Mackenzie Family Christmas: The Perfect Gift

Chapter Four

"Dad." Daniel lifted his hand to the regulars in the public house, men he'd known all his life.

Lord Cameron Mackenzie, next in line for the dukedom until Eleanor bore a son, sat comfortably in their midst. The locals had never minded Cameron or Mac coming in to drink, play cards or darts, and join in the conversation. They didn't mind Ian either, who'd drink and sit in silence the rare times he'd visited with his brothers, though Hart still made them a bit nervous.

An open box of cigars sat on Cameron's table, and from the acrid scents around him, many of the men here had dipped into it. Daniel's father was generous--these were expensive.

Daniel took one of the cigars, bit off the end, lit the cigar with a match from a box on the table, and sank down across from Cameron. He smiled over at the barmaid, who smiled back and started working the taps.

"Wasn't expecting you 'til next week," his father said in his rumbling baritone.

"Wasn't expecting to come so soon." Daniel blew out smoke. "But I thought it was time to leave Edinburgh."

Cameron's eyes glinted. "You owe someone money?"

"Naw, they owed it to me. And are being bad-tempered about it. But when I claim my clockwork numbers machine can add a string of figures faster than a human being, they need to believe me."

"Clockwork numbers machine, eh?" Cameron took a long draw on his cigar, following it with a swallow of bitter. "What professor is teaching you that?"

Daniel shrugged. "No professor. Something I'm looking into on me own."

Cameron emphasized his words with fingers holding his cigar. "You begged me to go to that university, Danny. You're taking the degree."

"Oh, I'll have it, don't you worry." Daniel smiled up at the barmaid as she set the ale in front of him.

"How are you, Kirsten? No girls as fine as you in Edinburgh, that's the truth."

The barmaid Kirsten had very blond hair, large blue eyes, a ready smile, and a body that stopped a man in his tracks. She was a few years older than Daniel, but had been perfectly happy to teach him to kiss once upon a time. "Och, don't lie to me, lad," she said good-naturedly then moved back to the taps under the watchful eye of her father.

"Why aren't you at the house?" Daniel asked. "Billing and cooing with me sweet stepmama?"

"Ainsley, Beth, and Isabella are planning a grand Christmas and Hogmanay feasting. Including a ball or two, bonfires, banquets, and numerous other festivities. There are decorators, extra servants, supplies coming at all hours, the ladies making lists, running about, and chattering, always chattering."

Daniel took a sip of the ale. Not the best in the world, but it had a bite that told him he was home. "Ye fled for your sanity, did ye? Will stepmama be happy when she finds you gone?"

"She won't notice. Not for a while."

"What will you do to escape the madness tomorrow?"

"See to the horses. They don't need to become too soft."

Daniel smiled to himself. Cameron loved his racehorses and would use any excuse to head for the stables or paddocks.

But looking at him across the table, Daniel saw the change in his father. He still possessed his hard edge and a grating note to his voice, but a new light had softened his eyes.

Cameron Mackenzie had held himself away from the world for a long time. Oh, he caroused and wenched with the best of them, but no one got past his granite shell. Time was, Daniel's father wouldn't have cared what a woman was doing with her time when he wasn't with her--he'd go about his business and give no thought to her at all.

Now, though Cameron smoked and drank in this masculine haven, he was fully aware that he'd go home to Ainsley, that she'd give him her bright smile, and pull Cameron, a great bear of a man, down to kiss his cheek.

Good to see his father so happy.

Cameron sat in companionable silence, while Daniel caught up on the local gossip. He let himself be enticed into a game of cards, winning hands and losing them. He was soundly beaten at darts, because he wasn't good at it, which he knew. He passed out the winnings with graciousness, and by that time, the publican was ready to close for the night.

Daniel walked side by side with his father, their breaths fogging out in the frosty night, the first flakes of snow falling when they reached the gates of Kilmorgan Castle. They said good night to the gatekeeper and his family and bent their heads to the wind for the last half mile to the house.

Kilmorgan was lit from top to bottom. Daniel and Cameron entered to find chandeliers blazing, the hall table filled with burning lamps instead of greenery, and the majordomo distributing the lamps to members of the household. All the servants were up, as were Daniel's uncles and aunts, including Eleanor, who clung to a newel post at the top of the stairs.

"What the devil?" Cameron shouted into the noise.

Hart turned to him, eyes blazing anger. "I was about to send someone to run for you."

Before Daniel could ask why, Ainsley cut through the crowd straight for Cameron, the myriad lights dancing on her fair hair. "Gavina is gone," she said, a frantic note in her voice. "We can't find her anywhere."

*** *** *** Cameron's world stopped and narrowed to his wife, her face smudged with dust, her gray eyes wide with fear, and her words: We can't find her anywhere.

