Page 70 of A Virgin for the Vicious Highlander
“Murdoch, thank goodness!”Aileen cried, running across the main courtyard to greet her son as he rode through the gates.
Murdoch frowned, feeling as if he had lived through this moment before. “Dinnae tell me she’s gone chasin’ after another dog,” he grumbled, arching an eyebrow. “Or the same dog?”
Mairie and Tara hurried after Aileen, barely managing to skid to a stop in front of the stallion. His eyes narrowed as he noted the puppy in Tara’s arms and the pale, worried expressions on the women’s faces.
A moment later, Lennox was there too, his face so ashen that he looked like he might keel over at any given moment.
“What’s happened?” Murdoch demanded to know, unease shivering down his spine.
Lennox took a half step forward, bowing his head. “It’s Her Ladyship. She’s… gone, M’Laird.” His voice hitched. “She told me she was goin’ to the village, and I asked her to wait for an hour or two ‘til I could escort her. She said she couldnae wait but promised she’d take someone with her. I let her have her way, but she hasnae returned.”
The winter sun was sinking below the horizon, and though the hour was not particularly late, the roads were not safe for anyone to walk alone in the dark. They were covered with snow and ice, and it was easy to get lost even for those who knew the terrain well.
Cecilia did not know the terrain at all.
“Who went with her?” Murdoch took a steadying breath, vowing to lose his temperaftershe had been found.
Lennox and the three women exchanged a look, but it was Mairie who answered.
“It appears that nay one went with her. The servants said she’d tried to find us, but we were all out, wanderin’ beyond the castle walls.” She dabbed her eye with her sleeve.
Dread sank like a stone in Murdoch’s stomach. “Did anyone see her leave?”
“Nay, M’Laird,” Tara replied. “But… I told her about the servants’ entrance. If she wanted to leave unseen, she’d have used it.”
This is all me fault.
Murdoch knew it deep down, as keenly as he knew his own name. He had chosen to make himself scarce that day. He had chosen to avoid her. He had chosen to take some time to gather his thoughts instead of going to reassure her.
As far as he could tell, there were two possibilities: she hadgone to the village and had gotten lost on the way back, or she had decided that she no longer wished to be near him, abandoning her title and the castle altogether.
“Gather our best men,” he ordered Lennox. “We search the villages, we search the roads, we search the castle, we search everywhere for her. Nay one rests until she is found. Am I understood?”
Lennox bowed his head. “Aye, M’Laird. I already have the men ready.”
“Then follow me out,” Murdoch growled. “We dinnae have a moment to lose.”
With the dark came the bitterest cold, and if she was lost out there—whether deliberately or not—he would not be able to live with himself if she perished.
If the villagers had been scared of their Laird before, they were positively terrified of him now. Murdoch and his men had torn through every village and hamlet and croft within walking distance from the castle, demanding answers with force and intimidation.
But no one seemed to know where Cecilia had gone. No one had seen a woman who matched her description, and those who were lucky enough to attend the wedding celebrations insisted that they would have remembered if they had seen her.
That was until they made their way back to Castle Moore beneath a clear night sky and twinkling stars.
As they passed through the nearest village to the castle, the shutters and doors closed against Murdoch and his vanguard of soldiers, frightened eyes peering out from behind drapes, a cloaked figure burst out of a small wooden hut.
“M’Laird!” a scared voice called as the figure stumbled forward and bowed their hooded head.
Murdoch slowed his horse, glaring down at the individual. “Yer next words had better be that ye ken where me wife is, else ye’ll wish ye hadnae spoken at all.”
The figure pulled back the hood, revealing the pale and wide-eyed face of a woman. She was perhaps thirty or so, with a smudge of something on cold-reddened cheeks.
“I wasnae in the village when ye came through before,” she said in earnest. “I was in the woods, where I keep me stone oven.”
Murdoch’s expression did not change, nor did he speak, letting her continue.
“I saw yer wife,” the woman said, at last. “She bought tarts from me stall at the market this mornin’. I didnae ken who she was, and I dinnae think she wanted anyone to ken, but a man approached her. Addressed her as Lady Moore.”
