A Mackenzie Clan Christmas Read online

  Fellows came down the path from above. “Best you go inside now, Beth. Believe me, I will keep searching. You falling in the darkness and hurting yourself won’t help him.”

  Beth jerked from Fellows’s steadying hand. “I’ve been scrambling up and down this hill for years. Why should I fall now?”

  “At night?” Fellows gave her a severe look. “While you’re upset, with your thoughts fixed on your husband’s well-being? When I find Ian, I don’t want to have to explain why I let you break your leg climbing around in the dark. Trust me, I do not want to have that conversation with him.”

  A small part of Beth knew Fellows was right. Letting herself come to harm would accomplish nothing.

  At the same time, practical considerations were the last things Beth was concerned about. Her husband was lost, perhaps hurt, maybe by the ruffians who’d come to rob the house. She could not rest, sit still, even think until he was found and she could release this breath she was holding.

  Fellows did not give her the leisure to decide. “Simons, escort Lady Ian back to the house,” he said to the constable from the next village. The young man was English, from Yorkshire, sent to patrol the wilds of Scotland. To him, a chief inspector of Scotland Yard outranked a Scottish noblewoman, no matter that her brother-in-law was a duke.

  “Yes, sir,” the constable said. “My lady?”

  Beth knew that Fellows could recruit half a dozen men to escort her down the hill, bodily if they had to. She sighed and conceded.

  As she reached the bottom of the hill, she saw lights on the drive, heard the clatter of horses’ hooves and carriage wheels on gravel. Beth increased her pace, running by the time she made her way across the lawn to the drive, the constable panting behind her.

  The carriage bore the ducal crest of Kilmorgan—a stag’s head surrounded by laurel leaves. A footman dropped off the back of the coach and hurried to open its door. Beth heard Eleanor’s voice even before the bulk of Hart descended.

  “I know there is something dreadfully wrong,” Eleanor was saying as Hart helped her to the ground. “An entire village does not disappear in the middle of the night, especially when they know you are coming, Hart. They line up to greet you. No one, nothing, and your coachman is being maddeningly vague.” Eleanor paused to shoot the coachman an admonishing look. The man remained on his perch, pretending not to notice. “Ah, here is Beth to enlighten us. Beth . . . ? What is it, darling? What has happened?”

  Beth ceased running, her arm folded across her stomach. “Ian is missing. Truly missing. We can find him nowhere. Not here, not at our house, not at his fishing places, not anywhere . . .”

  Eleanor caught Beth as she swayed. Beth’s eyes filled with tears, fear closing her throat. She wanted to keep running until she saw the bulk of Ian against the night. She wanted to feel his strong arms around her, hear him reassure her that everything was all right.

  Hart said nothing at all. He’d gone utterly still, his gaze fixed on Beth.

  Beth had always been able to rise to Hart’s stare, to look him in the eye and not let the formidable man intimidate her. Tonight, that resolve deserted her. Ian was special to Hart. Ian was Hart’s vulnerable little brother, the one he protected at all costs. When Ian had first met Beth, Hart had tried to protect him against her.

  And now she’d gone and lost him.

  “I’m sorry,” Beth said, tears choking her. “I invited my brother-in-law here, he upset Ian—I should have known Ian wasn’t ready for someone from my past.”

  “Great heavens.” Eleanor drew Beth against her. “Ian missing is hardly your fault. Tell her that, Hart, instead of standing there like a monolith.”

  “It is my fault,” Beth said mournfully. “I should have stayed with him, not let them be alone.”

  “Absolute bloody nonsense.” Eleanor’s vehemence cut through Beth’s descent into despair. “You need a drop of something to steady your nerves. Hart will find Ian, and all will be well. Go on, Hart. You know this place better than anyone.”

  “Not better than Ian.” Hart uncurled the gloved fingers he’d clenched into his palms. “Beth, calm yourself and tell me exactly what happened.”

  Beth drew another ragged breath, but Hart’s curt command was what she needed. She related the tale of the robbery, John Ackerley’s arrival, Fellows’s worries, and Ian walking off into the blue.

  “It must have been too much for him,” Beth said. “I know John said something to him, but the blasted man won’t tell me what.”

