The men filed out, the last closing the door behind him.
Cameron looked at Marcus. "You mean to say you don't know?" Marcus only looked at him and his father went on, "You know well enough the trouble began with Elise."
"Aye, they are using her—"
"You are sure it's them using her?"
Marcus started. A surge of anger rammed through him, the first genuine hostility he'd ever felt for his father. "Bloody hell, Cameron, you're saying Elise is in league with the Campbells. They nearly killed her."
"Nay," Cameron replied. "In fact, the lass returned in remarkably good shape."
"The tracks I saw say otherwise."
"You are a fine tracker, but you are no master. You should have had Johnson—"
"I did take Johnson, if you recall," Marcus interrupted.
"But he did not see the tracks you interpreted as her capture."
"I made no mistake in my interpretation. What has happened? You were in favor of my having her."
"Aye," Cameron said. "And I like her. But that does not change the fact she is the most likely suspect."
Elise's expression when he sent John with her to the loch came to mind. She had been angry. Any woman would be angry. He had nearly imprisoned her—and why?
"She lived here four months before I arrived with no such trouble," Marcus insisted.
"Mayhap the Campbells intended you to want her so they could use her against you."
Marcus laughed harshly. "The woman who escaped the Campbells was no collaborator. Nay, Cameron, you have no grounds for suspicion."
"How long have they hated us?" his father demanded with more vehemence than he'd heard in his voice since before his mother's death.
Blood lust shot through Marcus. "I will kill every last one of them."
"Aye. And condemn more men to die. What of their wives—their children?"
"We have dealt with them for years—centuries," Marcus snapped.
Cameron grunted. "King George is likely to tire completely of the fight and finance the MacGregor's annihilation."
Though King George had remained quiet, Marcus knew the king forbade any Campbell reprisal after Marcus attacked Assipatle in retaliation for Katie MacGregor's rape. His intervention had saved many lives. But the sovereign's mood swung between reality and fantasy, his mind controlled by liquor and the laudanum he kept ready at his bedside. Where his loyalties would lie tomorrow was anyone's guess.
"If he takes that course of action, he'll regret it as long as I draw breath," Marcus bit back.
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?