Chapter 18
It took everything Brice had to sit still and let Eleanor tell her story. The pain in her eyes just about killed him.
“What did the bastard do to yer husband?” He forced the question out.
She drew in a shaking breath, and as she’d done throughout the telling of the tale, she looked at their hands held tightly together.
“He accused Charles of treason. He had papers…” A sob escaped her and Brice tightened his hold.
There were no tears, but the memories were tearing her apart.
He wanted to tell her to stop, but he knew he needed to hear this, and she needed to tell it.
She’d probably not told anyone, and it was slowly eating her up.
She breathed deeply and seemed to collect herself. “He had papers proving his lies. I don’t know where he got them, and I was never allowed to read them. They came…”
He waited silently for her to continue, giving her the time she needed. In the meantime he held on to his anger. He despised Blackwood and was glad that he had not known this story when the man was sleeping under his roof. He wasn’t certain what he would have done if he had known.
“They came for Charles in the middle of the night. They dragged him out of bed and tied his hands behind him. He looked so confused. I was yelling, trying to ask them what they were doing. These were men I had danced with at the ball, and suddenly they were in our home, arresting my husband.
“I found out the next day that he was accused of feeding information to a Jacobite who had family connections to the Hirst family. I tried to tell them that there were no family connections. Charles wasn’t related to anyone from Scotland.
He was as English as one could get. But they didn’t listen to me. ”
She swallowed and blinked. Brice knew she wasn’t in the room with him; she was reliving whatever had happened to Charles Hirst. The poor fool, putting his trust in the likes of the Butcher and Blackwood.
“The next time I saw him, he was being led to the hangman’s noose.
A crowd had gathered. I’d heard of hangings.
I knew they were a spectacle, but I’d never been to one.
It was horrible. The people…they were like animals, yelling and screaming, throwing things.
Poor Charles looked so confused. He didn’t understand what was going on, and neither did I.
They hanged him. Right there with no proof other than some papers that Blackwood claimed he had.
They killed him. He was a good man, an honest man. And they killed him.”
Brice could hold himself back no longer. He leaned forward and gathered her in his arms and let her weep upon his good shoulder. She cried like she probably hadn’t cried since the day her husband had died, and Brice let her.
He stroked her back and whispered in her ear. His shoulder became wet with her tears as her body shook against him. He let his hatred for the English grow. Apparently it mattered not to them whether one was English or Scottish. They were untrustworthy bastards. Every one of them.
She pulled back and wiped her tears from her cheeks. She took a shuddering breath.
“The next time I see Blackwood, I will kill him,” Brice said softly but with deadly intent.
“I appreciate the thought, but I won’t have another man’s death on my heart.”
“Ye would feel guilty for his death?” he asked, surprised.
“No. I would feel guilty for your death.”
“Ye wound me with yer lack of faith in my abilities.”
“I don’t doubt your abilities, Brice. But if you kill Blackwood, you’ll have all of the English soldiers looking for you, and that I won’t have.”
He grunted, not willing to admit that she was right. “I’ll wound him, then. Severely.”
She smiled, but it was a sad smile.
Brice touched her wet cheek and pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ears. “I’m sorry, lass. Yer Charles sounds like a good man who was wronged.”
“He was a good man.”
“Come here, lass.” He patted the other side of the bed.
Eleanor was exhausted from telling her story, and he was damned if she was going to sleep alone tonight.
He’d not touch her, but she definitely needed to sleep next to him.
No wonder she suffered from nightmares. What woman wouldn’t after watching her husband hanged?
She crawled over him and curled up next to him. Brice pulled the blankets about her and curled his arm around her shoulder, pulling her tightly against him. She buried her head into his side, and before he knew it, she was asleep.
He lay there and watched her, protecting her. Graham had his Tèarmannair, and it seemed Brice had his as well. He bent to the side and kissed the top of her head, drawing in the floral scent of her hair, knowing that what she’d told him tonight was just the prelude. That the worst was to come.
—
The next afternoon Eleanor was in her chambers, preparing to go to the hall and help serve.
No matter what Brice said, she liked helping.
The younger Eleanor would have recoiled at the thought, but the older, wiser Eleanor knew that good, honest work was rewarding.
It helped that she was in a house where the servants were treated well.
She knew that wasn’t the case everywhere.
She’d had a solid night of sleep, waking only when dawn arrived.
Her head pounded slightly from the emotions of the day before and the telling of the story that she’d never shared with anyone.
It felt good that someone else knew her story, or at least part of it.
If anything should happen to her, then Brice would know the truth. That was a relief, in a way.
Brice had fallen asleep propped up against the pillows, as if afraid to lie down and lower his guard.
She’d taken the opportunity to study him.
His mouth was downturned, and she’d wondered if he was in pain, but he refused anything that would relieve his pain because he claimed it muddled his mind.
His beard was growing in thick because he hadn’t had the opportunity to shave in the past two days.
The bristles were a shade lighter than his dark blond hair and flecked with red. His lips were well formed.