  Eleanor rubbed Beth’s shoulder. “That’s the spirit. Hart will join the hunt, and you and I will interrogate Mr. Ackerley. I assume you kept him inside so he wouldn’t get lost while all the men are running about?”

  Beth could only nod. Hart reached out and put a hand on Beth’s shoulder. A reassuring hand, one with steely strength that the last ten years hadn’t diminished.

  “No one takes care of Ian better than you, Beth,” Hart said, his voice a quiet rumble. “But Ian’s his own man. If he takes it into his head to do something, none of us can stop him, not even you. I’ll find him. Ian has repeatedly said he can always find me, but the reverse is also true. I can always find him.” Hart’s fingers squeezed before he released Beth. “Go with Eleanor. I won’t stop until I bring him home.”

  Beth’s tears stung her cheeks, but they were tears of relief. No man was as resolute as Hart—except Ian, of course. Hart would find him, whether Ian was hurt or well.

  Beth tried not to think about Ian hurt, or gone forever from her. But Beth had been raised in workhouses, seeing the horrors of the world at too young an age. Bad things happened, and they happened quite often. She would have to face that.

  Eleanor’s arm tightened around Beth, and Beth sank into her sister-in-law’s warmth. Hart, without another word, turned his back and strode off into the darkness.

  * * *

  Too much bloody darkness. Ian lay tangled on something hard, blinking and trying to see. His head and body hurt, his mouth was dry, his eyes sandy. He had no idea where he was, or where he’d been. This was no room in Kilmorgan Castle or in his house where he lived in peace with Beth.

  Panic swept over Ian, whirling him back to the old days, when he’d lain on a brick floor, shivering and wet, as so-called doctors tried to drive the madness from him with ice-cold water. Or, when he went on one of his screaming rants, they’d lock him in a little room with no windows, no light, no sound. Both to calm him and to assure he didn’t hurt anyone, they’d claimed. They’d been afraid of him, not knowing what to do with a panicked and lonely young man.

  Waves of fear continued to strike, trying to drive Ian back to his state of rage and terror, when nothing made sense, and no one understood him.

  The need to pound his fists against the broken ground and scream until he was hoarse worked up inside him. He’d do it—he’d go mad, locked away in this place of darkness, forgotten, and alone.

  “ . . .Six hundred and ten, nine hundred and eight-seven . . .” The clarity of the numbers, the equation that existed in eternal perfection started to penetrate the fog. He was Ian Mackenzie, husband of Beth and father to Jamie, Belle, and Megan. Children with no madness in them, and clever, all three of them in different ways. Children to make a man proud.

  Ian drew a long breath, and another. Daniel’s wife, Violet, had taught him how to slow his breathing, which would still his thoughts. She’d learned it as a performer, as a way to calm herself before facing an audience. Ian lay still and focused on the lift and fall of his chest. The air was dank but not heavy, with a touch of movement. That meant that this place was not sealed off, an airless tomb. There was a way out.

  Ian cautiously felt the ground in front of and around him. His hands touched stones, but not necessarily natural ones. Some had the rough, flat feel of bricks, which crumbled when he pressed them. Others were jagged and hard, with the smooth feel of granite.

  Rational thoughts came back to him. Ian had been lying on the hilltop, unhappy about the re
velations John Ackerley had given him, and he’d fallen. He must have struck his head and been rendered unconscious, waking sometime later in this confused state.

  There was nothing wrong with him then. Ian spent a moment in thankfulness, letting the feeling well up and warm him. He had not gone raving mad. He’d simply met with an accident.

  He had fallen into a hole from the top of the hill down to . . . where? The old castle had cellars, he knew—he’d explored the ones that could still be reached.

  But the cellars opened up into another area of the ruins. Hart had ordered that doors be fixed over them from the top so that the many children who now played at Kilmorgan wouldn’t fall into them. Ian had been lying nowhere near those trapdoors.

  Perhaps he was in another part of the cellars, long walled off. In that case, who had dug the hole down to them? Who had fixed the squares of dirt and grass over the openings above to hide their existence?

  Ian’s fears receded as the puzzle took hold of him. Who had done this, and why? And where exactly was he?

