The Laird’s Runaway Bride (Charmed by the Sassenachs #1)

Chapter 17

17

“Amelia!”

Arran’s voice bounced off the walls, circling about his head. He had arrived back from the hunt a few hours before, and, as he always did, he had retreated straight to their bedroom to check on her, only to find their marital bed empty, the covers tossed back and askew, and Amelia nowhere to be seen.

He had been pacing the Keep ever since, scouring it from top to bottom to try and locate her, but had, as of yet, found nothing that might have indicated where she had gone to. Every door he stepped through, he found himself praying she was on the other side, expecting to see her sweet smile as she lifted her gaze from a book and greeted him but there was nothing. No sign of where she had gone to, or when she might have been returning.

If she was returning at all.

A thought he could barely even entertain. He strode past the portrait of his mother, and, for a moment, he could have sworn that he felt her sharp eyes boring into him with a little more purpose than before. He refused to so much as glance over in her direction. He would not be abandoned, not again, not after everything he had shared with Amelia.

Finally, he came to a halt in the great hall, which, at that moment, seemed almost painfully empty. Most of the residents of the Keep were taking care of their daily tasks, and none of them would likely have noticed that Amelia was missing; Gregory, for his part, was dropping off some of the spoils of their hunt with a local family who had been struggling to make ends meet recently, and would not be back for another hour or so.

That left Arran alone to find her, which he had yet to succeed at. With every passing moment, he grew more and more concerned, racking his brain for any hint of where she might have vanished to. He interrogated in great detail the conversation they’d had before he had left that morning, for anything that might have indicated that she would want to flee, given the chance. But her sleepy smile, the warmth of her hand beneath his lips, all of it was as it had always been. Nothing was different.

Or, at least, nothing had seemed that way to him.

He heard footsteps passing outside the main hall, glanced around and, when he saw Effie, her maidservant, passing by, his heart leapt. She must have known something about where her lady had fled to.

“Effie!”

She jumped slightly at the sound of his voice, but then turned to face him, smoothing down the front of her skirts slightly as she did so.

“Aye, my Laird?”

“Have you seen Amelia?”

The maid hesitated before she responded, and Arran could tell at once that she was holding something back. He strode towards her, and she recoiled slightly as he approached, like she was preparing for him to strike her.

“Aye, my Laird. This morning, she was in your study…”

“When?”

“Shortly after you left.”

He eyed her, not certain he believed her. He’d never had reason to doubt Effie before, but he was seeing everything through a new lens now, forced to consider the possibility that someone close to him may have betrayed him.

“And how did she seem to you?”

She bit her lip. Taking a step towards him, she lowered her voice.

“In truth, my Laird, she seemed… distracted. As though her mind was somewhere else entirely. As though it was not within the walls of the Keep at all.”

His jaw clenched. Could she really have taken off and left him like that, with no warning? He was sure the two of them had grown closer in the weeks that had preceded this strange vanishing, but perhaps he had been wrong…

Effie glanced around, as though fearful they might be overheard, then took a step towards him.

“May I speak frankly?”

“You may.”

“I saw her tacking up her horse this morning,” she admitted. “She asked me to lay out clothes for her, something that would keep the chill off her during a ride.”

He closed his eyes. Just as he had feared. He had prayed, hoped against hope, that somehow she was still here. But she had waited, she had lulled him into a false sense of security, and then she had taken the first chance she had gotten to flee. His mind flew back to all the nights they had spent together, and he wondered if all of that had been an act. Could she have faked her way through what they had shared? More to the point, could he have fallen for it?

He stalked down to the kitchen without another word to Effie, and poured himself a large flagon of whiskey. Normally, he would never have allowed himself to drink so early into the day, but the shock of everything that had happened was enough to make him ache for the balm of drunkenness. He would speak to Gregory when he got back. However, had Gregory not tried to assure him that she was nothing like her? Nothing like the woman who had left him all those years ago? He let out a derisive snort at the thought, as he gulped down another few mouthfuls of his drink. Aye, that’ll be the day…

Making his way back to his study, he could not bring himself to so much as look upon the bookcase that she had loved so much. Or, at least, that she had told him she loved so much. Perhaps that had been a lie, too. He could still recall, with an almost painful clarity, the way her eyes had lit up when she had first seen the rows of books he kept in there. It was hard to believe she could have invented such a reaction, but perhaps he just did not know her as he thought he did.

