“What happened with the Munros?” she asked. “Did ye stop the attack?”
“We’ll speak upstairs.” He pulled her along with him to the laird’s chamber.
It was empty. Sybil must be in Kenneth’s chamber with Malcolm and Grizel. When he turned to go there, his sister stood in his way.
“Tell me what happened with the Munros,” Catriona demanded.
“We were too late,” Rory said.
“Nay!” Her hands flew to her face, and she went deathly pale. “Was the Munro chief slain?”
“We did not find his body among the dead.” Alex spoke in a soft voice and put his arm around Catriona. “There is hope that he and others survived.”
“I’m going upstairs to see Sybil and the others,” Rory said.
“She’s not there,” Catriona said. “None of them are.”
Rory felt as if his stomach had dropped to the floor.
“I’ve been waiting with no word from any of you.” Catriona wrung her hands as she explained how Sybil and the others had gone to Beauly to meet the Grants. “They should have returned last night.”
“I should have foreseen that Sybil would attempt some bold and risky plan, with no thought for her own safety.” Rory ran his hands through his hair. “This is so like her!”
“She was trying to protect Kenneth and prevent trouble with the Grants,” Alex said. “And it doesn’t sound like abadplan.”
“Not abadplan?” Rory said, raising his hands in the air. “They’ve disappeared, and I don’t know where in the hell they are or what’s happened to them.”
“I found something when I was looking for a hair comb I lent Sybil,” Catriona said. “It probably has nothing to do with this, but—”
“For God’s sake, Catriona, what is it?”
“I found this at the back of the drawer in her table where she keeps her hair ribbons and drawings.” She paused, testing his patience, then withdrew a folded parchment from her sleeve. “It has a fancy seal, so I thought it might be important.”
He tore the parchment from her hands and thrust it at Alex. “Read it to me.”
Alex scanned it first, then looked up. “Promise you’ll remember that ye have no reason not to trust Sybil.”
The warning caused the hair on the back of his neck to rise. “Just read it.”
Rory gritted his teeth as Alex read the lines from her despicable brothers. When Alex read her uncle’s message about a ship waiting for her at Inverness to take her to join her brothers in France, Rory sat down hard on the closest chair.
He remembered so clearly telling her that it was easy to take a boat from Beauly to Inverness. She had been adamant about going with him to Beauly to meet the Grants. And when he could not go, she went anyway.
Alex read a line scrawled in yet another hand noting the ship’s name,La Fleur, and today’s date withat dawnunderlined twice. That explained why she could not wait another day and hope Rory could rearrange the rendezvous with Grant.
He had no doubt that she loved his son and would not have left until she delivered Kenneth safely to the Grants. But did she ever truly love him? Or did she just not love him enough to give up her chance at life in the French court for the dangerous and hostile world he had brought her to?
If she could persuade Malcolm to take her to Beauly, she could easily find an excuse to slip away from him long enough to find a fisherman who would take her to Inverness in exchange for a silver coin or a smile. Malcolm was probably still looking for her, afraid to face Rory until he found her.
But it was too late to catch her.
Sybil was gone.
CHAPTER 45
Sybil awoke hours later to what sounded like a moan.
“Is someone there?” she called out into the darkness.