Eleanor couldn’t help but remember the wild afternoon they’d spent in this chamber.
She’d never felt so out of control nor so sated in her life.
Making love to Brice had been like riding in a storm-tossed ship and being able to do nothing but hold on for the ride.
It had been exhilarating and frightening at the same time.
Frightening because her emotions had been tossed about as well. This man holding her against him so tightly was perfect. Kind and gentle, fiercely protective of those he cared for. And exasperating enough to shake things up a bit.
Funny that what she thought she wanted in a man was not at all what she really needed in a man.
She had thought that Charles was her perfect companion.
Soft-spoken, elegant, reserved. Everything that Brice was not.
She felt a stab of real regret that she couldn’t make Scotland her home and be with him forever.
She had to move on before Blackwood returned or someone in the household revealed her presence to the English.
Not that Brice had asked her to stay. They’d never once mentioned the future.
He might not even want her in his life permanently.
As she approached the connecting doors to their bedchambers, she heard a rumble of voices from the other side. Knowing that what she was doing was wrong but not able to help herself, she pressed her ear to the thick door but could hear no more than voices.
Guided by the feeling of dread that churned in her stomach, Eleanor opened the door a crack, careful not to make a noise. Suddenly it was very important to hear what they were saying.
“Ye canno’ go tonight. Ye’ll be a detriment to the men.”
That was Colin’s unmistakable voice.
A growling noise erupted, and Eleanor could only deduce that it was Brice’s frustration.
“We do no’ have enough men. Damnation, Colin, ’tis so frustrating. We canno’ let them sit there much longer before they’re discovered by the damn English.”
“I’ll go. Lachlan will go. Samuel can go as well. I have men—”
“Nay.” Brice’s voice was harsh and brokered no argument. “I’ll no’ be pulling more men into this. ’Tis enough that most of my people are involved.”
Colin laughed. “And ye think my men will balk? Hell, Brice, they’re smugglers. Every last one of ’em.”
Colin was a smuggler? How very interesting. Eleanor had heard of the smugglers in England and Scotland and had always been intrigued by the swarthy characters that the papers portrayed. Colin wasn’t swarthy at all. He wasn’t as handsome as Brice, but he could hold his own in a maiden’s mind.
“I’ll no’ put more men in danger,” Brice said.
“What? Better to be hanged a smuggler than a traitor?”
Eleanor pulled back, shocked. Had Colin just called Brice a traitor? That was…well, traitorous. She waited for the ring of steel, certain Brice would confront Colin with such a horrible accusation, but nothing came.
Instead Brice sighed. “ ’Tis all too much. The Staran, now Graham’s mission. We lost too many men, Colin, to keep the country going.”
They both fell silent, and Eleanor’s heart ached for them and the losses they’d encountered. Brice never spoke of his family. She had no idea what had happened to his parents. And were there brothers and sisters? He’d had a wife, and she had died. She felt horrible for not knowing more about him.
“Take most of the guards with ye. They’re not needed here as much. Damn, but I wish I could go,” he said with true regret.
“Ye can barely move without passing out. Ye’ll be no good to us out there.”
Where were they going, and what were they doing in the dark of the night?
“The ship is waiting just off the coast,” Brice was saying. “The people are scattered in various safe houses, but all are close enough that if you get them right after the sun goes down, they can be on that ship before the sun rises and the ship well away from Scotland when daylight comes.”
Eleanor’s eyebrows came together. They were collecting people from safe houses and putting them on a ship that was leaving Scotland.
Good Lord, was Brice smuggling people? Her mind worked furiously, trying to put everything together.
Colin had accused him of treason and Brice had not denied the claim.
He had people hidden in houses and a ship ready to take them away.
He was smuggling his own people out of Scotland, and the only people who needed smuggling were the Jacobites.
Eleanor slowly backed away from the door so as not to be heard.
Her skin tingled with the information she’d just learned.
She had to be right in her assumptions. That was the only answer.
What else could be treasonous, and why else hide people along the coastline and then take them to a ship in the dead of night?
Brice had said something about a staran. Eleanor’s grasp of Gaelic was very rudimentary, but she knew that staran meant “trail.” So these people seeking help walked a trail, found the safe houses, and Brice put them on his ships, which took them somewhere.
She sat down on her bed with a thump, stunned.
No wonder he was always absent at night and spent days away. He was hiding people the English were looking for.
People the English were looking for.
She was a person the English were looking for.
If she were discovered here, it could very well reveal Brice’s staran. And he would be accused of treason. She’d seen what happened to people who were accused of treason, and she was damned if she would let that happen to Brice.
She left her chambers and headed toward the kitchen, her head stuffed full of ideas and plans. She didn’t want to react rashly. She needed a plan. A good plan. Running out into the woods was not a good plan. It had saved her once, but she’d had no other option.
She served, but her mind wasn’t really on her duties. It was while she was cleaning up that it came to her what she needed to do.
She needed to be on that ship that was leaving tonight. It was the only way to protect Brice and his people.