Tempest Heart - Paula Quinn Page 0,67

you keep looking up at the treetops?”

She lowered her head and her gaze and smiled at him. “I’m praying.”

“Ask Him why He let my Mary die.”

Her smile faded and then her attention was captured by Neill shouting for seven of his men to camp somewhere else—and to take the captain with them. “If MacPherson is coming,” he told them, “I want half of us to protect the other half.”

Rose was to stay with Neill and the other six.

Poor William fought to keep them from taking him from her. He was beaten and kicked until he had nothing left in him and they dragged him away.

Rose wept openly for him but clenched her jaw and stopped when Neill came closer to her. He walked around her and loosened her tether enough for her to slide down the tree and sit.

“Are you hungry, Rose?”

“Does it make you happy knowing that you destroyed a man’s life?” she spat at him.

He looked around and shrugged. “I do not trouble myself with such things.”

“You are evil.”

He sighed as if he were bored and walked away, leaving her alone as his men lit torches but waited for her to continue.

“No. I am not hungry.” She looked away and then closed her eyes to keep them off the treetops.

Where was Tristan?

They drew up along the western outskirts of Thornhill about four hours after the sun went down. Tristan had had to dismount and hold his torch to the ground, so tracking had been slow. Still, he’d found their marks in the rustled autumn leaves and snapped bramble—he’d never lost them in the first place. They appeared to lead toward the trees in the distance. Good. The man who’d taken Rose and Captain Harper had gone around the large village instead of through it, appearing to lead east along the Lowther Hills.

Thanks to the two men Tristan and Jones had kept alive, they knew the bastard’s name who had done this and why. Neill de Caleone. Tristan remembered Rose talking about her friend, Neill. He had gone off six years ago with everyone else in her life. Was it the same man? If so, would he harm her, or not?

There was only one person with them who knew.

When they stopped to rest their horses, Jones built a fire and sat before it. There was very little food left from Nel. Tristan hadn’t thought of stopping anywhere to get some. No one had said a word to him about it. He looked around at them and wanted to smile. They wanted to find her, too. His gaze fell to Mary—and find her husband, too.

He had questions for her father and called him over to where he stood in the shadows. But Tristan wanted light to see the earl’s reactions to his questions.

“Lord,” Tristan said, leaning against a tree and holding up his flaming torch. “I wanted to speak to ye aboot Neill de Caleone. Is he the same Neill of yer daughter’s youth?”

The earl began to shake his head, but then likely thought better of deceit and nodded. “I fear so.”

“Why did ye keep this from me?” Tristan demanded quietly. He wanted to shout that he’d been a fool and this man was somehow guilty—guilty as a fox caught in a henhouse.

“I was afraid,” her father confessed.

“Only men who are guilty are afraid of justice,” Tristan said through clenched teeth.

“Then please,” her father offered with a smile that stretched his mouth into an almost macabre grin that slowly faded as he spoke. “Neill’s mother was a servant who perished when the boy was seven or eight. I made certain he had a place in my service and a sturdy roof over his head in the servants’ quarters. For years, he was welcome to everything at Callanach Castle, including his friendship to my Rose. He was extremely protective of her. From the day she was born, he was captivated by her.”

Tristan hated that Rose’s childhood friend had been mad and was responsible for everything. She likely knew it by now. Who comforted her? He prayed she was still with the captain.

As for her father, Tristan could do nothing but continue to listen. He felt it was important to do so now more than ever.

“When our home burned down—and I thank the good Lord that I arrived home when I did—it never occurred to me that Neill started the fire. Never. He would never hurt Rose. He was almost burned to death trying to find her. But he became more volatile