“Do you mind?” he asked.
“Not a’tall.” Hamish hopped onto his chest and began bouncing up and down.
“Oof. Oof. Oof.” Edward captured him mid-bounce and set him on the floor. He sat up, clutching his blankets over his naked chest like a swooning virgin, and glared at all in attendance. “A little privacy please?”
“Come boys.” Hortense clapped her hands. “His Grace requires privacy.”
Tay poked a finger in Edward’s nostril. “What do you require privacy for?”
Edward carefully removed the digit. “I should like to get dressed.”
Tay tipped his head to the side and scrunched up his face, as though this concept was utterly unfathomable.
“So we can go get your sister.”
“Oh. All right then. Why didn’t you say so?”
Edward blew out a breath and glared at Hortense. “Did you need to bring them all?”
“They insisted.”
“They are children.”
She gored him with a look. “Are they?”
Well. Perhaps not. There were moments when he wondered if the other demons in hell ever missed their playmates.
“Do hurry, Moncrieff,” Hortense chirruped as she herded the horde into the narrow hallway. “The boys are anxious to fetch their sister back.”
The thought of taking those boys—his brothers—into a den of thieves curled his toes. Then again, the idea had merit.
McCloud would never know what hit him.
He dressed quickly—he was anxious to beard the lion in his den and retrieve Violet, but thoughts of Kaitlin rode high in his mind as well. He couldn’t wait to see her again. It had been but a day and he ached, fairly ached, to hold her.
He came down the rickety staircase of the inn, still tying his cravat, to see his family—his family—filling the tiny dining room devouring their breakfast. But—
“Where’s Kaitlin?”
Hortense went red. The boys all looked elsewhere.
“Where is she?”
“Apparently she left.”
“Left?” Hell.
“We woke up yesterday morning and she was gone.”
Yesterday? His heart did an odd flippity-flop then pounded as panic rose bitterly in his throat. “W-where did she go?”
“I can only imagine she went to Callum.” Malcolm dug at his sausage as though it was an enemy.
“Callum?” But he’d told her not to go! He’d told her to trust him. To let him handle it. “Fuck!”
“Really, Moncrieff. Small ears.”
“Fuck!” parroted Hamish. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Edward scrubbed his face with a palm. Callum would take her to McCloud. If she weren’t already there. Damnation. Now he had two of them to rescue.
Edward glared at Transom. “We’d better go.”
“At once, Your Grace.”
But they didn’t go at once. It took an eternity to load the coaches. And despite Edward’s insistence that the boys remain behind, they did not.
They simply refused.
* * * * *
He was holding Violet in the tower.
This, Kaitlin pried from a young scullery boy named Pippin.
Her betrothed had sent Callum on his way and ensconced her for the night in a drafty chamber on the second floor of the keep and—with an ominous expression—bade her to bar the door. Kaitlin had merely snorted. She had a dirk. She knew how to use it.
At first light she began her reconnoiter and, after finding Pippin and discovering where Violet was being held, headed for the tower.
The tower. How cliche.
She met the McCloud coming down the spiral staircase as she was going up. He was buttoning his shirt.
His chin dropped as he spotted her. “What the hell are you doing here?” he sputtered. “I told you to stay in your room.”
“I’m going to see Violet.”
He blanched. “You most certainly are not.”
Kaitlin narrowed her eyes. “I must know she is all right.”
“She’s fine.”
“Wonderful. Let me see her.”
His lips flapped.
“Let me see her now.” She flailed him with a ferocious glare. “Consider it a wedding present.”
With a dark glower, he turned around and started back. “You really are a harpy, you know.” This he threw over his shoulder.
“The worst sort. We shall be so happy together.”
He snorted.
They tromped up the stairs. It was a long way to the top. “I can’t believe you’re keeping her in the tower,” she muttered.
He flicked a look at her. “She’s safer here. The men would never—” He broke off, recalling to whom he was talking. “She’s tried to escape. It’s either the tower or the dungeons, and the dungeons are in terrible shape.”