Page 69 of My Highland Love

Cameron slumped against the chair cushion. “I dinna' want to bury my only son.” He looked directly into Marcus's eyes. “You have a son. What will be his legacy?”

“By God, Cameron, you would have me believe Elise is a spy and, in the same breath, demand I change the course of the raging river that is the Campbells.” He strode to the door. “I will keep you apprised of my progress in discovering our traitor's identity.” He yanked open the door. “Rest assured, when I find the guilty party—no matter who they are—there will be no place for them on this earth, save the grave.”

Minutes later, Marcus entered the kitchen and scanned the busy room. “Winnie, where's Elise?”

Winnie turned from the counter, tray in hand, and handed it to a girl waiting nearby. “With Nell.”

“Nell?” he demanded in a voice which quieted the bustle in the kitchen.

“Aye.”

“Elise dared leave the keep after today—and especially at night?”

“So far as I know, she did not step foot outside the walls. I settled Nell in my cottage. With her mother dead and her aunt run off to wed, Elise offered to sit with her.” He winced when Winnie added, “I feared leaving her alone.” Winnie grasped a pitcher of water sitting on the cabinet. “Back to work,” she ordered the women, shoving the pitcher toward a girl who took it and scurried toward the great hall. Winnie focused again on him.

“Elise will not be here for the evening meal then?” he asked.

“I sent their meals to my cottage.”

Marcus gave a curt nod, then strode past the women and out the back door.

When he arrived at the cottage, he knocked lightly. Hearing no answer, he pushed the door open to find food sitting on the table untouched and both women missing. Marcus hurried back to the castle. He looked in Elise's room. His heart rate kicked up at finding it empty. He went next to the ladies' drawing room, but even as he opened the door he sensed the silence.

Dread coiled tight in his gut at sight of the empty room. If she wasn't inside the keep and she hadn't attempted to pass through the gates, only one answer remained: she had left through the passageway leading from the dungeons. Why go to such lengths to leave unseen? His father's words earlier returned, “…she is the most likely suspect.” He remembered her agitation when he sent John with her. She couldn't be the traitor, it simply wasn't possible. Why, his mind asked? Because you love her?

“Yes,” he snarled, and slammed the door.

She could be in his library. But even the warmth that wafted out to meet him as he opened the library door didn't dispel the deadly silence. He looked at the chair his father had occupied earlier—the chair he had discovered Elise curled up in on many occasions. “Mayhap the why and the who are the same,” his father had said.

Marcus shook himself from the vise which gripped him, then closed the door on the vacant room. He considered employing more men in the search. Nae. If he found evidence of her culpability, he would deal with her before he could change his mind. He strode down the corridor, continuing through the castle until reaching the last sconce burning in that wing of the castle. He disengaged the light from the wall, then took the final steps to the staircase leading into the bowels of Brahan Seer.

Narrow step after narrow step, Marcus wound his way down to what, during his grandfather's rule, had been dungeons where he incarcerated criminals such as the one who betrayed them that afternoon. He paused in the long corridor before one of the cells and gave the door a shove. With a grinding creak, the heavy iron swung open. The sconce's flame jumped as if gasping for breath.

Marcus settled his gaze on the iron shackles hanging on the far wall in open defiance of time's passage. How would a woman survive chained in those irons? If Elise braved these dungeons, had even a tremor passed through her when she hurried by these rooms of torture? What sort of woman entered such a place?

A woman with something to hide.

He hurried past the cell to the next right turn, stopping at the sudden dead end. Squatting, Marcus lowered the sconce and slowly edged the light forward in order to examine the stone floor and discerned a single set of boot prints beneath the thin layer of dust. His heart pounded against his chest. He jerked the sconce up, searching the wall for the hairline crack recognizable only to one who knew it existed. He found the seam and depressed the spot. The panel sprang open with a squeal.

Marcus rose and stepped inside the passageway. Sconce low, he proceeded slowly, inspecting the packed dirt floor until he reached the end of the passageway. He faced left where lay the concealed door which opened to the outside and pushed against the door. The stone slid noiselessly open and he stepped into the night.

Ten minutes later, Marcus entered the kitchen again. “Elise is not to be found.” He stopped before Winnie.

“Surely ye aren't worried,” she said, but Marcus had caught the flicker of surprise in her expression.

“Who took the meal to them?”

“Bartholomew.”

He started for the door.

“By now he's on duty at the wall,” she called as he disappeared into the darkness.

Moments later, Marcus mounted the battlement stairs and found Bartholomew standing guard on the west corner of the wall. The guard straightened at his approach.

“You delivered the food to the women in Winnie's cottage?” Marcus demanded.

“Aye, laird.”