Highland Hero by Hannah Howell Page A

her eyes even as she pressed closer to Lucais. A blush heated her skin as she looked up into Andrew’s face. She and Lucais had spent the whole night making love, and she was sure that was obvious to the young man. Even as she cursed herself for going to sleep and not slipping back into her own room, she noticed the somber expression he wore, and nudged Lucais.
    “Andrew is here,” she said as Lucais groaned softly and tried to pull her back into his arms.
    Lucais came awake and sat up so quickly that she had to scramble to keep herself modestly covered by the blanket. Her heart was in her throat and she was not sure why. There were any number of reasons for Andrew to look so serious and to seek out his laird so early in the morning.
    “Malcolm is gone,” Andrew announced.
    When Edina cried out in alarm and started to get up, Lucais grabbed her and held her still. “No need to go and look, dearling. If Andrew says he is gone, he is gone.” He looked back at his cousin. “Tell me everything.”
    “ ’Tis clear that Simon had someone here that he could use. Mary was knocked on the head and the bairn was taken from his wee bed. No one saw anyone go into the room or come out with the bairn. Mary thinks it happened but an hour or two ago. She cannae say for certain. She was rising to tend to him, for she was sure she had heard him cry out just before sunrise, and that is when she was struck down.”
    “No one saw anyone leave with the child?” Lucais demanded as he climbed out of the bed and began to dress.
    “Nay, but if it was someone from here, he or she would have kenned how to slip away without being seen.”
    “Gar didnae stop them?” Edina asked.
    “Nay, he was asleep.” Andrew frowned. “In truth, he was just waking and was a wee bit unsteady. He should have done something, shouldnae he?”
    “Aye,” agreed Lucais. “He still stops even me from taking the child out of the room.”
    “Something else a person from Dunmor would ken, and they clearly did something to remove that threat. Something in the dog’s food mayhap.”
    “Go, ready the horses. We may find a trail we can follow. And begin a search for who is missing. We must learn who the traitor is.”
    “I ken where he took the bairn,” Edina said, her voice softened by surprise that she could think so clearly when she was so afraid for Malcolm.
    “How could ye ken where Simon will take him?” asked Lucais, waving to the departing Andrew to wait a moment.
    “I think he told me that day by the brook. Truly,” she insisted when he frowned. “He said, ‘A bairn should be with his parents. I mean to take him there.’ Where are your sister and her husband buried?”
     
    “Are we there?” Edina whispered as Lucais reined in, slowing his mount from the furious gallop he had maintained for two hours to a walk.
    “The burial site is just through those trees, in the yard of a wee chapel where Walter’s kinsmen are always buried,” Lucais answered in an equally quiet voice as he signaled to the ten men riding with him to move and encircle the area.
    “Is he there?” She waited impatiently for an answer as Lucais exchanged a few signals with Andrew, who appeared a few yards ahead of them, then disappeared into the trees again.
    “Andrew says he is.”
    “Is Malcolm still alive?”
    “Aye.”
    She sensed the anger gripping Lucais so tightly and eased her hold on his waist. “I am sorry.”
    “Ye have naught to feel sorry for,” he said as he dismounted and helped her down.
    “I should have stayed close to Malcolm as I had vowed to do. Mayhap with two women in the room he wouldnae have been stolen away.”
    “Or ye would have been knocked on the head as weel.” He gave her a brief hard kiss, then began to move toward the churchyard that was on the other side of a thick growth of trees. “Now, dinnae forget that ye are here only to care for the bairn. Not to try and save him or to fight, just to care for him when we get him away from