“Aidan! You cannot believe that!”
“I don’t know what I believe,” Aidan told her. He shook his head tiredly. “She’s simply disappeared. With no clue at all.”
Shawna turned away from him suddenly. Perhaps there was a clue, yet she didn’t dare speak of it now, to Aidan. Her handkerchief had been found in the chapel, laden with chloroform. Someone had taken her handkerchief, soaked it in the drug.
Someone had seized hold of her in the tunnels, and that same person—or persons—had seized hold of Sabrina as well.
“Events have grown quite strange around here in the last few days,” Aidan continued. “The cave-in, the boy disappearing in the shaft…reappearing and speaking about a beast saving him. The arrival of the great Laird Douglas from America.”
Events were far stranger than Aidan knew.
At the bottom of the loch lay a dead man, weighted down to disappear, as enemies of the Highlands had been weighted down to feed the water creatures for centuries.
And strangest of all, Laird David Douglas lived, hiding out within the walls of his castle, in the caves beneath the ground. Five years ago, someone had attempted to kill him, but another man had been burned, and David had somehow miraculously escaped…
She kept far too many secrets. From her own blood.
She looked down at her hands. She had no choice.
“Something bad has happened to Sabrina, and that’s surely a fact,” Shawna said. “We must find her.”
“Then again, perhaps she has run off. Perhaps she found love and ran away.”
“Not Sabrina.”
“Don’t fool yourself, cousin. Every woman can fall prey to the sins of the flesh.”
The way that he stared at her brought a flush to her cheeks, and she was suddenly anxious to move again. And she knew—as no one else did, except for David!—that Sabrina had a great deal on her mind.
But Sabrina hadn’t just irresponsibly disappeared. Shawna was certain of it.
“Let’s get your father and head back to Castle Rock.”
“As you wish, Lady MacGinnis,” Aidan said, bowing slightly, and for just the slightest second, she was afraid. Of her own cousin. Of her own blood.
“There are far moreunderground tunnels than those of which I am aware,” David said. He’d met his brother in the mine shaft where the cave-in had taken place, where lines were up for the miners not to cross back into dangerous territory. Hawk was deeply concerned about his sister-in-law, yet he was trying very hard to search for her with his mind focused, not allowing his emotions to cloud his thoughts. David spoke to him about the recent events that had taken place as they searched the mines for Sabrina.
“I brought the lad through the water the other day here—” David said, hunkering down and pointed to where the very narrow shaft gave way to a tunnel below. “It was flooded then,but the distance was short enough, and he’s a terribly bright little lad.”
“I would imagine,” Hawk commented, coming down on the balls of his feet at his brother’s side. Staring through the hole he murmured, “He looks like a MacGinnis.”
“Aye, that he does,” David agreed. He sat back for a moment. “I have the feeling Shawna must believe one of her cousins fathered the wee lad, the way she was so determined to take him in. Then again, he possesses quite a bit of charm, and perhaps she needed no reason to seek to take him in. I was quite taken by the lad myself, and whatever happens here, I’m glad the boy will be safe out of the mines and working at the castle.”
“So, Castle Rock itself should be safe enough?” Hawk queried.
David shrugged. “I’ve access to nearly every room within it. There are peepholes in the tunnels beyond the walls. I can see and hear what goes on within the castle, and whatever evil is at play there, I don’t think much goes on within the walls. Whoever seeks to do away with our family tries hard to do so by natural means—to all appearances. Sabrina was outside of the castle when she was taken.”
“You’re certain?”
David hesitated. He hadn’t told Hawk about Shawna’s handkerchief because he hadn’t wanted Skylar to know about it. He and Hawk had tried to convince Skylar that Sabrina had gone riding and lost track of time and her sense of responsibility. Now he told his brother, “I found a handkerchief soaked in chloroform—one of Shawna’s— in the chapel. But I don’t think that she was taken from the chapel. The handkerchief was all balled up as if it had fallen from a pocket.”
“Surely, you don’t think that Shawna actually drugged and kidnapped Sabrina?”
“Of course not.”
“Good, since that probably exonerates Shawna from any evil designs upon me in the tunnels, doesn’t it?”
David scowled, then shrugged. “Fine, if Shawna is such an innocent, then what is going on, and who in God’s name is she trying to protect?”