Chapter 20
“You’ve been keeping secrets, Callum. Freya MacLeod’s secrets.”
Callum looked up from the letter he’d been writing. James was lounging in the doorway of his study, one shoulder propped on the doorframe. “Where the devil did you come from?”
“Here and there.”
He’d closed the door for a reason, but James had never been one to let a closed door stop him from going where he pleased. “By all means, do come in.”
“Good of you to ask.” James sauntered into the room and dropped into one of the chairs in front of Callum’s desk. “Now, about these secrets of Miss MacLeod’s—”
“You’re excused, Corbett.” There was no putting James off when he was in a confrontational mood, but Freya’s secrets were just that.
Hers. No one else at Balnagown Castle needed to know about them.
Except James, apparently.
Corbett laid his pen aside. “Of course.”
Once Corbett had closed the study door behind him, Callum turned back to James. “Have you been prying into Miss MacLeod’s business, James? I would have thought such a thing was beneath you.”
“Not at all. There was no prying required. I merely mentioned her name to a friend who recently returned from Skye and got an earful about her and her sisters. I confess I was rather shocked, and I’m not one to shock easily, as you know.”
An earful. That could mean anything. God knew there was no end to the gossip about the MacLeod sisters. Which rumors was James referring to?
“Smugglers, stolen treasure, and witchcraft?” James tutted, shaking his head. “One would never think it to look at her, but Miss Freya MacLeod is quite the hellion.”
Nothing about arson, murder, or thief-takers, then. A small blessing, that.
“What of it? I don’t see how it’s any business of yours, James.” Callum shrugged, but there was no mistaking the quiet menace in his voice, the coldness there.
James was no fool. He heard it for the warning it was, but he didn’t heed it. “You’ve brought a suspected witch amongst the clan, and you think it’s not my business, Callum?”
“A witch. What bloody nonsense. Don’t attempt to persuade me you believe those rumors. I know you better than that, James.”
“Of course I don’t, but I wonder … do you suppose the rest of the clan would see it that way? I’m not certain they’d have your confidence in her.”
Slowly, Callum got to his feet, rising to his full height and looming over his former friend. “Are you threatening me, James?”
There was only one acceptable answer to that question, but James didn’t give it. Instead, he met Callum’s gaze and said the one thing sure to snap Callum’s tenuous hold on his temper. “Perhaps I’m threatening Miss MacLeod.”
Did he move? Yes, he must have done, because somehow he was on the other side of the desk with James’s coat clutched in his fists, the man’s face only inches from his own. “Don’t you ever threaten her, or I promise it will be the last thing you do.”
Instead of blanching, as any man in his right mind would have done, incredibly, James smiled. “Ah. I see how it is. I suspected as much, but I’m certain of it, now.”
“What the devil are you talking about?” He’d never wanted to shake a man as much as he wanted to shake James right now. “Do you think this is some sort of game? Because I’m not amused. Not in the least.”
“No, I daresay you’re not.” James reached up and carefully pried Callum’s fingers off his coat. “There’s nothing amusing about hopeless love is there, Callum?”
Love? What did that have to do with anything? He released James with a bit more force than was necessary, and James fell back into his chair with a hard thud. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“God above, but you’re dim, Callum. Allow me to speak plainly. You’re in love with Freya MacLeod.”
In love, with Freya? No, surely not.
It was true he couldn’t stop thinking of her. Or dreaming of her. He’d relived their kiss thousands of times in his head, and another thousand in his dreams. He’d lost his temper with poor Corbett merely for touching her, and last night, when they’d been alone in the garden …
It had taken every shred of his restraint not to kiss her again.
Even knowing what was at stake—Freya’s reputation, his promise to Alistair Niven, his betrothal to Lorna, and the wellbeing of the clan …
None of it mattered, in comparison to how he felt about Freya.
But that didn’t mean he loved her.
Did it? Was this what love felt like?
“You seem puzzled, Callum. Perhaps I can help. Did you or did you not nearly tear my head from my shoulders just now, when I threatened Miss MacLeod?”
“You may consider yourself fortunate all your limbs are still attached, yes.”
“I thought so. A gentleman who isn’t in love doesn’t attempt to behead or otherwise maim his friends, Callum. You may lie to yourself all you like, but the fact is, you’re in love with her.”
“I think I need to sit down.” He didn’t so much sit as topple over into the chair.
