A MacKenzie Clan Gathering

  Today, this involved Ian talking about himself and his brothers and how he’d felt about them as a child. Though Hart, Cam, and Mac had often confused Ian, he’d always liked and admired them. Cam had taught him to ride and to drink; Mac had taught him about women and art; Hart about numbers and money. Ian had absorbed it all.

  “I don’t know how I felt,” Ian said irritably after a time. “I didn’t know how to feel anything. I didn’t feel until I met Beth.”

  “Ah yes.” Ackerley looked up from writing his notes. “Dear Beth. She is a sweet woman. How did she . . . well, teach you to feel, as it were?”

  Ian had no trouble meeting Ackerley’s gaze now. “I don’t know. I wanted . . .” He groped for the words that swooped and swirled past him like elusive fish. “I wanted to be with her. See what she saw; hear what she heard. She taught me to understand. What is here.” He touched his forehead. “And here.” He placed his hand over his heart. “And the day I thought I’d lost her . . .” His emotions had buried him, and he’d realized that every loss he’d ever endured before Beth would be as nothing if she went. He loved her with his whole being.

  “I see,” Ackerley said softly. “I see.”

  “No, ye don’t,” Ian growled. “Ye talk about m’ father and m’ mother and brothers, and what I did as a lad, but it doesn’t matter. It’s all gone. Beth is now. M’ family is now. I don’t care about a long time ago.”

  Ackerley studied him with renewed interest. “Indeed? I shall have to think about that.”

  Ian sprang up, restless. “When ye’ve thought, and ye can cure me, ye find me and tell me. I have many things t’ do.”

  With that, he left the room, sensing Ackerley’s fascinated gaze on him all the way out the door.

  * * *

  At dinner, there was more interminable discussion, this time about Lord Halsey and his culpability.

  “Unfortunately, Ian,” Fellows said, as the meal began, “I can’t rush down and arrest Halsey without any proof of your suspicions.”

  Ian saw no reason why not, but he knew Fellows liked to follow the rules—unless expeditious not to. “Doesn’t matter,” Ian said. “Watch him. He’ll do something wrong sooner or later.”

  “Let him hang himself, you mean,” Fellows suggested.

  “Aye.” Ian, finished with the discussion, applied himself to his food.

  Hart, obviously, was not finished. “Your solution is to do nothing until Halsey makes a mistake?” He scowled at Fellows and Ian. “What if he never does—or does in twenty years? I’ve been accused of fraud—not openly yet, but that will come.”

  “Insurance men are so tiresome, aren’t they?” Eleanor put in from the foot of the table. “Why should Hart want to throw his own paintings into a hole?”

  “For the money, of course,” Beth answered, her gentle voice a caress to Ian’s soul. “As though Hart would ever let his finances become so unsound.”

  “The vulgar insurance man implies so.” Eleanor made a face. “He doesn’t come out and say it, thinking it is too gauche to mention money at all. At the same time he drops little hints, such as Very odd thing for a thief to do, isn’t it? Leave most of what he stole behind? Almost as though he knew he could come back for it whenever he liked. Pompous prig.”

  Ian swallowed a mouthful of buttery fish. “Hart can talk his way out of it.” Hart was good at that.

  “True,” Eleanor said before Hart could reply. “Perhaps we should invite Lord Halsey to stay here,” she went on, her fork poised. “For the birthday celebration. We could surround him and get him to confess. Or, I could take him up to the roof . . .”

  “El,” Hart said.

  Eleanor blinked her very blue eyes at him. “To show him the view, of course. It’s a fine one, you must admit.” She gave Hart a sweet smile, and returned to her meal.

  Hart watched her, his golden eyes holding a mixture of wariness, affection, and heat. As much as Hart growled, Ian knew he loved Eleanor’s impetuous boldness, her fearlessness. They made a good match—the fearsome duke and the warmhearted woman.

  After dinner, Ian returned to the nursery with Beth. The children were more unruly than usual—tomorrow, the rest of the cousins would arrive, and the excitement of this had them animated.

  Ian worried a little about that—his own son, Jamie, was the ringleader, and could incite his younger cousins to do anything he could think of. Ian would have to keep a careful eye on them.