  How Ian would get out did not worry him as much. He’d find a way, even if he simply had to climb back up the wall. Also, those looking for him—and they would be, if he knew Beth and Fellows—would see the hole in the top of the hill and explore it.

  Ian carefully probed the wall and ground around him, before he pushed himself to a sitting position. His head didn’t strike a ceiling, and he could feel only emptiness above him, no matter how high he reached. He concluded that he was in a deep hole indeed. It was somewhat warm down here, no cool breeze to chill him. While the afternoon sun had been warm, the wind hadn’t been—it never was at Kilmorgan.

  A light would be handy. Ian’s leather sporran, on his belt, carried all sorts of practical things. He knew exactly which items were it, and put his hand unerringly on a box of matches.

  Ian’s fingers were steady as he opened the box, withdrew a sulfur match, and struck it against the rock wall.

  Light flared, making his eyes screw up. The small flame couldn’t much penetrate the heavy darkness, but it was comforting.

  By the match’s illumination, Ian saw that he’d been right about the brick and also the natural rock. This was a cellar, or a tunnel, carved out of the rock of the hill and shored up against collapse.

  Interesting. Perhaps the Mackenzies of old had understood the need to have a back way out of the castle, or a route to bring in supplies if they were besieged. Ian’s ancestors had joined the national pastime of smuggling, and tunnels would be a good place to both store the contraband and sneak it away from any excise men who came to call.

  The match burnt out. Ian stubbed out the spark on a rock. He crawled a little way along the tunnel, sharp stones cutting him, then he withdrew another match and lit it.

  One fear Ian did not have was the fear of underground spaces. While darkness used to send him into absolute terror, exploring caves and tunnels awoke his sense of wonder, the need to learn and understand something absolutely. When Hart and Ian had gotten themselves trapped in the underground rivers and sewers of London years ago, Ian had known the exact layout of every tunnel. This had annoyed Hart, he remembered. Losing Hart down there had haunted him for years.

  This time, Ian had lost only himself, which didn’t worry him. He would find a way out. He always did.

  As Ian waved his match around, the light caught on the gleam of something that glinted back almost as brightly. The last of the panic fled as Ian’s curiosity seized him and overrode all other emotions.

  He carefully crawled toward the gleam. Not an animal’s eyes—animal eyes in the dark were different, vibrant, aware. This glint was static, unmoving, inanimate.

  Ian’s match went out. The last of the flame burned his hand, making him let out a curse in Gaelic before he dropped it. He then found the match and ground it against the rock, making sure it was truly out. Fire was nothing he’d be careless with.

  The next match bloomed in the darkness. Its light fell on something gold. Not solid gold, Ian realized, his heart beating faster. Gilding. On a frame of a picture painted by Mac Mackenzie and lying in a jumbled pile atop other paintings, with frames either broken or missing entirely.

  Before Ian’s match went out, it caught on the oval face of a Madonna, a pudgy baby in her lap, painted in the unmistakably vivid colors of the artist called Raphael.

  Chapter Nine

  Fellows called his men together after several hours of searching, taking their reports. Nothing.

  He knew that in daylight, he might be able to trace a trail—footprints, broken branches, the snag of a cloth in Mackenzie plaid. Of course, with the men of three villages and the crofts in between swarming all over, any evidence of Ian’s passing likely had been destroyed.

  Fellows could not lose him. Not only would Beth blame him forever, but Hart was here now, a man who would punish the world if harm came to his beloved younger brother.

  Besides, Fellows had grown fond of Ian. Once upon a time, he’d been convinced Ian was a crazed murderer, but he had admitted that his prejudice against the Mackenzie family had colored his judgment.

  Hell, it had blotted out his judgment with opaque paint. In his pursuit of Ian, Fellows had only proved himself to be as mad as the rest of the Mackenzies.

  He’d come to appreciate Ian’s brain, the quietness that hid lightning-quick thoughts. Ian had the ability to see into the heart of a problem, unswayed by the emotions and biases that clouded the eyes of most observers.

  That is, Ian had that ability when he didn’t go into one of his muddles. Then his clarity was erased, his sharp rationality destroyed.

