Page 73 of A Virgin for the Icy Highlander
“Now ye’re askin’ the right questions,” Trevor said with an uneasy smile. “I dinnae ken who has taken her, but I’ll stand beside ye, doin’ whatever it takes to get her back.”
Drawing in a sharp breath, Hunter lowered his sword. “Saddle yer horse.WhenI get Ellie back, I want her to have that pendant, and I want us to talk about that treaty.” He paused. “But if ye stab me in the back, Trevor, I willnae hesitate.”
Trevor nodded. “And I wouldnae blame ye.”
Although Hunter still didn’t trust the man entirely, he found that hedidtrust in Trevor’s affection for Ellie. And withtwomen who would stop at nothing until she was found, whoever had taken her didn’t stand a chance.
“I can’t just do nothing while she is out there, probably scared out of her wits!” Grace said, striding out of her bedchamber, where she and her friends had been encamped since the news of Ellie’s kidnapping, trying to comfort one another.
Maddie followed. “But there is nothing we cando, Gracie. Believe me, I am as furious about it as you are. Give me a musket and a horse, and I would gladly ride out to search for her myself.”
“We are missing something,” Lilian said, trailing behind by a couple of steps. “I feel it in my bones. Do you know the feeling when you are writing a letter and you cannot remember a word? You knowthe essence of the word you need, but it will not come.Thatis what I am feeling.”
Grace couldn’t have agreed more, which was precisely why she was heading for Ellie’s bedchamber—to see if there was anything Ailis had overlooked in her panic.
Indeed, she didn’t know if anyone had actually searched Ellie’s room. Everyone had been more focused on the mysterious ‘injured person,’ the messenger who had called Ailis away, and the child-sized figure who had been seen leaving the castle.
Opening the door, the bedchamber was a scene of disarray. The linens were thrown in a heap on the floor, the bed itself pulled askew, the wardrobe doors open, the dresser drawers open, the drapes pulled back, and the tapestries had been tugged off the wall. Ailishadsearched every potential hiding place.
There must be something. There has to be.
Undeterred, Grace began a slow walk around the room, keeping her eyes peeled for anything strange or out of place. Maddie and Lilian watched her from the doorway, exchanging pitying glances as if they thought she’d lost her mind.
It wasn’t until her third circuit of the room that Grace saw it.
On the writing desk, so ordinary that it was no wonder it had been overlooked, was a piece of paper, folded in half so it would stand up on its own. And written across the front of it was one word:Grace.In a state of panic and the ensuing chaos of Ellie’s kidnapping, anyone would forget that a four-year-old couldn’t possibly write someone’s name so neatly, in looping, elegant cursive.
Grace grabbed it and flipped it open. Inside, the note was as brief as it was bewildering.
I have the girl. She needs an education.
“Is Miss Sutton still here?” Grace asked, her mind leaping to the wildest possibilities.
You dolt. Of course, Miss Sutton isn’t the one who has taken Ellie.
“She is,” Lilian replied. “She is tending to Ailis. Why do you ask?”
Grace concentrated on every elegant letter and tried to figure out why the handwriting looked so familiar. In the past three years, she had barely received a handful of letters, and most of those were from her sister.
But not all…
She traced the looping ‘l’ and the flourish of the ‘g’ with her fingertip and knewpreciselywho had written this note and left it for her to find. The only thing she still couldn’t fathom was why Ellie would have followed that man out of the castle.
“While I was gone, were you with Ellie for the entirety of the day?” she asked abruptly, turning to her friends.
Lilian shook her head. “Her nursemaid took her for a walk in the gardens. I did not see her again until she came in to say goodnight, before Ailis put her to bed.”
“I do believe I saw her in the gardens,” Maddie confirmed.
“Did anyone approach?” Grace pressed.
Her heart was in her throat as the strange second sentence of the note began to make sense—it was a location.
Maddie grimaced. “I wasn’t paying attention. To my shame, I was in something of a hurry, hoping to find that meadow with the fireflies.”
“Stay here,” Grace said, crumpling the note in her hand. “If Hunter returns, tell him that I think I know where Ellie is, and I will explain everything when I get back.”
As Grace made for the exit, Maddie blocked her path. “Where are you going, exactly?”