Gavina, Cameron's pretty one-year-old daughter with hair of gold like her mother's--no, she couldn't be truly gone. Ever since she learned to walk, she'd been leading them a merry dance, often disappearing, but she'd always been easily found.

The knot in Cameron's stomach was nothing to the stark terror in Ainsley's eyes. Cameron ignored the throng around him and pulled Ainsley into his arms. The scent of roses touched him as he closed his arms around her shaking body.

"We'll find her, love." He kissed her hair. "She can't have gone far."

"But it's snowing. And so cold."

Cameron felt her panic. Ainsley had lost her first baby, the poor mite dying after only one day. That child had been called Gavina, and so Cam and Ainsley had named their first wee one in honor of her.

Gavina Mackenzie was robust and healthy, too robust sometimes. But Cameron understood Ainsley's fear and shared it.

"We've looked in all the likely places," Hart was saying. "Now we're combing the house top to bottom. Every nook and cranny--every single one, understand?" He pointed at groundskeepers. "You five and me, we'll cover the outbuildings. We all meet back here in an hour and report, sooner if she's found, of course."

The servants and household dispersed. Mac, still in his painting kilt with the red scarf over his hair, took Isabella's hand and led her up and up the stairs to the very top of the house.

Ainsley slid out of Cameron's arms, tears on her face. "Go with Hart," she said, touching Cam's chest.

"Find her. Please."

"I will, love." Cameron held Ainsley until the very last minute, then she rushed away after Isabella and Mac.

Daniel grabbed a lantern. "We'll find her. Don't you worry. Her legs are short. Difficult for her to walk a long way."

"Short but very, very fast." Cameron had seen Gavina totter down a hall with the speed of one of his thoroughbred colts, gone in the blink of an eye. Ainsley blamed herself, Cameron saw that.

And where was I? Cameron thought grimly. In the bloody pub. Like the old days. Not looking after my girl, just as I didn't look after my boy.

His boy now stood beside him, Cameron's same height if not his breadth, none the worse for Cameron's fatherly neglect. Daniel had gone missing regularly, Cameron remembered, at first wanting his father to come find him, and later wanting his father not to find him.

Daniel had been a lonely, neglected boy. No one could say that Gavina was neglected in any way--

Cameron had been making sure of that. She'd wandered off, he told himself. She'd gone exploring and gotten lost.

In the dark, in the cold, with the snow coming down . . .

Cameron walked faster and faster, the other men with lanterns falling behind him. Only Daniel kept up.

"They say they already looked in the stables," Daniel said. "Where else does she like to go?"

"Everywhere," Cameron said darkly. "She likes the gardens. Ainsley's not fool enough to let her go out there at night."

"I'm thinking stepmama did not exactly let her go anywhere."

Cameron growled to himself and kept walking. Gavina wasn't used to Kilmorgan--she'd been here only a couple of times since her birth, and last year at this time she'd been a tiny thing in a cradle.

This year, she'd been fascinated by Hart's big house, by the nursery she shared with her cousins, by the decorations her mother and aunts were strewing about the house, by the back halls and stairs that the servants traversed. She also liked the big, formal gardens with their maze-like paths and gigantic fountains. The fountains weren't playing now, but she'd liked the one of Apollo's chariot and horses.

Gavina liked anything to do with horses and wasn't afraid of the beasts at all.

Damn it. If she'd decided to climb up on the horses at the fountain . . .

Cameron broke into a run, Daniel behind him. They reached the Apollo fountain in the middle of the garden within a minute, Cameron's heart hammering.

All was quiet. Cameron and Daniel flashed their lanterns, light gleaming on the icy marble of the horses, on the empty water spigots that spouted from beneath the chariot. Apollo the sun god stood upright, never minding the snow dusting his head and shoulders.

"She's not here," Cameron said with some relief. No little body lying on the ground after she'd toppled from the slippery horses or the chariot. "Why the devil doesn't Hart destroy this monstrosity of a fountain anyway?"

"Because it's by Bernini, brought over from Rome, and a masterwork of seventeenth-century engineering?"

"Shut it, boy. Where else?"

"Rest of the gardens? Stables?"

"Stables," Cameron said. "We'll check them again."

"She's a Mackenzie all right." Daniel said it lightly, but Cameron heard the worry in his tone.

They made their way back to the other men. The dogs had come to help too, except Ben, who'd walked slowly to the bottom of the terrace and sat down. He was old, and didn't like the cold.

The other dogs swarmed, tails moving, excited at the hunt. If any of them could be relied upon to track Gavina, Cameron would turn them loose. But the dogs were family pets because they weren't good at what they'd been bred for--retrieving birds or hunting, or even ratting in the case of Fergus. Hart refused to destroy an animal simply because it wasn't useful, so they became companions to the family.

Cameron strode for the stables, a vast line of buildings that housed Hart's horses and Cam's special racers, the tack rooms, the carriage houses, and the grooms' quarters. Searching every corner of the place would be as difficult as tackling the house.

