"Threats?" Sophie's gaze hardened. "Threats you say? I ask you, then, why we weren't told? Should Justin not have been informed? Should not some provisions have been made? My God, Marcus, why have you kept silent?"
He struggled to answer, but the words—his mind—nothing worked.
"What are these threats?" Sophie asked in a voice so reasonable, so firm, Marcus snapped from his indecision.
"There's no time for explanations." Sophie opened her mouth to speak, but he said, "First, we find her."
Chapter Seventeen
Marcus followed Elise's carriage tracks from Whycham House onto the road leading to Ashlund. Where a heavier-trafficked crossroad joined the Ashlund road, a myriad of tracks, all muddied by the night's rain, obscured hers. Marcus ordered Justin to return to Whycham House and check all farms and cottages near the road, while he continued onward and did the same. Two hours passed before he heard the pounding of hooves over the sound of his own mount's gallop. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Justin approaching. Sophie rode alongside and Kiernan followed with a dozen more men behind. Marcus slowed his stallion as they neared. He observed the haggard look on Sophie's face when they came alongside.
They had discovered no news.
"There are four farms between the point you left us and Whycham House," Justin said. "I did not wish to diverge too far off the road until we could better ascertain where she might have gotten lost."
Marcus's head jerked to the side and he glared at Justin. "Lost?"
"You have found nothing?" Justin went on.
Marcus looked forward again. "Nay."
"We are but midway between Ashlund and Whycham House," Justin said. "There is much territory yet to cover."
Two farmhouses down, they encountered a peasant who remembered Elise's entourage.
"When?" Marcus demanded.
"Yesterday," the man replied. "I was returning from MacLellan's down the road. Later afternoon, four-thirty or five, I would say."
"All was well with her?"
"As far as I could see."
"How many were in the party?" Marcus asked.
"I didn't see inside the carriage. Let me see, there was the driver, wheeler," he paused, then added, "there were three or four men riding alongside. Can't say for sure."
"Sounds as if the men are accounted for," Justin said.
"Come," Marcus directed the man, "you will show us exactly where you saw my wife."
They rode a mile south on the road, when the farmer stopped them. "Here."
Marcus dismounted and examined the tracks. "Bloody hell," he cursed. "It looks as though all of Edinburgh has traversed this road." He tried following his line of sight along one set of carriage tracks, only to lose them in the tangled web of another in the moist ground.
"Lord Phillip passed this way," the man said.
Marcus cut his gaze to the man. "Lord Phillip. When?"
"I passed him about two miles north of his estate," the man replied.
"Then you saw Lady Ashlund here?"
"Aye."
Marcus looked at Justin. "Phillip's estate borders mine."
Justin nodded. "Perhaps they passed one another."
An hour later, Marcus departed Lord Phillip's estate knowing nothing more than that the earl had set out to visit a friend to the north before heading south for Edinburgh. Marcus cursed the earl's timing, his absence, and his person.
Marcus glanced at the sky as he mounted his horse. The day had turned to dusk. He had ridden since morning and his mount flagged. He rode to Ashlund and exchanged his horse for a fresh one. He reached the outskirts of Ashlund property and encountered the search party.
"Exchange your horses for fresh ones at Ashlund," Marcus instructed. "I'll speak to the tenants of the two farms to the south."
"Father," Kiernan said in unison with Justin's, "Marcus."
"I left instructions for horses to be readied for you," Marcus said. "You will overtake me soon enough."
Dusk gave way to night as they extended the search into the countryside to the west. To the east, a high cliff butted the shoreline of an inlet from the bay. Now, they rode fifteen miles south of Ashlund, stopping at every village and home on the road to Edinburgh. The next village lay five miles farther south. Marcus urged his horse into a harder trot and the company following did the same. Sophie rode between Marcus and Justin with Kiernan behind them.
"Marcus," Sophie called above the clatter of hooves.
He looked at her. An overcast sky hid the moon, but four of the twelve men who accompanied them carried torches and he easily made out her strained expression.
Sophie shook her head. "Why didn't Elise—" She broke off with a stifled choke.
Marcus looked straight ahead. "I alone bear the blame. Don't cause yourself any further grief over the matter."
"No further grief?"
Her words hit him like barbs and Marcus snapped his attention onto her.
Her eyes blazed. "You can be an arrogant bastard, Cousin. Whether or not I share blame, I will grieve as I please."
She yanked her horse's reins and Marcus pulled to the right in order to avoid her horse. She circled to the rear of the company and brought her stallion alongside Justin's.