To Tame a Highland Earl (46 page)

“
Have you tried the
kitchen?” Grace said. “She has an odd infatuation with that part of
the castle.”

“
Yes,” Erroll
agreed.

Minutes later, Mrs. Henderson lowered a cup
of tea from her lips when he entered the kitchen. “Morning, Laird.
Have you come for tea?”

“
No thank you. I’m looking
for my wife. Have you seen her?”

“
Oh, not since breakfast.
She asked that a small package of food be wrapped. Said she was
going for a ride.”

“
A ride?” he blurted.
“Where to?”

“
I don’t know. I was just
leaving to tend the garden when she asked. I had Lucy help her, and
didna’ stay. Where’s Lucy?” she asked one of the other
maids.

“
Gone for the reminder of
the day,” the girl answered. “She was off to see to her mother.
Poor thing is sick.”

“
Is something wrong?” the
housekeeper asked.

Erroll couldn’t fathom the possibility that
Eve had fled as she’d threatened last night. Hadn’t last night
meant anything to her? Surely she wouldn’t desert him?

“
Thank you,” he told Mrs.
Henderson, then fairly ran to the stables, heart thundering in his
chest. He found Pete mucking out the stalls. “Has my wife been
here?” Erroll demanded.

“
Aye,” Pete said. “She
asked for Belle, and insisted on saddling the mare herself, so I
went back to stacking the hay Rob brought.”

“
By God,” Erroll burst out.
“You let her saddle her own horse, then ride out of here alone?
When did she leave?” he demanded.

“
Can’t be more than an hour
ago,” Pete said, eyes wide.

“
Saddle Lord
Chesterfield—and if you take time to unload hay before he’s
saddled, I’ll beat you.”

Erroll returned to their suite and made a
quick search of Eve’s room for a note, a clue, anything that might
tell him where she’d gone. He didn’t find a damn thing. He hurried
back through his room and his gaze snagged on the letter from
Wiggins sitting on his desk. Eve’s words last night crashed into
memory,
“Women like Laura Greenwood are more to your liking, are
they not, my lord?”
and he stopped short. Understanding struck
with the clarity of a blind man who could see for the first
time.

He hadn’t thought much of Wiggins’ letter
being open when he’d read it, but had thought it a bit odd the seal
had been broken on the note from Laura. It hadn’t occurred to him
that Eve had read the letter. But she had, and naturally assumed
the worst.

He’d been right. No good deed went
unpunished.

Worse, he had no one to blame but himself for
misinterpreting her words.

By the time Erroll reached Tobermory port,
the horse was fagged, and Erroll was shaken that he hadn’t
overtaken Eve. She’d had a little more than an hour’s head start
and should have been easy to catch. Surely she hadn’t ridden at a
gallop as he had?

Erroll left his horse in front of the
harbormaster’s office and quickly discovered that two ships had
sailed from port that morning, both cargo ships bound for England,
and neither had taken on passengers. The harbormaster had sold no
tickets, nor seen a woman matching Eve’s description—or any woman,
for that matter—on the docks that morning. But Erroll wasn’t
satisfied, and insisted on speaking with the captains of the half
dozen ships at port.

“
As ye wish,” the grizzled
harbormaster said. “But if you find one of the scoundrels took a
woman aboard without my permission, I’ll hang him from the mast.”
The old man rose from his battered desk and limped toward Erroll.
“In fact, I’ll come with you, and we’ll start with Captain Heller.
There’s a man ye can’t trust.”

They found no trace of Eve, and fear gnawed a
hole in Erroll’s gut. Tobermory was the main port on the island and
the only port Eve would know of; certainly the only one she would
dare ride to on her own. Where else would she have gone? Nowhere,
he realized with rising panic. Something had happened to her on the
road.

Erroll stopped at the sheriff’s office and
ordered a search of the city, as well as the road. He didn’t wait
for the sheriff to gather men, but sped back to the road, looking
for any clues that she had ridden along the road or been forced off
it. He reached Ravenhall with not one piece of evidence, nerves
ragged and fears running amuck.