“Now I know what I must have looked like when I realized I was in love with Lorna. It’s even more pathetic than I expected.” James studied him for a moment. “Or perhaps that’s just you.”
“Isn’t love supposed to be a pleasant emotion? Because this is bloody awful.”
James rolled his eyes. “This is hopeless love, Callum. Doomed love, if you will. I daresay the other sort of love is delightful enough, but neither of us will ever know if you won’t dislodge your head from your arse.”
“Me? How is this my fault?” But he knew. Of course, he knew.
But James was only too happy to explain. “You see, Callum, it’s like this. I’m in love with Lorna, and you’re in love with Freya, and neither of us can have our chosen ladies because of that blasted promise you made to Niven. It’s like a nightmare version of Blind Man’s Bluff, for God’s sake.”
“Alistair believed the marriage was what was best for the clan.”
“But is it, Callum? Is it best for the clan for everyone to be made miserable?”
“I made Alistair a promise, James.” He’d been made laird on the strength of that deathbed promise. How could he go back on his word now?
Yet how could he not?
“Does Freya love you, Callum?”
“Devil if I know.” She felt something for him, yes, but love? How did a gentleman know if a lady was in love with him? “Does Lorna love you?”
“I haven’t the vaguest idea.”
They stared at each other for a moment, then James’s lip quirked. “We’re pathetic enough, aren’t we?”
“God, yes. Perhaps we should find out before this goes any—”
“Callum!” The study door burst open behind them, and his mother rushed in, her face as pale as death. “We need you.”
“What is it?” He shot to his feet, startled.
“It’s Freya. It’s been hours, and … one of the housemaids saw her in her bedchamber much earlier today, but she didn’t come for luncheon, though she said she would, and no one’s seen her—”
“Slow down, Mother.” He rose and strode across the room to her, his chest tight. Aila Ross wasn’t a lady who fell easily into a panic, but she was so distraught she was babbling. “Take a deep breath and start over again. Something about Freya?”
“She’s missing, Callum.” His mother clutched his arms, tears swimming in her eyes. “No one’s seen her for hours, and no one can say where she went, but I’ve looked everywhere. She’s not in the castle. I’m certain of it, and this weather …”
His mother’s gaze shot to the window over his shoulder.
Freya had been right about last night’s green sky. It had proved to be every bit the harbinger of extreme weather she’d claimed it would be.
It was as if the elements were locked in a pitched battle for supremacy, the ferocious wind competing with the deluge pouring from the sky. Balnagown Castle stood hunched against the violence, its walls shuddering in the wind, its windows rattling in the downpour.
And somewhere, amid all this destruction, Freya was lost.
“Fetch Corbett, James. I want the two of you to scour every inch of land from the south end of the grounds down to the Balnagown River. Go.”
For once, James didn’t argue, but shot past them, out the study door.
“Mother, fetch as many footmen as you can. Tell them Miss MacLeod is missing and arrange them into parties of two men each. Have them search the fields, the woods, and the entire length of the front drive.”
“Callum?”
He was already striding down the hallway, but he turned back at his mother’s trembling voice.
“You’ll find her, won’t you?”
“I will. I promise it.”
He would, no matter what it took. He wouldn’t stop searching until he found her.
Anything less was unthinkable.
The rain lashed at Callum’s face, blinding him, and with every step he took the howling gusts of wind pushed him two steps backward.
He was no stranger to wild weather. He’d been all over the Highlands, from Wick in the northeastern corner of Caithness all the way down to Fort William in the south, but never in his twenty-nine years had he seen a storm like the one now battering Kildary.
How would he ever find her?
He couldn’t see. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t hear anything but the roar of the wind, the distant torrent of Balnagown River pummeling its banks, and the endless recriminations echoing in his head.
That he was too late. That he should have stopped her from leaving the castle or noticed her absence and gone searching for her at once.
That he should have taken better care of her.
That he should have kissed her again, last night in the garden as they stood together under the strange beauty of the green-tinted sky.
Should have, should have, should have …
None of it mattered now. Nothing would ever matter again if he didn’t find her.
He pushed on, shielding his face with one hand as best he could, the other stretched out in front of him, as if to catch the wind in his fist and hold it still until he found her.
His coat flew out behind him, the wind snaking its way underneath it and searching out every defenseless inch of bare skin and twisting it in a brutal grip.
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but Freya.