  When the girls and small Malcolm finally settled in the nursery, and Beth chivvied Alec and Jamie into their own room, Ian went wearily to bed. He’d never imagined how exhausting children could be. His father had tried to quell the high-spirited Mackenzies with iron control and vicious beatings. Beth had been showing Ian for the last ten years that there was a better way—patience and love.

  Ian had tucked the necklace into the bedside table, and decided he wasn’t too tired to show Beth how much he appreciated her teaching him about the gentle side of life. He snuggled down with her much later, knowing that the next day, he’d have to again take up the problem of Halsey. He, like Hart, did not want to wait twenty years for the man to put a foot wrong. Ian wanted an end to this. In the meantime, he let himself drift off with Beth, knowing he’d come up with some idea if he let himself.

  In the small hours of the morning, in velvet darkness, Ian snapped open his eyes.

  He did not know what had awakened him—a tiny noise, a breath of air—but a tingle swept through his blood, a warning that something was terribly wrong.

  Beth slept on in the warm nest they’d made. But in the same way Ian had known when the thieves had invaded the gallery, he sensed that someone was in the house.

  In the nursery.

  He slid from the bed, wrapping a kilt around his hips, not bothering with shoes or shirt. Ian silently left the bedroom, taking the key from the lock inside and locking the door behind him. He’d not risk one of Halsey’s thugs skulking around him and getting to Beth while Ian explored elsewhere.

  The hall was quiet, every door closed. Ian moved noiselessly down the corridor, which was lit by moonlight through a large window at the end. The very last door led to the nursery. Its knob turned easily under Ian’s hand.

  Ian slid inside, becoming a shadow in deeper shadows, and made his way to Megan’s bed. He let out a sigh of relief when he found her sleeping quietly, on her belly, her cheek pressed to her pillow.

  Ian smoothed the cover over her and moved to Belle’s bed, already hearing her soft breathing. Ian let his hand drift over her dark red hair. He checked Malcolm, who was also sleeping, then he left the room, his heart beating thickly with relief. His daughters and wee nephew were safe.

  Ian went next to the lads’ room, the hall’s carpet prickling his bare feet. This door opened as easily, though its hinges gave a faint creak.

  Ian’s breath stopped. It was this sound, the small noise in the darkness, that had awakened him.

  Ian swiftly entered the room, his lungs tight. He saw Alec, Hart’s son, sprawled across his bed, his eyes tightly closed, covers barely rumpled.

  The bed in which Jamie slept was empty. The blankets and sheets had been dragged down the side of the bed, and the pillow was on the floor, the mark of a large and heavy boot imprinted on the linen.

  But apart from Alec, no one else was in the room. Jamie, and the man he’d struggled with, were gone.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ian’s roar of anguish jerked Beth from a sound sleep. She sat straight up, her heart pounding. She hadn’t heard Ian sound like that in many years.

  She hastened out of bed, drawing her wrapper around her. Beth found the bedroom door locked, the key gone. Ian hadn’t done that in a long while either. Locking her in was his way of protecting her, Beth understood, but she’d learned how to circumvent the problem. She fished in her bedside table drawer for the spare key and let herself out and into the corridor.

  The noise came from the boys’ room at the end the hall. Beth, every limb cold,
raced toward it. The nursery door was closed, and Beth heard her daughters’ voices, worried, calling for her and Ian.

  Ian stood in the middle of the lads’ bedroom, his head bowed, eyes closed, fists balled. He’d ceased making the terrible noise, but he rocked back and forth, his body tight. He had gone into his mind, searching for a place to retreat.

  Alec, strangely, was still fast asleep, his chest rising with his even breath. He should have been awakened by his uncle shouting next to him, but he didn’t stir.

  Jamie’s bed was empty.

  Icy fear rose up to beat at her. “Ian!” Beth ran to him and seized one solidly fisted hand. “Ian, where is Jamie?”

  Ian jumped at her touch. His body shuddered, then he peeled opened his eyes and looked down at her with fathomless anguish.

  “Gone,” Ian said. “He’s gone, he’s gone, gone, gone, gonegonegonegone . . .”

