Another sound disrupted Blair’s frozen stupor. Not a cracking twig this time, but a voice. Adaira was calling for her.
Gathering her skirts in one hand, Blair ran through the low brush and soft earth, her skirts catching at her ankles and threatening to trip her. She didn’t stop until Adaira’s curvy form appeared between the trees.
“Och, Blair! I wasna certain which way ye went! Were ye running hard? Ye look like ye’ve seen a ghost!”
Blair glanced over her shoulder to confirm that Paden and his companions had indeed left the woods, then she returned to Adaira, stepping over low bramble branches to join her.
“I fear I was caught up in my search and wandered off. I wasna sure I would be able to find ye!”
Adaira giggled and threaded her arm through Blair’s. “Och, well, the sun has fallen in the sky. ‘Tis better we head back lest we are waylaid by highwaymen on the road back.”
Blair’s heart pounded in her chest, but she forced a smile on her lips.
“Aye. That would no’ do indeed.”
When he learned fromthe kitchen maids that Adaira had taken Blair riding in the woods southwest of the keep, Reade had to suppress every desire to punch the stones. His knuckles were yet scabbed from his previous attack on the stone wall.
“And ye let her go? Why did ye do such a thing?”
The maid shrugged. “She’s with Lady Adaira. ‘Tis no’ untoward for the ladies to go riding.”
Reade bit his tongue at her glib response, not only at her disregard for the conflict with the Campbells, but she did not know that Reade’s trust in his wife extended as far as he might throw her.
In fact, out of his sister, mother, and brothers, Reade seemed to be the only one who still didn’t fully trust her. And he despised that this lass had managed to ingratiate herself into his family.
He hated to admit perchance his perspective was skewed due to his sense of loss and sorrow. His whole family had experienced that loss, but other than Camden’s mother and father, Reade was the only other person who felt like Camden’s death had killed something inside him.
Why did no one else feel that way? Why was he the only one who knew how conniving the Campbells and their allies could be?
Every night he even had to convince his own traitorous body not to respond to her, without success. He rolled over, using a blanket to separate them, and presented his backside to her so she wouldn’t feel the urgency of his turgid cockstand pressing against her. His treasonous appendage did not care a whit for who she was or what she might have done.
His nights were becoming their own form of torture, one that eroded his sense of distrust. His cock was winning the battle in that fight.
Leaving the maid to her chores, Reade raced for the stables to mount Motcha and ride after them. Flint, the stable lad, rushed to Reade’s side, ever eager to assist.
“Where are ye off to, Reade?” the lad asked as he handed a bridle to Reade.
“To find where my sister and my bride rode off to,” Reade spat out, the wordsmy brideburning his mouth like wine gone bad.
“They only went to the southwest wood to search for garlic or the like?” Flint told him casually as he tugged at the saddle girth to make sure it was snug.
Reade’s hands stopped atop his horse.
“And ye let them go?”
Flint shrugged.Another shrug.Reade ground his jaw, ready to explode.
“Adaira knows these woods well. And ‘tis no’ far from the keep. I thought nothing of it.”
“Nothing of it,” Reade mumbled under his breath. Again, he had to bite back harsher admonishment. The poor lad, who was still trying to grow whiskers on his chin, likely didn’t know much of Blair and who she was, or what she might do.
Reade rubbed at his forehead before grabbing the reins from Flint.
“If ye see my mother or father, ye can tell them I went after Adaira and my bride.”
Flint screwed up his face at Reade but nodded and stepped backward as Reade mounted his destrier and reined the horse toward the open barn doors. Shadows had grown long in the bailey, and if he didn’t find them soon, he’d be searching in the dark.
But he didn’t have to search at all. As soon as his horse exited the stable doors, two cream-colored palfreys trotted into the inner bailey, ridden by his sister and Blair.
