Heartless (The House of Rohan 5)

Brandon’s eyes narrowed. “Exactly what do you know about her?”

“Everything,” his father said cheerfully. “Your brother Charles will have a temper tantrum about it, which is recommendation enough to my mind. Much as I love him, I still can’t fathom how we ever managed to produce such a pompous, judgmental prig.” He glanced at Charlotte. “Are you certain you didn’t have a mésalliance with a Quaker when I wasn’t looking? Maybe one slipped into the Heavenly Host when we didn’t realize it.”

His mother laughed. Normally any mention of the Host would have aroused his attention, not because of his own involvement with them but for the long-shrouded details of his parents’ courtship. He could no more picture his mother as part of that degenerate band than he could the Archbishop of Canterbury. His reprobate father was, of course, another matter.

But he didn’t care. He had to find Emma before it was too late, before she was so lost he would never see her again.

“You have to help me find her.”

“You’ll find her,” his father said, as sympathetic as a hedgehog. “If you deserve her.”

“You’ll find her,” his mother said.

“In time.”

Chapter 31

Much to Noonan’s disgust it was five weeks before Brandon finally returned to the Highlands. All hope had faded, and his father’s wry remarks were less painful than his mother’s warm sympathy. There had been no trace of Emma anywhere, not at the hospital that was quickly scrambling to replace two of their missing surgeons, not at her neat rooms in that wretched area by the docks, not at the newly restored Dovecote in Upper Rippington or the charities of London. She had disappeared completely, taking nothing with her but a few medical tomes, and he was beyond desperate. He was also getting nowhere.

Had she somehow managed to take ship for America, or someplace even more exotic? His parents had just returned from a tour of South America—if she’d headed there he might never find her. The east was also a possibility, and the thought that she might decide to head toward India or even Afghanistan filled him with horror. It would be just like her to volunteer as a medic for the army—the military couldn’t afford to be too picky. His stomach roiled at the thought, but he wouldn’t hesitate. He would find her, no matter where she had gone, he would find her and bring her back.

Fate wouldn’t have interfered—not once but twice—if they weren’t meant to be together, but winter was closing in. Like it or not, he had to settle a few things in the north before he went after her. He hired men to look for her before he left London, to comb the shipping manifests, with the hope that once he returned there’d be some word of her.

The trip north was endless. They could have gone by carriage, a slower but marginally more comfortable mode of transportation, but he didn’t give a damn, and Noonan was impervious to trifles like the weather. The biting rain suited Brandon’s mood perfectly, and his mare, Emma—damn, why had he named his horse after her? But of course he had—even in his drug-addled blankness he’d thought of her.

They mostly rode in silence, stopping at inns along the way just long enough to feed and rest the horses, and then they were moving again, over the endless, miserable roads. He barely noticed the changing landscape, as the fallow fields turned rockier, as the trees rose sturdier, the forests grew deeper, the coast wilder. He was in no mood to admire the world around him, he simply needed to get home, lick his wounds like Tammas, his old spaniel, and decide what he could do next. It would make no sense to take the next ship to America if she had set sail for India.

He knew what to do with the reckless anxiety, that wild impulse that drove him. He needed to go home, to the Highlands, where he could be calm and still and make some sense of it all.

It was in the darkest hours of night that they arrived back home, and the gamekeeper’s cottage rose against the ebony sky, an unprepossessing building that had somehow managed to become safety to him. He should have had Noonan make arrangements for one of the village women to come in and tidy up—there would be rodent droppings on most surfaces, the fire would be cold and empty, the beds tumbled and the laundry scattered. Normally Noonan would see to things, but neither of them had been paying attention to details when they left, and they’d been gone far longer than Brandon had ever anticipated. There was a light breeze on the air, and he told himself he could almost smell the coming of spring, or what passed for it in this cold, unforgiving climate, and he felt some of the tightness that had been twisting his insides begin to loosen.

God, he loved it here, the wildness, the beauty, the fierce independence of the people in the small village. Unlike other landlords, the Rohans had never participated in the Highland Clearances, uprooting villagers and sending them to the cities to make room for grazing sheep. The Rohans had never had any passion for commerce, and small Glen Bally was self-sufficient if not profitable, and that suited Brandon. This had been the home of his great-grandfather who’d died on Culloden Moor, this was the home of his heart.

Except that his heart had gone wandering, and he had to bring her back.

“You want to start the fire and clean away some of the mess?” Noonan asked as he slid down from his horse with surprising spryness, “or do you fancy taking care of the horses?”

“House,” he said.

“You can’t cook.”

“Neither can you,” Brandon shot back, and Noonan chuckled.

“You’re right about that, me boy. We’ll find food tomorrow—tonight I just want to settle me bones on me own bed.”

Brandon managed to laugh as he pushed open the heavy door to the cottage. It was pitch black, but the smell was surprisingly fresh—no stench of mouse piss or rising damp. He found his way to the tinder box and lit a candle, watching as it slowly pushed back the shadows, and he stared around him in surprise before taking the taper and lighting everything he could find to illuminate the place.

Some charitable soul had been there, and recently. There was no dust, no damp ashes but a fresh-laid fire, a spotless table with, good God, spring flowers in a crystal vase that had to have come from Ballykeep itself. The main house had been locked up for decades, but someone had clearly made free with the contents. He supposed he would have to do something about that, and he really didn’t want to. He just wanted a few days of peace, for solitary hikes in the woods and long swims in the icy waters that ran through his lands. He had no interest in wasting time dealing with petty thieves.

He’d leave it up to Noonan. If they robbed him blind, so be it. He’d always thought, in some unspecified but rosy future, that he would be bringing his bride there. Then the war had happened, and nothing was the same.

Any right-minded woman would hate it here. It was cold and windy, it rained almost daily, the terrain was rocky and challenging. It was breathtakingly beautiful, but remote, and women liked company, didn’t they? They liked society, and shopping, and even if he couldn’t imagine Emma ever giving a damn about those things, she’d want a hospital, some place to use her talents and knowledge, and there weren’t enough people here to justify one. The last sawbones had been old Dr. Letcher, but since he’d retired and moved south there was no one to see to the problems of the parish, no one he’d been able to bribe into moving there. It took a special person to thrive in the Highlands, and the doctors he knew were too delicate for this rough life.

Emma was far from delicate, but he’d go wherever she wanted him to go, as soon as he could find her. He would follow her if he couldn’t go with her, and he would stay near her till the end of their lives.

Noonan had followed him into the front room, looking around him with an odd expression on his face. “Doesn’t look half bad,” he announced. “One of the local women must have come in and gotten it ready.”

“How did they know we were coming?”