Soon, everyone was rushing off to take care of what needed to be done. Kiernan positioned several men on patrol around the Keep, to keep watch for Mary in case she made a sudden return, though, to be quite honest, he doubted she would. Wherever she had gone, and whatever she had left for, he did not know what she might have encountered out there beyond the walls of the Keep, and he cursed himself for not making certain that she stayed close to him.
Once Amelia and Arran had been fed, and young Robert laid down to rest, they made their way to the study, a heavy silencehanging over all of them. Amelia looked pale and drawn, while Arran seemed restrained and concerned about his wife.
“Can I ask you something?” Amelia murmured, finally breaking the silence between them. Kiernan nodded.
“Aye. Anything.”
“Why was she not in bed with you that night?”
Kiernan sucked in a sharp breath. A question, he had hoped, he would not be called to answer so bluntly. Arran eyed him, waiting for his response.
“Because…”
Kiernan’s words failed him. What could he say to them that they would trust? He knew what Arran thought of him, how the Aitken family viewed his clan, and he could hardly blame them, with the reputation that he had cultivated over the years. They were unlikely to believe that he had kept his distance from his new wife because he did not want to force her hand.
He needed a chance to make things right with her. More than anything in the world, he knew that was what he needed. He couldn’t let her slip through his fingers, couldn’t lose her, not when he knew he had hurt her so badly; not when he knew that he needed to fix the harm he had left in his wake.
“Because I made a mistake,” he admitted finally, looking between Amelia and Arran. “And I need yer help to make it right. I need to find her. To tell her how I really feel. And then…”
He trailed off. He did not know if she would even want anything to do with him after all that had transpired between them, but he knew that he had to find out.
Amelia and Arran exchanged a glance. Kiernan could tell that Arran was still doubtful, but the look on his wife’s face gave him all the encouragement he needed. He reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze, and then returned his attention to Kiernan.
Rising to his feet, he extended his hand, and gave him a sharp nod.
“Anything I can do tae help, I will,” he replied. Kiernan took his hand, a flood of gratitude moving through him at the sound of those words coming out of his mouth. He had never thought that he would join forces with an Aitken, but when it came to getting his wife back from the man who had stolen her away, he knew he would have put anything on the line to make it happen.
“Thank you,” he replied, dipping his head slightly to express his gratitude. Arran drew his hand back, and glanced to the door.
“What are we waiting for? We must ride out as soon as we can,” he told him. “It’ll be nightfall soon, and we cannae risk leaving her there alone.”
“You’re right,” Kiernan agreed, and he strode to the door. “Come—I’ll get my horse tacked up, and my men ready, and we can go.”
Arran dropped a kiss on the top of his wife’s head and followed Kiernan to the door. Kiernan caught sight, out of the corner of his eye of the enormity of the estate that was laid out before them. He knew not where Mary had managed to get to, but he would sort through every inch of the place until he found her.
Until he knew she was safe once more.
17
Mary’s breath tore in her lungs as she fled through the forest, barely able to see what was ahead of her through the canopy of trees on either side. Her legs were screaming with pain, begging her to stop, but she knew that if she slowed, she might give Archibald a chance to catch her.
She had slipped from his grip next to the river, and rushed off into the forest, trying to put as much distance between them as she possibly could. When he caught her again, he would not wait to deliver the killing blow, and she knew that the sharp edge of his knife would bury itself in her guts before she had a chance to protest.
With every step, she felt as though she could feel his breath on the back of her neck, the pure hate for her that burned in his eyes when he gazed at her. She could not believe that she had fallen for his pretence of kindness. Looking back, it seemed so obvious to her now that no man would have shown her such gentleness, or given her the secrets that had plagued this place for so long, if he was not getting something out of it herself. She had been too quick to trust, and now, she was paying the price.
All at once, as she ran, she felt a sharp weight across her chest. She stumbled and fell, the breath knocked from her body, and reached for something to grip onto in order to drag herself back to her feet.
But before she could, she felt a hand at the back of her neck, yanking her to a standing position with a rough motion. She gasped and scrabbled at the person who had managed to get her in such a grip, but there was no pushing them off. He had clearly been waiting a long time to get his hands on her, and he would not stop now that he had her.
“Aye, there ye are, lass,” Archie’s voice sneered to her, through the darkness of the canopy of trees above them. “You gave me quite a chase.”
“Let me go, please,” she begged him, her voice bubbling over with panic. “Just let me go. I’ll go back to the Keep, I’ll tell them nothing of you, I’ll say I left on my own accord, and?—”
“Keep yer mouth shut,” he ordered her as he pushed her back against a tree. “And dinnae move.”
He shoved her against the thick trunk of an oak behind her, and used some fabric torn from his cloak to bind her to it. She wondered, for a moment, why he did not just kill her on the spot, but then she noticed that he wasn’t holding his knife. He must have dropped it at some point during the chase—sparing her for a few more moments, though she did not know if the reprieve would be anything other than a stay before her execution…
She struggled against the bindings around her wrists, where they had been secured behind the tree. She wanted to cry out, but she didn’t know if anyone would even hear her, not out here. Had they come looking for her already? Or did they think she had fled of her own accord, and left her to it? She didn’t know, and the thought of being abandoned here completely—of being left to die in the woods, where Archibald would use her death tospark war between her husband and her family—it was almost more than she could take.
