Chapter Seventeen
Logan stepped outside the next morning and stretched, lifting both arms and grimacing while he reached for the sun. He felt a hand on his back and turned to see his mother. When his cousins left last night, taking Helen to receive her punishment, his mother stayed behind with Ealar.
“Why are ye out of bed, Logan?” she scolded. “Ye need to rest. Yer body is recovering.”
“I feel amazingly well, Mother.” He looked over her shoulder. “Where is Elspeth?”
“I have been preparing the morning meal. I havena seen her.”
Odd. Logan stepped farther outside and scanned the vale.
She definitely would have tried to help his mother cook.
He did not see her hanging wet clothes on the line, nor was she washing anything by the stream.
He felt a thread of fear course through him and broke away from his mother to check the house.
He hurried to her room. It was empty. When he didn’t find Elspeth in his house, he checked his parents’ house. She wasn’t there either.
“She likely went fer a walk on the mountain.”
“Where is Ealar?” Logan asked her, hoping his brother was not in the house but with Elspeth if she’d gone walking.
“I just came from waking him. Why do ye appear so shaken, Son?” she asked when he paled and turned to look toward the mountain. “Do ye think she would run away from ye?”
Would she? he asked himself. She liked him and she hated herself for it. Where would she go? “Mother, I’m goin’ to look fer her.”
Before she could stop him, Logan hurried for his horse and took off for the mountain. While he rode toward it, he searched the glen for any sign of her, calling out her name, praying she answered.
Only his voice echoed back.
Each second of not finding her grew more torturous. She was alone. There might be too much hatred in her heart for him to ever truly love him, but she would not go off alone if there was any way to avoid it.
When he finished searching the closest ridges and caves without finding her, he headed directly for the stream and rode along the shoreline, searching the water for her. Could she swim? He imagined every unimaginable scenario while his heart beat like a drum in his ears.
By the time he returned home, he was convinced she had not gone on her own. Someone had taken her. Could it be the man who had traveled with Helen? Hadn’t Elspeth told him he was Helen’s master, whom Helen feared she had killed? What if he was not dead?
“When the lads get here,” he told his mother while he strapped his sword to his belt and tucked dirks and other various weapons into his belt, his boots, and his bracers. He intended to fight to the death for her. Nothing less. And he didn’t intend on dying, “tell them I must find Elspeth.”
He opened the front door to leave and heard his brother’s footsteps hurrying after him. “Wait fer me, Logan. I’ll ride with ye.”
“Stay here,” Logan called without turning to look over his shoulder.
“How can I do nothin’ when yer wee sparrow is missin’? I can help.”
He sounded sincere enough, Logan reasoned. “What can ye do, brother?”
Ealar bent his arms along his sides and turned up his shoulders. “Fight by yer side or break off into another direction if that is what ye wish.”
Logan gave him a hard look, to which his youngest sibling waved away.
“Ye willna even know I’m with ye,” Ealar promised.
Logan doubted it but motioned with his hand for his brother to follow him. Mayhap a trip together was long overdue. Still, Logan did not want to have it now.
Logan waited in silence while Ealar saddled his horse.
Watching him, he was grateful that his younger brother wanted to be by his side.
Everyone in Lochaber had heard the stories about Ealar Cameron’s stealth and skill.
He was making their father proud where Logan could no longer go.
Logan held no animosity toward his brother.
He was happy one of the legendary Lochiel’s sons was filling his father’s footsteps.
“If there is fightin, Ealar, stay away from it. I willna have our mother hatin’ me for lettin’ ye fight.”
“Brother, I can—”
“Aye, I know,” Logan told him, “still, I canna bear the thought of losing ye, little brother.”
“Ye willna lose me, Logan. I promise.”
Logan gave him an admonishing glance. “Since when have ye become so sure of yer skill?”
“Since I fought all of father’s enemies while ye convalesced. I learned as I went.”
Logan would not have laughed if Ealar hadn’t grinned at him. Wee, cocky lad. But he was smiling. For that, Logan was grateful.
They rode away from the house and headed west toward Tor. They searched the area until they came to a small town and threatened to kill anyone harboring a man and a woman with short yellow hair. No one had seen such a lass.
Several hours later, a band of about seven thieves ambushed them as they set down their heads for a few hours of sleep.
Logan wasn’t sure if it was him or his brother who opened his eyes first. They moved in unison, blades flashing in the moonlight, slashing and splattering blood across Ealar’s face, then on to Logan’s when he twisted his wrist and sliced his blade across another man’s throat.