He headed for his father’s study, but found
the room empty. Then he went to his mother’s chambers, only to find
silence there as well. Bloody hell, had everyone deserted
Ravenhall?

He went to the kitchen.

“
Where are my parents?” he
demanded of Mrs. Henderson.

The room went quiet.

She froze in opening the oven door. “We took
tea to them in the drawing room.”

Without a word, Erroll whirled and headed for
the drawing room. In the moments it took to race there, he thought
he would lose his mind. He burst through the door and stopped cold.
Eve, his mother, Olivia, and Grace sat on the sofa, swaths of
fabric spread across their laps. The rest of the family—Eve’s
father and Somerset included—were gathered in the room. Everyone
looked at him.

“
Erroll, what’s wrong?” His
mother set aside the fabric and rose, as did his father and
Ash.

Erroll ignored them and strode toward Eve.
“Where have you been?”

She frowned. “Here? What is amiss, my
lord?”

“
You were gone when I
awoke.”

She glanced at his dusty clothes. “I do not
understand. Have you been in the fields? What—”

“
Where have you
been?”

She glanced at Ash. “I went riding with
Olivia and Ash.”

“
Olivia and—” Erroll looked
at his brother. “The three of you?”

Ash lifted a brow. “Aye.” Amusement twitched
the corner of his brother’s mouth. “Your wife didn’t tell you?”

Erroll swung his gaze back onto her. “She did
not.”

Her expression darkened. “I didn’t realize I
had to report my every move to you, my lord.”

“
You do when you threaten
to leave for France.”

She—along with the other ladies—gasped. Ash
laughed.

“
By God, Eve,” her father
thundered, “if you said—”

“
Not a word from you, sir,”
she cut in. “You married me off, so you have no say in my domestic
affairs.”

Tolland’s gaze sharpened. “As you say. Lord
Rushton, she is yours to reprimand as you see fit.”

Satisfaction shot through Erroll. “I have
plans for you, madam.”

She sipped her tea. “What might those be, my
lord?”

“
I am certain you would
rather I didn’t say in public.”

Eve snorted a laugh. “As if it won’t get
around anyway.”

He blinked. “What?”

“
Everything you do has a
way of getting around. Don’t you have a ship to catch?”

The desire to turn her over his knee flared.
“Not without you,
Wife
.”

The echo of hurried boot steps sounded
outside the room. “Move aside, lass,” said a gruff male voice
Erroll knew all too well. He whirled as the door opened and Jean
appeared with his son, nephew and, glory be, Sheriff Laine.

“
Laird,” Leslie began, but
Jean and Laine pushed past her as Tolland and Somerset
rose.

“
We came as soon as we
heard,” Jean said.

“
What is it?” the marquess
demanded.

“
Have you discovered any
clues to your wife’s whereabouts?” Laine demanded.

The unfamiliar experience of embarrassment
washed over Erroll. He’d forgotten about alerting the sheriff.

Jean frowned. “She’s sitting right there. And
who is the lass sitting beside her?” Jean elbowed his son, who was
already staring at Grace.

She cast him a haughty glance.

“
You found her?” Laine’s
eyes shifted onto Erroll. “What happened?”

“
Yes,” Ash said, “what did
happen, Rush?”

A light hand touched Erroll’s arm and he
whirled to face his wife who had risen to stand beside him.

She stared, eyes searching his face. “Never
say you were worried about me, sir?”

His chest tightened. “You threatened to run
as far as the Colonies to escape me.”

“
Bloody hell, man,” Jean
exclaimed. “You’ve been married three days. What did you do in so
short a time to make her want to run away?”

Eve clamped a hand over her mouth, eyes
sparkling with hilarity. “I told you everything you did had a way
of getting around,” she said through her fingers.

She was right. News that his new bride
threatened to flee the Continent to escape him would be all over
the island by nightfall—and would reach London by tomorrow.

Erroll stepped close and whispered in her
ear. “I redeemed the jewels as a favor to a friend. Nothing more.
Her note was a fantasy on her part.”