  Beth’s world broke into glittering shards of colors and light. “Gone? What do you mean . . .”

  But she knew exactly what Ian meant. She took in the torn-up bedding and the boot print, and knew in her heart that Jamie had been stolen from them.

  “No.” The word dragged out of her, a cross between a whisper and a moan.

  The sound made Ian’s continuing gonegonegone cease. He seized her hands in a tight grip, his eyes filled with a terrifying anger.

  This was the Ian Beth needed, the one with the unstoppable determination of his Highland ancestors.

  “Find him,” Beth said. She heard Curry’s voice rise down the hall, from the direction of the main stairs, followed by Hart’s and Lloyd’s, then Eleanor’s. Beth ignored them, her attention all for her husband. “Find my lad, Ian. Please.”

  When Ian spoke, his voice was low, steady. “Keep them away.”

  They shared a look. Beth understood. Ian feared, as did she, that if Hart and Fellows rounded up a large, noisy search party, their son’s captor might be startled into cutting his losses. This was for Jamie’s life.

  “Yes,” Beth promised in a whisper. “Go.”

  Ian’s hands closed on hers in a brief, hard grip, then he slipped from the room and into the hall, melting into the darkness. Beth, following him, saw him pause at the hidden door in the paneling that led to the back stairs, then he was gone.

  Alec still hadn’t woken. Beth heard Megan and Belle calling for her, frightened. She wanted to run to them, but there was something wrong with Alec. Beth hurried to his bedside and shook him, her fear increasing.

  Alec was sleeping, but unnaturally so. Someone had sent the lad into a drugged sleep, Beth realized, to ensure he wouldn’t cry out while Jamie, her beloved son, was kidnapped.

  * * *

  Ian could move around Kilmorgan Castle quickly and in deep silence. He knew the house better than anyone, even servants who’d spent their entire lives there.

  He used the back stairs and corridors to emerge into Cameron’s wing of the house, empty and waiting for him and his family to fill it up. In Cameron’s dressing room, Ian found a shirt and greatcoat, socks, and boots. He was closest to Cameron in size and had no trouble sliding into his clothes.

  He ran down the back stairs again, ducking out of sight as several Mackenzie retainers rushed up the staircase. Hart and Fellows would be questioning Beth by now, then they’d organize a search. It would take them some time to round up enough men to begin, and by then, with God’s help, Ian would have already found Jamie and dispatched the men who’d dared take him.

  Then he would fill his Webley with shining bullets and travel to Lord Halsey’s house and shoot him dead. Hart and Fellows would try to prevent him, of course, but Ian wouldn’t let them.

  Ian made himself halt in the middle of the stairs and think, to go over the scenario logically, reaching past his gut-wrenching fears.

  Jamie’s bed hadn’t been cold—the heat of his body had dissipated but not altogether. Ian judged twenty minutes at most had elapsed since Jamie had been dragged out. He’d heard the noise of the lads’ bedroom door. The time it had taken Ian to come fully awake after hearing that, realize something was wrong, and investigate had given the abductors their head start.

  Ian continued to the ground floor in the servants’ passages, found a side door, and stepped outside. He was clothed against the cold and now pulled on gloves he’d snatched up from Cam’s dressing room. They were riding gloves, tough in the palms, tight but warm.

  He emerged onto a side path, which was hidden from the rest of the garden by a high hedge. Ian had not gone twenty feet down the path when he was nearly run down by a barrel of a man who hastened toward the house.

  Ian seized the man and dragged him back into the shadows. His captive drew a breath to shout, but Ian slammed his hand across his mouth and shook him to silence.

  John Ackerley stared wide-eyed over Ian’s gloved fingers. Ian noted that the man was fully dressed and bundled against up against the night in greatcoat with scarf.

  “What th’ devil are ye doing?” Ian demanded.

  “I was about to ask the same of you,” Ackerley answered when Ian lowered his hand from the man’s mouth. “I had opened my window to let in a breeze, and I heard voices below. I thought the thieves had returned. I hoped to follow them and find them for you, but alas, I lost them in the dark.”

