James gritted his teeth, but knew the jab was warranted. More than warranted. Nothing MacGowan could say was worse than the guilt and shame he was feeling right now.
He should have been there with her. She shouldn’t have gone through this alone. He had to see her. Only once he set eyes on her himself could he be assured that she was all right. Only then would the panic racing through him abate.
James stared at his sister in frustrated anger. “What do you mean she isn’t here?”
After racing across the countryside for nearly twenty-four hours to get back to Jo as soon as possible, it never occurred to him that she wouldn’t be here. Joanna belonged in Douglas with him. This was her home—their home.
Elizabeth’s gaze narrowed at his tone. “Don’t you dare bellow at me, Jamie. If you are looking for someone to be mad at, look in the looking glass!” She pursed her mouth, reluctantly deciding to answer his question. “Jo left Douglas about a month ago.”
He couldn’t believe Jo had gone. His chest twisted uneasily. For the first time, James had an inkling that things were far worse than he’d imagined. “What do you mean she left? Where did she go? And why in the hell did you not tell me about the accident when I wrote you?”
“She did not tell me where she was going, and I did not ask. She doesn’t want you to find her, and probably feared you would bully me into telling you. As for why I didn’t tell you about the accident, it was because she asked me not to. Begged me not to, in fact. It was the first thing she said to me when she came to after the fall. There she was, lying in a pile of leaves at the bottom of the hill, bruised and broken, with blood pooling all around her, and her only thought was that you not be told what had happened. She knew that you would rush back and make promises, and she didn’t want you like that. She wanted you to come for her on your own. Too bad it is nearly three months too late.”
Christ. Did no one see reason? They were in the middle of a damned war! He swore, dragging his fingers through his hair. “Damn it, Beth, I couldn’t leave. Bruce needed me.”
She lifted a delicately arched brow. “Yet here you are.”
“Aye, well I didn’t give the king a chance to deny my request.”
That surprised her. Her eyes widened. “You just left?”
He shrugged. He’d been so out of his mind with grief and panic, all he could think about was getting out of there as quickly as possible. He’d run into Boyd as he was leaving and claimed that there was a “family emergency.” But Bruce wouldn’t be happy, and James knew he’d have some explaining to do.
Beth stared at him, shaking her head as if he were a recalcitrant schoolboy. At the moment, he felt like it. “What did you expect, Jamie, that she’d sit around here wallowing in her grief and wait for you to come rushing in on your white steed to make it all better? There is nothing you can do to make it better.” Although they were alone in the laird’s solar of Park Castle, she lowered her voice. “Losing the baby nearly killed her.”
Nothing you can do to make it better? His sister’s certainty gave him a moment’s doubt, but he pushed it aside. Joanna was hurting, grieving the loss of their child, but she loved him. She would understand that he hadn’t abandoned her. If he’d known, he would have found a way to be there. “She told you about the babe?”
Beth shook her head. “She was brought here after the accident by Sir David Lindsay. Thommy and I overheard the healer telling our stepmother.”
Bloody hell.
Seeing his expression, Beth shook her head. “You need not worry on our stepmother’s account, your secret is safe. She has no more interest in seeing you wed Jo than you do. She informed the healer that if anyone else heard of this child, she would see her thrown in the nearest pit prison and condemned as a heretic.”
James repressed a shiver. He didn’t doubt it. Eleanor de Lovaine had a spine of steel. Her interest in seeing James rise in the king’s estimation—and thus raising the status of her two sons, James and Elizabeth’s half brothers Archie and Hugh—was equal only to his own.
His eyes narrowed. “What did Lindsay have to do with this?”
Sir David Lindsay had recently succeeded to his father Alexander’s barony of Crawford, which wasn’t far from Douglas. Alexander had been a close adherent of Bruce’s, as was his son. With his father’s death, Lindsay had been at Tower Lindsay seeing to the estates for the past few months.
“He was riding with some of his men to find you and ran into her, causing the fall.” James tensed with fury, but before he could say anything, she pulled him back. “It was an accident. Jo tore out of here like the devil was chasing her. I ran after her and saw the whole thing. She practically ran right into Sir David’s horse. There was nothing he could have done to avoid her. He was distraught and refused to leave until she recovered.”