The Duke’s Perfect Wife (MacKenzies & McBrides #4)(42)
Author: Jennifer Ashley

Protection of Ian had been Hart’s driving force for three decades. Eleanor had first seen that drive when Hart had taken Eleanor to meet Ian in the asylum. She remembered Hart questioning and bullying the doctors about Ian’s care, his routine, his accommodations. Whatever Hart Mackenzie had done for the last thirty years of his life, good or ill, he’d done most of it for Ian.

Eleanor touched Hart’s chest, feeling his heart hammering beneath her palm. “I do agree with you, Hart. If people are shooting, then you need to keep an eye on Ian. But even so, we must be calm. We’ll find him.”

His focus switched sharply to her, anything but calm. “There is no we. You need to stay here.”

“I can help look, you know. We all can.”

“No.” The word was fierce. “Finding Ian will be difficult enough. I do not want to have to scour the countryside for you and all my sisters-in-law at the same time. If Ian returns on his own, I need you here to help Beth keep him home.”

“You mean you don’t want me underfoot.”

“I don’t. You’ll distract me. I can’t afford to be distracted just now.”

“I distract you. How flattering.”

Hart leaned to her. “Which means I’m having difficulty thinking of anything but you. That is your fault. You seduced me like the siren you are. Now stay here and let me look for my brother.”

He needed to search, Eleanor saw that. Ian would be annoyed at Hart when Hart interrupted his fishing trip, but Ian knew how to put Hart in his place. The world thought that the “slow” Ian obeyed Hart, but the family knew differently.

“Godspeed,” Eleanor said softly.

Hart cupped her cheek and brushed a sudden, hot kiss to her lips. Then he strode away from her and made for the paddocks, where the huge forms of his brother Cameron and Cameron’s equally tall son, Daniel, waited for him.

Hart knew that Beth and Eleanor were right—in all likelihood, Ian had gone off on one of his rambles to collect himself before the rest of the family arrived. Ian had difficulty responding to people, or at least understanding how they wanted him to respond to them.

Ian said what he thought, not the expected or polite thing. From brutal experience, he’d learned to keep quiet and withdraw when he was with too many people, but sometimes he had to turn his back on the world altogether until he felt better able to cope with it.

Hart kept up his conviction that Ian would be fine, but as the hours passed, his worry settled in and stayed. He found no sign of him, no Ian fishing on the banks of the canal, no tall man in a kilt wandering across fields.

When the sun went down, Hart met Cameron, Mac, and Daniel in Hungerford, the three reporting they’d still not seen Ian nor found anyone who’d seen him.

Hart’s worry turned to crawling fear. He could not banish the picture of Ian lying facedown in a field, shot, bleeding, dying, or already dead. Either that or tied and blindfolded in some filthy room, his enemies refusing to let him go until they had Hart.

Cameron’s and Mac’s eyes reflected Hart’s uneasiness. Daniel, who’d initially scoffed at the idea that Ian of all people could be lost and hurt, now worried too.

“Daniel, go south to Coomb,” Hart said. “He likes to climb the hill to the old gibbet and watch the world go by. Cameron, search the canal east to Newbury. If Ian has spent all day studying a lock, I’ll pummel him. Mac, I want you to go back to the house and make sure the ladies don’t get the idea to go searching as well. I told Eleanor not to, but you know the Mackenzie females.”

Mac scowled. “Hell, Hart, can’t you find something easier for me to do? Go up against an army of assassins in my underwear, maybe?”

“I am not letting any of them wander the countryside to be a target. Keep them home and protect them.”

Mac raised his hands in surrender, but Hart knew his brother agreed with him. Mac would keep the ladies safe. “Fine,” Mac said. “But I’m stuffing my ears with cotton wool.”

Hart and his brothers and nephew separated, each taking a few men with him, and Hart resumed his search.

He walked his horse along the dark towpath, heading west along the canal. Blast you, Ian. Why did you choose now to go roaming?

It was too dark to go very fast, and a misstep could send Hart or his horse or the men following him into the canal. He tried to take care, but everything in him was urging, hurry, hurry, hurry.

They clopped down through Little Bedwyn, then Great Bedwyn and on toward Wilton and Crofton. No Ian Mackenzie. No tall Scotsman staring at water moving through the locks, or idly fishing, or walking restlessly up and down the banks.

Ian could be anywhere. Holed up in a barn to sleep or climbing aboard a train to who-knew-where. Ian followed no rules but his own, and he might not bother to buy a ticket for the train until he was on it. He would eventually wire Beth to tell her where he was, but it might be some time before he did. Ian would know he was all right, but he did not always remember to reassure others or even understand why he should. Ian was better about all this now that he was with Beth, but he still liked to sometimes disappear on his own.

As a child, Ian had bolted from crowds that frightened him or even from the supper table at Kilmorgan, running, running to rid himself of terrors he didn’t understand. Hart would follow him, find him, and sit with him in silence until Ian calmed down. Only Hart had been able to stop Ian’s frightened tears and intense rages. Only Hart had been able to put a comforting arm around Ian’s shoulders—for the brief moment Ian allowed it—to reassure him that he was not alone.

When Ian had first come home from the asylum, he often would walk away from the house and stay away for days. Hart had gone insane with worry, but Ian always returned, in his own time. Hart would shout at Ian and command him not to do it again. Ian would listen in silence, gaze averted, but when Ian decided he needed to be on his own again, he simply went. All the shouting in the world could not change his mind.

Things were different now. Ian had Beth, and his need to withdraw had dwindled. Ian did not like to spend too much time away from Beth and his children, in any case, and he mostly stayed home, drawing comfort from them.

So, why had he gone this time?

I will never let anything happen to you, Ian Mackenzie, Hart vowed as he rode through yet another village. I promised you that, and I’ll keep the promise until I die.

Hart became separated from his men. He wasn’t certain when it happened, but in the dark, with Hart well in the lead, he must have ridden over a canal bridge they hadn’t seen him take, or perhaps they’d ridden over one, assuming Hart had crossed it.