Another four went down in much the same way, with much blood.
The last man alive was allowed to live if he promised to tell others that the Camerons would not tolerate thievery in any way.
Steal a man’s purse or his wife or daughters and there would be no mercy.
He would have been allowed to live even if he refused to promise.
What he told Logan was too valuable to kill him.
He had seen her! A pixie-like lass with short choppy hair beneath a blue woolen hood. She traveled with a man, though she kept looking over her shoulder, as if searching for another.
When Logan heard this, his resolve to find her grew stronger. Who was the bastard who took her? Logan was going to kill him.
“What did this man look like? Describe him to me.”
“He looked like her,” the thief told him. “Same blue eyes, same complexion. His hair was long, but verra light, like hers.”
“Are ye sayin’ he could be her brother?”
“Her twin brother mayhap.”
Logan turned to Ealar, who knew every written account in the Lochaber annals, including his and his family’s.
“How many children did Lord Dunley and his wife have?”
Ealar thought about it for a bit, then opened his mouth to declare, “Three children, the eldest, Roderick, then Elspeth, and the youngest, Padrig.”
“Were her brother’s bodies accounted fer?”
“Sorry, Logan, I dinna remember readin’ anythin’ aboot their bodies. Ewen was there. Why not ask him?”
Logan nodded. He would. He would ask him exactly what happened that night. Right now, he wanted to believe she was safe with one of her brothers who had survived that night.
They left the small camp and continued west. Logan remembered there was an inn up ahead run by an old woman and her niece.
The place was quiet when they entered. Logan looked around. Why would they leave their shop open so anyone could come inside and rob them of everything?
He called out. A chill went down his spine at the silence.
And then, they heard footsteps hurrying down the hall. A woman! Logan turned to set his thankful eyes on Elspeth. Please, God, let it be Elspeth.
A lass in her late twenties smiled at him. “Logan, ’tis good to see ye.”
“Mary, I’m lookin’ fer someone.”
“Mare,” she corrected him. “My name is Mare.”
Logan closed his eyes and ground his teeth to keep from snapping at her.
“Fergive me, Mare,” he amended with great control. “Tell me, have ye seen—”
But she was no longer listening. Her green eyes had spotted Ealar, and she appeared to forget everything else.
“Lady,” Ealar lowered his voice enough to sound husky.
If the situation weren’t so dire, Logan would have smiled at his brother’s wiles.
“We need yer aide,” Ealar continued. “We’re lookin’ fer a lass. She is wearin’ a blue mantle and has short light hair. She is possibly travelin’ with a man. Have ye seen her?”
“Hmm,” Mare pondered, eager to please Ealar. “Aye, I do remember a lass fitting that description. What do ye want with her?”
“She is his woman,” Ealar told her, pointing to Logan. “The man she is with kidnapped her.”
“Och, I wish I had known,” Mare ground out, “I would have smashed him in the head with one of my weightiest pots.”
Ealar feigned an admiring smile and raised one brow in surprise and curiosity.
“How long ago were they here?” Logan asked her urgently.
As if coming from a spell, she turned and set her gaze on Logan. “They arrived last evening and left when the sun rose.”
“What do ye mean they arrived last evening?” Logan demanded. “That canna be. It would mean he took her from her bed.” Logan turned away, fearing he would be sick in everyone’s sight. How could she be snatched away right under his nose? How could he have failed her so miserably?
“Mare,” he heard his brother say her name. “Think hard, I beg of ye, fairest of all women, was it mornin’ or evenin’ when—”
“Twas late in the evening,” she insisted. “I know because he wanted to pay fer a single room, and she insisted on a double.”
Logan looked at his brother while his belly twisted into a knot. “Let’s go.”
He heard Ealar bid farewell to Mare and then catch up to him on his horse.
They rode in silence, mostly because they rode hard and the bounce mixed with wind would have vanquished their words.
But later, when they stopped to let their horses graze and drink from a nearby stream, they sat together and ate dried strips of venison.
“Logan?”
He turned to look at his brother. “Aye?”
“Is yer heart lost to her?
“Why? Do ye intend to scold me fer it?”
In the moonlight, Ealar looked as if he only had to lift his hand to cast a spell. He shook his head and his hair shimmered around his face like black pearls.
“Nae,” Ealar answered. “I want to know if ’tis possible fer a lass to make ye ferget yer past.”