What would she say?
How could she explain?
Her heart raced painfully.
Iain could scarce believe it, though the proof was there before him. She’d frozen in her step when he’d called her by name, and she stood there still, looking like a beautiful carving of stone in her utter stillness.
He’d heard Malcom speak the word last eve, but had assumed his son had misnamed the verse a page. He’d thought nothing more of it. Until Malcom had spoken it again.
Iain had been momentarily distracted over his son’s artwork, but no more.
He had to know the truth.
And sweet Christ, but he did. He could tell by the way she stood, so stiffly, refusing to face him. She knew precisely what it was he wished to know, and she gave him his answer with her silence.
As he watched her tilt her head back and peer into the sky, as though in supplication, Iain shook with a rage so potent, it was manifest. He could taste it bitterly. He could feel it—from the fury that burned him, to the heart that squeezed him. He could smell it, and the stench was putrid. If FitzSimon, the bastard, stood before him this instant, Iain thought he might tear out his bloody heart and shove it down his throat—provided he had a heart at all! God damn the ill-begotten whoreson!
What sort of man went so far as not to name his own daughter? Page was no name at all, but a mere role to be played!
How could a man—how could anybody— have so little concern over a human being? His own flesh and blood?
His jaw clenched so tightly that he thought he could taste his own blood.
He muttered an oath beneath his breath, and swore that if ever again he faced the man who called himself her father, he would strangle the fool with his bare hands.
Uncertain what else to do, Iain merely stared at her back—she’d been unable to turn and face him as yet—and he saw that she quaked, as well.
God’s teeth, nothing he had done to her, nothing he had said, had caused such a reaction in her, and he swore another bitter oath as he turned abruptly, unable to face her as yet, unable to force her to face him.
Turning, he nearly plowed into Lagan in his blind rage.
“’Tis Ranald,” Lagan announced. “Iain... he hasna returned.”
Iain muttered an oath. “Gather a search party,” he commanded Lagan. “Damn, but I’m gain’ to strangle the wandering whoreson when we find him!”
chapter 13
They combed the woodlands more furiously now, hacking away at the flowering vines and foliage in their paths.
Lagan and Ranald had been companions since childhood, and Iain could tell his cousin was growing more distressed with every inch of ground they covered in search of his friend.
Iain hadn’t been overly concerned the night before, only because he’d thought Ranald needed time to calm himself—that perhaps his disappearance had been a gesture of defiance. He was well aware the men had been displeased with his decision to bring Page along with them.
Och, but if he thought he despised the name she gave him before, he loathed this one all the more. Nay, but ’twas no name at all!
As the party continued to search, Iain considered others that might better suit her—and decided that every last one of them suited her better than Page. The very thought of her father’s insult made his ire rise tenfold. He hacked at a thick vine with the flat of his sword, cutting it in twain with the blunt force of his blow.
Christ and bedamned! Where was Ranald?
Angry as he may have been, Iain knew Ranald would never have deserted them. His brow furrowed. Most assuredly not without his mount.
His thoughts skittered back to Page, and he shook his head in disgust. Damn, but how could any man allow—nay, demand!—that his own flesh and blood be borne away by the enemy? Iain clenched his teeth at the unpalatable thought. Try as he might, he couldn’t comprehend the workings of FitzSimon’s mind. Even had Mairi been unfaithful and borne him another man’s bairn, Iain knew he would have loved that child as if it were his own. It was never the bairn’s fault, was it? He couldn’t comprehend such blatant lack of regard in a father who shared the same blood with his daughter.
Surely ’twas an abomination before God’s eyes? Though ‘God might reap his own justice, Iain found he wished to show the whoreson a more earthly sort of hell—and he damned well would if he ever set eyes upon the man again.
“Begin searching the brush!” he commanded. A sense of unease lifted the hairs of his nape. Until now, they’d been scouring the ground for some evidence of struggle—some clue to Ranald’s disappearance—tracks through the soft earth of the forest, leaves disturbed. There was nothing.
“He canna have gone far withoot his mount,” he reminded his men, thinking aloud, and still his brooding thoughts returned to Page.