“And what will ye do if I choose to, eh?” he demanded, tipping his head to the side. “This is my Keep, Aitken. And what you do here will not go unpunished?—”
“Please, stop!” Amelia exclaimed. “We can’t let whatever history the two of you have get in the way of finding Mary. I just need to know that she’s safe, please.”
Much as it was clear Arran wanted to lunge for Kiernan and make his opinion of him even clearer than it already was, he took a step back, retreating beside his wife. Kiernan felt a pang in his chest, seeing the two of them together in such a way, seeing them care for one another, the support they offered each other at this time of trial. The same thing he could have shared with Mary, he was sure, if he had not been so foolish as to fight with her the way he had.
Before he could say another word, though, Callum, one of his guards, rushed to his side.
“We’ve got news of Mary!” he told him, nearly breathless, and relief washed through Kiernan. Of course, she could not have gotten far. She would not have run off into the night like that, she was not so foolish.
“Aye? Speak, lad, where is she?” he demanded, and Callum gestured behind him. One of the cooks, Thea, was following him into the Keep, dusting the flour from her hands. She curtsied to Kiernan in greeting, but Kiernan hardly had time for such pleasantries.
“Did ye see something, Thea?” he asked, clasping the older woman by the shoulders and peering into her eyes. She nodded.
“Aye, it was late last night,” she replied. “I was in the kitchen, preparing some bread to rise before I went to rest. And I heard the front door of the Keep creaking, which I thought was strange, given it was so late. I left the kitchen to see if someone was arriving at the Keep, you ken, to see if they needed something to eat before they retired to their chambers for the night. And I saw…”
She hesitated a moment before she spoke, as though uncertain that she wanted to keep talking. Kiernan squeezed his grip of her a little tighter, wishing he could just shake everything she knew out of her.
“Aye?” he pressed. “Ye saw what?”
“I saw Mary and Archibald together, leaving the grounds of the Keep.”
He dropped his hands by his sides again. Shock hit him like a punch in the chest, nearly knocking the wind from his lungs. Archibald? Archie? And Mary? It made no sense. He had seen the two of them talking a few times, of course, but he had assumed that his old advisor was just trying to make her more comfortable. He had always been a man of great loyalty, and he could not imagine that he would have done anything with the wife of the man he served…
Or anythingtoher.
“Has anyone seen Archibald this morning?” Kiernan demanded. “Is he anywhere to be found?”
“I’ve sent a man to check his chambers,” Callum replied. “If he’s no’ there, then, well…”
He did not need to finish his thought. Kiernan knew what the implications were if he could not find Archie in this place. Could he really have left with Mary like that? And if so, why? Would Mary have left him for a man like that? And if she hadn’t… then what exactly had Archie promised her to get her to abandon this place? His mind reeled with questions, and, as Amelia stepped forward, he knew he was not the only one.
“Who’s Archibald?” she asked him. “Where is my sister, Kiernan?”
“He’s one of my advisors,” he muttered, his chin dropping to his chest as he tried to make some sense of this madness.
“Yer advisors? And he was with yer wife?” Arran asked, almost sounding amused. Kiernan flashed around, fury coursing through him. He would not take such an attitude from an Aitken, not at a time of such need…
“Stop, please, both of you,” Amelia pleaded with them. “We have to find Mary. We can’t focus on that if the two of you are at each other’s throats.”
Arran and Kiernan stared at each other for a long moment, but then, Kiernan nodded slightly.
“She’s right,” he admitted. “I want Mary back here, and safe, where she belongs, and I cannae do that if I’m fighting a war on two fronts.”
Arran’s jaw tightened for a moment, but then, he looked over to his wife. It seemed to be the expression on her face which made the decision for him. Kiernan could see the way his eyes softened when he looked upon her and their son, the way he so clearly wanted to do anything he could to end her fearand worry. Though there was little that could bridge the gap between Kiernan and Arran, Arran would at least put aside their differences for as long as it took to soothe his wife’s troubled mind. He jerked his head in agreement and extended his hand to Kiernan’s.
“Aye,” he replied. “A truce.”
Kiernan took his hand, trying to ignore the words that hung between them—for now.
“Thea, fetch some food fer our guests,” Kiernan told the cook, who dipped her head in agreement and then hurried off to take care of her duties. “And then come to the study, and you can tell us again exactly what you saw.”
He glanced around at some of the lady’s maids, who were hovering in the doorway, clearly unsure of how best to manage their duties now that the person they had served had vanished into thin air.
“And you, fetch some fresh linens for the guest quarters,” he continued. “Make up a room fer Arran and Amelia, and their bairn.”
A silence hung in the air for a moment, as though nobody wanted to be the first one to move.
“What are you waiting for?” Kiernan roared. “Now!”
