A blade of fear cut into Ian’s belly. “Are ye telling me the truth, that ye don’t know where she is?”
“I swear it on my father’s grave,” Gòrdan said.
Ian swallowed. “I must find her before any harm comes to her.” At the door, he turned and said, “Will ye tell me if she comes here?”
“I will,” Gòrdan said. “But if Sìleas has chosen to leave ye, I won’t send her back.”
“Where could she have gone?” Ian ran his hands through his hair as he paced up and down the hall. He was always clearheaded in a crisis, but he couldn’t think at all.
“Let’s go up to her bedchamber and see if she left something that will tell us,” Alex said.
Ian ran up the stairs with Alex on his heels.
When he reached the bedchamber, he picked up her gown from the floor. Before he could stop himself, he held it to his face and breathed in her scent. He closed his eyes. Missing her was a physical pain, like a razor’s edge slicing into his heart.
How could she leave him?
“Take a look at this,” Alex said behind him.
Ian joined Alex at the small table where Sìleas kept the accounts. Alex had ruined her neat stacks, tossing the parchments haphazardly across the tabletop.
“Read this one,” Alex said, tapping his finger on a sheet that rested on top of the scattered parchments.
Ian’s heart sank as he read it. God in Heaven, what was Sìleas thinking? It was a letter to the queen, begging for her support in obtaining an annulment from one Ian MacDonald. She also asked for the crown’s assistance in removing her stepfather from her castle and lands.
“It looks as though this was her first attempt,” Alex said, pointing to where the ink was smudged. “I didn’t find her final version.”
“She must have taken it with her.” The realization of where she had gone struck Ian with the force of a blow to the chest. “God help me, she’s headed for Stirling.”
Ian heard light steps on the stairs and turned to see his mother in the doorway. She remained there, worrying her hands. When she finally spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper.
“Niall is gone as well.”
It took Ian a long moment to take in the meaning of his mother’s words. “Niall? Niall is with Sìleas?”
“Your da says it’s good that she’s not alone,” his mother said.
“God’s blood!” Ian stormed up and down the bedchamber, feeling like a trapped animal. “What can the two of them be thinking? Stirling is not a jaunt down the road—it’s a journey of several days. Christ above, they could be murdered along the way!”
Visions filled his head of Sìleas raped, the pair of them mercilessly beaten, and their mutilated bodies left beside the road for wild animals to feed upon.
“Niall is good with a sword,” Alex said, guessing the direction of Ian’s thoughts. “I’m sure your father taught him, same as he did you, to watch for trouble and travel unseen.”
His mother’s gaze rested on the yellow gown that was somehow still clenched in Ian’s hand, then shifted to the bed. “Niall’s old clothes that she wears to muck out the barn are gone. I washed them and left them folded on the bed for her.”
“With Sìleas dressed like a lad, the risk is no so great,” Alex said.
“Even if they do manage to reach Stirling in one piece,” Ian said, raising his hands, “the town itself is a hive of hornets.”
The untimely death of James IV at Flodden had left Scotland with a babe as king and his mother, the sister of the hated English king, as regent. Ian didn’t need the Sight to know that powerful and ruthless men would be at court vying for control of the babe and his mother.
“I’m going after them,” Ian said, starting toward the stairs. “And when I find them, I’m going to murder them myself.”
Alex caught up with him in the hall. “It won’t take us long to collect Connor and Duncan,” he said.
Ian shook his head. “No. I don’t know how long this will take, and the gathering for Samhain is only a fortnight away. The three of ye must stay here and make certain Connor is chosen chieftain.”
“We’re coming with ye.” Alex put on his cap and lifted his mantle from one of the pegs by the door. “There’s time to make it to Stirling and back, if we’re quick.”