  Ackerley spoke glibly, and Ian stared at him in suspicion. How likely was it that Ackerley had decided to investigate, alone, in the middle of the night?

  “Why didn’t ye wake me?” he asked. “Did ye think ye could take robbers by yourself?”

  “Of course not. I meant to discover where they’d gone and then fetch you and Mr. Fellows. Why are you looking at me like that? Good gracious, man, you don’t believe I’m in league with the villains, do you?”

  Ian at the moment didn’t know what he believed. He didn’t care. He needed to find Jamie—nothing else in the world mattered. That need pulled at his soul, blotted out every other consideration.

  “If ye are in league with them, you’ll lead me to them now,” Ian said. “If you’re not, you’ll help me find them. They have my son.”

  Ackerley’s gasp conveyed genuine surprise. “What? Young Jamie?”

  “Aye.” Ian peered into the darkness, assessing which way to go. “Young Jamie.” It hurt even to say his name.

  Ackerley’s affability became outrage. “Have they, by gum? Well, now they’ve gone too far, blast them. Of course I’ll help you search. We’ll put the fear of God into them when we find them, won’t we?”

  “Aye.” Ian’s heart warmed a trifle at Ackerley’s resolution.

  Without another word, Ian started off into the woods.

  “Wait.” Brush and twigs crackled as Ackerley struggled to catch up. “Shouldn’t we alert the others? Or at least go back for lights?”

  “There’s light.” Ian glanced at the sliver of moon and the stars on this clear night. “The others will be coming. We must get there first.”

  “Ah, covertly, you mean. I understand. I’m your man.”

  “Good.” Ian pinned him with a Mackenzie glare. “Now, be quiet.”

  Ian turned away from Ackerley, scanning the wide swath of darkness. Where to begin? The villains would have traveled here in a conveyance, but they would have left it some way off, so the noise of it wouldn’t alert the household.

  Though Ian could see fine by starlight, it also helped that he knew every inch of lands around Kilmorgan. The thugs wouldn’t. They’d blunder about in the darkness, leaving a trail. Or, they’d hide until daylight and they could find their way back to their vehicle. Because they’d left the house in near-silence, and had made certain Alec didn’t wake, they likely believed they’d have time to escape before the family woke and discovered Jamie missing.

  If they’d gone to ground to wait for daylight, where would they have done so? The tunnels under Kilmorgan where they’d left the paintings were a strong possibility. The thieves already knew the place. Then again, Ian had discovered the tunnels, and Fellows an
d his men had been all over them for the last several days. Fellows, being the thorough policeman he was, likely had posted a few guards, in case the thieves returned, looking for their treasure.

  Not the tunnels then. The river and its thick screen of trees? Too risky for those who didn’t know the terrain. A fall into the river, especially at night, would be a disaster. The water was icy and could carry a man far downstream, to his death over rocky falls.

  The vast gardens of Kilmorgan held many hiding places, but all were too close to the house, and were in view of the upper windows.

  Ian considered the folly—the false ruins Ian’s grandfather had constructed on an outcropping overlooking a steep valley—then immediately dismissed it. The folly was at the end of a long, steep, overgrown path, dangerous enough during the day. Anyone who didn’t know it risked a fall to his death, plus there was only one way up. The thieves wouldn’t chance being trapped there.

  The distillery . . .

  The distillery was locked at night. The caretaker lived in a cottage about half a mile from it. In the old days, the caretaker had lived inside the distillery itself in the rooms upstairs—at one time the entire Mackenzie family had resided there, after the old castle had been burned and before the new house had gone up.

  The distillery was dark at night and empty, the whisky sleeping on its own.

  Without a word, Ian abruptly turned and went the shortest way down the hill and along the path that led to the distillery. He expected Ackerley to make much noise as he followed, but the man’s footfalls were as quiet as Ian’s, and he easily kept pace.

  The distillery’s walls glittered in the moonlight, the black stone ancient and strong. The house had been built as a secondary residence for the family in the late seventeenth century, then became the distillery when the Mackenzies went into the whisky business.

  The windows were dark, no lights anywhere. Ian’s keys to the place were back home in his desk drawer, but he knew where the caretaker hid the spare.