Maddie wouldn’t hear of it. “I can’t do this without you. And if Fluffy’s missing, I have to help search. She’s more than just an assignment. You know that. She’s a pet.”
Logan led the way outside, ordering their carriage with a brisk command. Since Rabbie’s horse was spent, he would have to ride with them. In the coach, the journey would take . . . Logan did a few mental calculations . . . four hours to return to Lannair. If they were lucky.
Which meant Logan had four hours to pass before he could be of any practical use in easing the worried look on Madeline’s face.
And he was going to spend every minute of them scolding Rabbie.
While the coach was brought around, Logan grabbed him by the coat front. “You had one task.”
Rabbie swallowed hard. “I know.”
“Watch the lobster.” Logan gave Rabbie a little shake. “That was the only duty I gave you. How could you manage to muck that up?”
“Well, you see. I was watching her in the studio. But ’tis a mite uncanny up there, ye ken?”
Yes, Logan knew. The place made his skin crawl too, but that was no excuse.
“So I put her in a bucket and brought ‘er downstairs while the lads and I played cards. Someone must have kicked it over. Next I looked, she was gone.”
The sheer idiocy of the entire scenario left Logan speechless. Their coach was brought around, and he helped Maddie in first before joining her.
“Not to worry,” Rabbie said, climbing in. “By the time we get back, the other lads will have already found her. How far can a lobster travel under her own power, anyway?”
“I dinna know,” Logan gritted out. “That is a question a dutiful soldier would never need to ask.”
As they started home, Maddie was quiet. And pale and distressed.
Logan wanted to punch a hole through the carriage top. It was a hard top, which meant he would have bloodied his knuckles in the effort—-but he was certain his rage would have made it happen.
He turned to her. “How long can a lobster live without being in water?”
“A few days if she’s inside the castle, where it’s cool and damp. But if she found her way outside to the loch?” She shook her head. “The freshwater would kill her.”
“We’ll find her. Dinna worry. We’ll search all night if need be.”
She rested her head against the side of the coach and said quietly, “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Like the devil it doesna matter.”
“This is all my fault. It was wrong of me to trap her in that tank. No wonder she leapt at her first chance to escape. If she wanted to mate with Rex, she would have done it by now. Perhaps he’s all wrong for her. Perhaps he’s a brutish lout of a lobster with poor hygiene, and she wants nothing to do with him.”
“What about your life--cycle drawings?”
She only shrugged. “Apparently I’m a woman with no future prospects in illustration.”
Right.
Logan kept his calm for the remainder of the journey. Barely.
When they arrived back at Lannair Castle, the men had not yet found the lobster on their own. Damn.
Logan gathered the men in the kitchen. He sketched out a plan on the slate the cook used for the day’s menus.
“Here’s the layout of the ground floor,” he said. “Entrances and exits are here and here. The first thing we do is set up a perimeter. Make certain no lobsters go in, no lobsters go out. Munro, you’re on the front entrance. Grant stays with you. The rest of us will search.”
“Try this.” Rabbie whistled a trilling, birdlike song and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Here, Fluffy, Fluffy, Fluffy! Here, girl!”
Logan blinked at him. “I’m highly doubtful that method is going to work.”
Rabbie shrugged. “We’ll see then, won’t we?”
Logan drew a cross through the castle schematic, dividing it into quadrants. He assigned three of the four to Rabbie, Callum, and Fyfe.
“I’ll take this one,” he said, marking the spot with the chalk. “Take a torch. Search every possible nook and crack in the exposed rock. Before it’s cooked, a lobster’s blue, not red, so she’ll be difficult to spy at night. Take care where you step. If you find her, bring her here to the kitchen straightaway. We’ll rendezvous in two hours, regardless. And whatever you do, keep her away from freshwater. Any questions?”
Fyfe raised his hand. “Does the one what finds her get to eat her?”
“No.” Logan put his hands on the kitchen table and addressed the gathered men. “This lobster is of great importance to Madeline. Which means it’s of great importance to me.”
The words were the truth. He wasn’t sure when it had happened, but he cared now. About Madeline and about her illustrations. This was more than a lobster. It was her dream. No one was going to take that from her—-not Varleigh, not Rabbie, and not Logan.
“I need you to move swiftly and surely, lads. In all our years together on campaign, we never once left a soldier behind to die. We’re not leaving this lobster, either.”
Just before leaving the room, he pulled Maddie aside. “Dinna worry. You have my word. We’ll find her in no time at all.”
Hours passed.