  Ian must have gone off today in one of these storms in his mind, and perhaps had run straight into whoever had shot at him earlier.

  Fellows comforted himself by the fact that none of the men had stumbled over Ian’s dead body. They would have, he was certain, if Ian had come to that kind of harm.

  Unless, of course, the resourceful killer had dumped him into the river.

  Damn it all. Fellows faced his men now, asking for reports. No one had found any sign of Ian.

  “We need to wait until morning.” The words came from Fellows reluctantly. He wanted to search, no matter what, but he knew the chance of finding Ian would be better in the light. “Then we walk a line across the hills, leaving no stone unturned. Understand? Spread the word—we’ll need more men to search, able-bodied boys as well. Boys can sometimes find what grown men can’t. For now, rest and prepare for tomorrow.”

  “No.” Hart Mackenzie materialized out of the dark. “We aren’t stopping until he’s found.”

  Fellows knew he’d have this confrontation. He faced his half brother, the two close in age and temperament. Hart’s eyes glinted in the light of the lanterns, the desperation on his face matched only by stubborn determination.

  “If they continue thrashing about in the dark, they’ll miss him,” Fellows said. “Wasting energy that can be used to find him tomorrow.”

  “Meanwhile, Ian is left exposed to the cold and the night, which could kill him.” The harsh gravel of Hart’s voice grated. “I’ll not leave my brother out here alone.”

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t stop looking,” Fellows returned. “And you are free to do what you like. I’ve run many a manhunt in my time, and I know the odds of finding a person in the night with an exhausted search party.”

  Hart’s gaze didn’t waver. “And are your manhunts always a success?”

  “Yes.” Fellows had never given up a hunt before the quarry was found, whether he searched for a criminal hiding from the police or a missing child.

  Hart took a step closer to him. “Do you always find them alive?”

  Not always. Fellows had to admit that. Sometimes he was simply too late. “A high percentage of the time, yes.”

  They watched each other, a few feet apart, eye level with one another. Wind stirred Hart’s hair, his well-tailored coat, and his kilt, his clothes the finest money could buy. Fellows was in
a rumpled suit with a stained greatcoat, his hat squashed down upon his head. Stripped naked, the symbols of who they were gone, there would be little difference between them. Or so Ian would claim. The blood of the Mackenzies would ring true.

  A man shouted in the woods. Another shouted back, in Gaelic, which Fellows didn’t understand, but Hart came alert.

  Without a word, Hart turned from Fellows and strode into the darkness, his steps changing to a run. Fellows went after him, the swift jog he used for chasing villains through London letting him easily catch up.

  Hart and Fellows followed the voices along the hillside below Kilmorgan Castle, and deep into the woods beyond. The ground was uneven, and Fellows stumbled more than once. Hart, who’d known the paths from boyhood, kept a rapid pace.

  The woods ended at the top of another steep hill, which rolled down to the nearby sea. A man in a kilt was striding up from the rocky shingle, village men with lanterns surrounding him.

  Hart uttered a cry that Fellows knew very few ever heard, one of vast relief and thankfulness. Hart shoved aside those in his way and caught the tall Scotsman in a hard embrace. Lantern light fell on Ian’s face, which was streaked with black dirt, Ian’s eyes sparkling among the grime.

  Ian jumped slightly at Hart’s hug, as though surprised his older brother had been worried about him. Fellows, the same relief as Hart’s washing through him, watched Ian stare at Hart in perplexity, then bring his hands up to pat his brother’s back.

  When Hart finally pulled away, Ian said, “Come and see.”

  He broke from Hart and strode back down the hill. Hart said severely, “Damn you, Ian!” But Ian kept walking, heading back for the shore, disappearing behind a bend in the hill.

  Fellows, his curiosity pricking, followed.

  Ian moved quickly, Hart growling as he tried to keep up. Fellows fell into step with Hart. “Did you expect anything else?” Fellows asked him. “The bloody man is unfathomable.”

  Hart only muttered under his breath and quickened his pace.

  Ian led them through a thick stand of trees then stopped before a slab of rock that ran straight down from the hill above. A niche in this rock, a mere shadow under the light of the village men’s lanterns, proved to be the opening to a cave.