He slumped into the bench that he had first taken her upon. The memory of it was so vivid, he could have sworn that he could smell her scent, still clinging to the fabric. She must have been here recently. But why would she have come to his study, if all she had intended was to flee this place? Had she been looking for something? Planning to steal something from him? As though she had not taken enough…

The day drew on towards night. Gregory stopped by briefly, but Arran sent him away, not ready for the conversation he was sure they’d have to have about what had happened and how they would go on. Arran could already imagine how people would look at him, if they found that his young wife had taken off into the night of her own accord. Perhaps she had just been waiting to learn how to ride well enough that she was sure she could put distance between them before he’d come after her. An irony, to him, that the very wedding gift he had purchased for her could have been the thing that carried her away from the Keep.

He was starting to grow heavy with the whiskey now, even his strong constitution beginning to waver in the face of all that had happened. He loathed himself in that moment, loathed himself for believing that she could ever truly have cared for him, loathed himself for thinking that a woman like her would ever have been able to satisfy herself with a man like him. He could see now how laughable it was, but he had convinced himself, for long enough that it had started to feel real, and now…

Now, he had to face life without her. And he didn’t know how he could do that.

A knock sounded at the door.

“Gregory, I told ye, I told want to talk…”

But, when the door swung open, he saw not his old friend but Effie. Her hands were clasped in front of her, her gaze lowered demurely to the ground.

“May I enter, my Laird?”

He shrugged. He didn’t have the energy to turn her away. And besides, perhaps she might be able to cast some more light on what had happened with Amelia. He would cling to anything he could get, anything that might allow him to make sense of it, because as it stood now, it felt to him as though a chunk of his chest had been torn straight from his body.

Effie stepped inside, and made her way over to the bench. He shifted up slightly, allowing her room to sit, and she did so. She eyed him for a long moment before she spoke, and, when she did, she seemed to choose her words carefully.

“I’m sorry about yer wife, my Laird,” she murmured. “I truly am. I thought, just as I’m sure you did, that she could make a home for herself here, but…”

She trailed off, shaking her head.

“She had me fooled, too.”

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. Something nagged at his mind, something warning him that there was more to her visit than simple commiseration.

“You knew her well, did ye not?” he asked her. She nodded, then shook her head at once.

“Well, I thought I did,” she murmured back. “I… we spent a lot of time together, but I suppose she was just using me to get to know this place better so she could make her escape, ye ken?”

He nodded. He supposed he had no reason to doubt Effie. Perhaps it was just his paranoia, after Amelia had fled, that was making him approach all of this with such doubt. He wanted to search for something, anything that didn’t fit, so he could unravel all of this and bring her back to him, back to his arms, where she belonged.

“But the way she talked to me, I should have known that there was something… no’ right about your marriage, if I may say so, my Laird.”

His head snapped up.

“Wit do you mean?”

“I mean… she told me that the two of you had not yet shared your… marital bed,” she explained. He frowned at her. Why would Amelia have said that? Had sharing a bed with him not been part of her plan? And if it had not, why had she done it anyway?

“That’s no’ true,” he shot back sharply, his tone a little more harsh than he had intended it to be. She stared at him.

“It’s what she told me.”

“It’s not the truth,” he snapped back. “We were…”

He trailed off. Effie was staring at him with a sympathetic expression on her face.

“You dinnae have to lie to me, my Laird,” she assured him. “I understand that men have… needs. And if you were ever to need someone to fulfil those needs for you, well…”

She reached out for him, planting a hand on his knee. He stared down at it for a long moment, nonplussed. He had never noticed Effie so much as casting a glance in his direction before, but now, here she was, taking advantage of the absence of his wife at the first opportunity she had gotten.

Almost as though she had been planning it.

He brushed her hand aside and shook his head.

“I dinnae. She fulfilled everything for me. More than I could ever have asked for.”

A flash of anger passed across Effie’s face. She looked furious.

“She’s an outsider,” she snapped back. “She could never have really understood you, as someone from this land could have…”

“You seem sure of who she is,” he replied, his voice as even as he could make it. “What else did she tell you? What else did she say about where she’s gone to?”

Something shifted in her expression when he asked her that. Whatever composure she had been clinging onto, it seemed to vanish in the blink of an eye.

“It doesnae matter where she’s gone to!” she exclaimed. “They have her, and they’ll be sure that she’s defiled by now, so you’ll never want her back…”

She clasped her hands over her mouth, clearly wishing she could reel the words back in. He rose to his feet, knocking over the whiskey, sending the amber liquid trickling across the floor.

“What do you know?” he demanded as he grasped her by the collar, pulling her up to her feet. She scrabbled for purchase on the floor, tearing her gaze away from him.

“Nothing!” she cried out. But she could not look him in the eye as she spoke. He knew she was lying. And he knew, all at once, that whatever she knew was crucial to finding Amelia again.

If whoever had taken her hadn’t managed to flee with her for good.