“She is no murderer.” He turned and shouted at the others, “I need men to help me search for my wife!”
He waited for someone to come forward. None did.
“There’s no sense in looking for her till daylight,” one of the men ventured. “Even if she’s out there, we won’t find her tonight in this storm.”
Between the darkness and the storm, the odds were against finding her. But what these men were really thinking was that, whether Margaret was the murderer of no, she had left him and did not want to be found.
Belatedly, it occurred to Finn that someone in this room could be the reason she left in a rush without her cloak and Ella’s doll. He could not take any of them with him, even if they offered. He needed to do this alone.
When he reached the gate, the guard was there.
“I was here when your wife left,” he said. “She didn’t seem right to me.”
“What do ye mean, not right?”
“At first, I thought she’d had a few too many nips of whisky, but I don’t believe that was it,” the guard said, drawing his brows together. “Usually she greets everyone with a smile and a few words, but she was real quiet-like and acted as if she did not really see me.”
“Did she say anything?”
“Just one thing,” he said, after pausing to think. “After I told her the weather was turning bad, she said, ‘I must hurry.’”
Was Margaret in a hurry because of the weather or some other reason?
“I was surprised to see her without that wee lassie of hers,” the guard said.
“Ella wasn’t with her?” Finn asked, alarm coursing through his body. “You’re sure?”
“Aye,” the guard said. “I saw Una take the bairn out in the afternoon, but I assumed they’d come back long since.”
Questions swirled in Finn’s head as he saddledCeò. Was Margaret worried because Una and Ella were late returning with a storm brewing? If so, why had she not alerted the men and asked them to help her look for them? Instead, she had slipped out quietly on her own as it was growing dark without mentioning to the guard that they were still out and she was going to fetch them.
The guard said she acted strangely. Was she ill? Afraid?
Finn wondered again if she was trying to evade someone, to leave without that someone realizing she did not intend to return. If anyone saw her leave without Ella, they would assume she was going out for a short time, not departing. The same was true if they saw Una and Ella go out.
Why the subterfuge? As Finn was away at the time, it could not be him Margaret was attempting to evade. Who was she afraid of? And in this storm, where would she go?
He had to think. If Una was helping Margaret and Ella escape, he thought he knew where the old nursemaid would take them. He hoped to God he was right and that they were not out in this storm without shelter.
“We’ll see if you’re a hunter,” he said, holding Margaret’s cloak to the dog’s nose. “Help me find her.”
He tucked the dog inside the fold of his plaid with Ella’s ragdoll then ledCeòout into the driving rain. Holding the lantern in front of him, he followed the path that led to Lachlan’s cottage. It was four miles, a fair distance for an old woman with a young bairn, but Una knew every inch from walking it for sixty-odd years. And unlike Margaret, Una and Ella had left in daylight and before the storm.
Every few yards he called Margaret’s name and paused, hoping to hear a response over the sound of the rough sea pounding against the cliffs.
Ruff! Ruff! Ruff!The wee dog stuck his head out of Finn’s cloak and barked.
“What is it, laddie?”
The dog leaped down and sniffed frantically around Finn’s feet. Before Finn could grab him, he darted off the path into the darkness. Where in the hell was he going?
“Get back here,” Finn shouted.
Ruff! Ruff!
Ice lodged in Finn’s heart. Surely, Margaret knew better than to wander off the path in the dark. But she was not from Sutherland. Had he warned her about the danger of the bogs here in the flow country? He could not remember.
Ruff! Ruff!