Cameron, though, went through them, every stall, the grooms helping with the search. The little girl wasn't in the haylofts, or hidden in one of the carriages, or behind saddle trees in a tack room.

Cameron strode back into the yard, sucking cold air into his lungs. He could barely find breath, and it was so cold. Gavina couldn't have been wrapped up warmly; she might freeze to death before they found her.

God, no. Please. No.

What had he said only yesterday morning, walking home from the bleak churchyard? Too many bloody funerals in this family already.

Cameron had stood at a graveside on another cold winter day to bury his first wife after she'd taken her own life. He'd watched his mother go, his father, Hart's wife and little boy.

Not Gavina. Not her. If she died, it would break Ainsley. Ainsley would dissolve into grief, and Cameron wouldn't be able to help her.

Damn it, I can't lose them.

He found himself bent double, hands on knees, his lungs not working. A warm hand gripped his shoulder.

"Dad. Ye all right?"

Daniel. Daniel was his constant, the one person who'd made Cameron's life bearable all these years.

Air poured back into him, and Cameron slowly stood up. Daniel's eyes, as golden as Cameron's, held fear.

"I'm all right, son. Just scared out of my mind."

"We'll find her. We will."

Cameron shook his head. "It's too bloody cold. There won't be time. She's so tiny."

The world was spinning around, but Daniel was there, his hand on Cameron's shoulder. Cameron would have to go into the house and tell Ainsley, have to watch the light go out of her eyes.

He couldn't do it. "We have to find her."

"Aye." Daniel's grip tightened. "We will."

Ruby, the hound who'd taken up residence with Ian and Beth, galloped by, followed by Ian himself, holding a lantern high.

"Where is Achilles?" Ian called to them.

Achilles was a setter, or at least, a partial one. He had jet black fur except for one white hind foot, which gave him his name. Cameron realized that he'd seen only four of the five dogs--Ruby, Fergus, and McNab running about, Ben waiting near the terrace--but he hadn't paid much attention.

"I don't know," Cameron snapped. "I'm more interested in finding my daughter."

Ian came to a halt and looked straight at Cameron--he'd become better at meeting his brothers' eyes in the last few years, even though he sometimes still found it difficult. At the moment, his gaze held Cameron's.

"We need to look for Achilles."

"Damn it, Ian . . ."

"No, wait," Daniel said. "I think Uncle Ian's got it. I haven't seen Achilles since we arrived home, and Gavina likes him. What's more, he likes her." Daniel's eyes sparkled with excitement, the lantern making his face sharp.

Cameron's breath came faster as he raised his lantern and flashed it around the stable yard. Achilles did follow Gavina with devotion, and the little girl might have felt safe going outside with him. Gavina might not be able to answer their calls, but Achilles would.

"Sorry, Ian," Cameron said. He found himself saying that to Ian quite a bit. "I didn't understand."

Ian gave him a faint nod but didn't answer. His look told Cameron that he knew his older brother was an idiot, but he'd learned to put up with it.

"Hart!" Cameron moved to catch up with the bulk of the duke and explain.

Soon men were bellowing into the night, Achilles! Where are you, lad? The other dogs, recognizing the name, started barking in earnest.

The trouble was, they now were making so damn much noise that Cameron couldn't hear a blasted thing. He broke away from the main group, Daniel close behind him.

Cameron went out into the dark, away from the teeming stable yard. The musty scent of horses came to him on the wind, the cold of the night stealing his breath.

The wind cut out on the leeward side of the stables, the relative warmth a waft of relief. Faint and faraway, Cameron heard the loud arf arf of the one dog that wasn't there.

He stopped, and Daniel almost ran into him, lantern swinging. They both froze, listening.

It came again, the frantic barking of a dog trying with all its might to get their attention.

Cameron walked swiftly toward the sound, down the length of the back of the stables, its long stone wall rising high beside him.

"There!" Daniel said, pointing.

At the end of the wall, boards had been nailed over a hole to protect the crumbling foundation. From behind it was the unmistakable barking of Achilles--starting low and ending high, in almost a squeak. The more excited Achilles became, the squeakier he sounded.

The high-pitched barking escalated, accompanied by the noise of paws scrabbling on wood. Cameron and Daniel dropped to their knees, lanterns clanking on the ground, both men reaching at the same time for the gray pieces of board. Two pairs of gloved hands, one huge, the other thinner and more wiry, yanked wood away from the hole.

Achilles' snuffling nose came into view, his body squirming as his tail wagged deep inside the hole.

Daniel got his hands around the dog and started pulling him out. Cameron didn't let himself think about the fact that Achilles might have become stuck down here by himself, nothing to do with Gavina.

Daniel fell back, his arms full of the dark-furred Achilles. Achilles, panting in happiness, licked Daniel's face, then went right back into the hole.

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