She wasn’t there. Hugh wasn’t there. There was no sign of them. He ran his hand down his face and tried to think clearly. Was he ahead of her? Should he wait? What if she wasn’t coming here specifically? He rose up, not thinking about his weary body or his even wearier thoughts.
He’d been so busy trying to run from her and from what he was beginning to feel for her, that he hadn’t realized how much he enjoyed having her in his life. He wanted her back in it. He would tell her that he didn’t want her to leave. His kin already loved her.
Hugh was with her. His steward wouldn’t hurt her. He was helping her. Constantine didn’t care why. He was glad Hugh was watching over her.
He got back up in his saddle. He didn’t care what it took. He would find her and he would make certain she never felt the need to run again.
But first, he had to find her.
*
Something cold hither face. Ismay opened her eyes and gasped at the icy water up her nose.
“Wake up, wench!” A man’s voice commanded. His tattered boots crunched the dry hay under his feet.
The dry hay that poked her in the back since she’d been thrown into it the night before. She tried to remember what happened. She had been kidnapped. She had jumped from a moving carriage. The memory of it pulled a moan from her lips and her hand to her head.
“I said up!” the oaf, whom she noted was bald when she sat up, shouted at her.
“Who are ye?” she asked him quietly. She realized with a sickening twist in her belly that she was still afraid of them. “What do ye want?”
He stormed toward her. She gritted her teeth not to cower before him.
“Who do ye think ye are to ask me questions?” He raised his hand behind his head to strike her.
Nae. She was sick and tired of fearing men. Constantine and his cousins were not like these bad ones. And why should she be afraid? Didn’t she have two hands and decent enough wits in her head to fight back? She did when she was eight.
Dipping her eyes, Ismay saw what she needed. She reached out and snatched the hilt of a dirk sticking out from under his belt.
Instead of his palm hitting her face, it met the steel of his dirk. He screamed, staring in horror at his blade going through his palm and coming out the other side. She scrambled under him as he fell to his knees.
She looked around for another weapon to use against him. She was in a barn. There was lots of hay.
“Ye bitch!” he screamed at her.