“
Speak up lad, we can’t
hear,” Jean said in a loud voice.

Eve drew back, her eyes fixed on his face,
and removed her hand from her mouth. “She isn’t your…”

He shook his head.

Her brow furrowed and Erroll’s heart pounded
in his chest when he read the uncertainty in her eyes. A mental
picture flashed of him one day returning to an empty house with no
idea whether she had fled to France or the Colonies. He deserved
nothing less, but wouldn’t survive the loss.

“
Eve, I swear, I broke it
off two weeks past. “Come, read my response to her
letter.”

“
Damn it,” Jean cursed. “Do
ye know what they are talking about, Ash?”

“
What in hell is going on?”
Laine demanded. “Are ye saying she was never missing?”

“
Not for a moment,” Ash
said.

“
You have caused more than
enough trouble in the few days you’ve been here,” Laine
grumbled.

“
Leslie,” the marquess
said, “see to it that the sheriff is fed and send him home with
ample provisions for his family’s dinner.”

Laine frowned, and Ash said, “It’s the best
bargain you will get today.”

The man’s expression cleared and he shook his
head. “Aye.” He turned and left.

When the door clicked softly behind him, Jean
said, “Well, lad, are ye going to stand there all day staring at
her, or are you going to kiss her?”

Erroll sighed and said to Eve. “I did warn
you about my relatives.”

“
You did.”

“
If it’s what you want,
Eve, I’ll leave England, stay here, and do my best to make myself
useful.”

Her mouth parted in surprise. “I never said
leave England behind. You have responsibilities. You cannot simply
abandon the people who depend on you.”

“
I can’t?”

“
What about the people who
depend on you here?” Jean demanded.

“
Maxwell has had a dozen
mysterious deaths amongst his herd and we have yet to discover
why,” Ash said.

Erroll looked sharply at him. “Only Maxwell’s
herd?”

“
So far.”

“
Then there’s the cottages
down south,” Jean said. “We lost half a dozen in a fire, and are
still waiting on supplies from the mainland.”

Erroll frowned. “Why has Angus not seen to
the supplies?”

“
He’s one man,” the
marquess said.

“
Hence the reason Ash took
over,” Erroll said.

“
Ash took on the
responsibilities because there was no one else.”

“
There wasn’t?” Erroll
asked.

Jean snorted. “There has always been someone
else. But he’s a stubborn fool who refused to come home.”

Erroll stared dumbly and said, “I must be in
Norfolk for the harvest. I ordered a thresher.”

“
We can return for the
harvest,” his father said. “I am very interested in that
technology. It won’t be difficult to find a good man to oversee the
work there. You did say there were many men looking for
work.”

“
Let us not forget the
press gang,” Ash interjected. “If I have to chase after Johnson,
we’ll need even more help.”

Erroll’s chest tightened. “I am at your
service.”

“
What will the king say?”
Ash asked.

Erroll grinned. “Let His Highness come here
and say what he will.”

Jean whooped. “About time. You’re a
Highlander, man—with noble English blood,” he added with a quick
bow to the marchioness.

“
It seems you’ve found your
home, my lord,” Eve murmured.

“
So it does.” Erroll
wrapped an arm around his wife, drew her close, and whispered in
her ear, “I love you.”

“
What’d he say?” Jean
demanded. “Damn it, man, speak up.”

She drew back and looked up at him. “What did
you say, my lord?”

He smiled down at her and said again, louder,
“I love you.” Then he kissed her.

“
It’s a damn good thing he
finally kissed her,” Jean said. “I thought maybe I would have to do
it for him.”

###

And that, ladies, is how you tame a Highland
earl...well, one way, anyway. I hope you had as much fun reading
about Erroll and Eve as I did writing about them. There’s lots more
to come in the MacLean Highlander saga, so stay tuned! For your
reading pleasure, I have included a few chapters from the first
book in the
Highland Lords
series,
My Highland
Love.

TARAH

MY HIGHLAND LOVE