Chapter Ten #2
When she gave his suggestion a stunned look, his smile grew. The sight of her made him feel dizzy, overcome with unsteadiness and—
“Are ye ill, Mr. Cameron?”
“Aye,” he answered, taking an unsteady step forward. “I think…did ye…poison…?”
Nae! He felt himself going down. As a soldier, he knew there was nothing worse than falling before the enemy. Would she cut off his head? Slice open his throat? He had a dozen…nae, a hundred things he wanted to say to her. Things like he never meant for any of this to happen. He was sorry.
As he toppled forward, he saw her hold out her arms to him. She’d never be able to—
They both went down. Her body beneath his broke his fall.
He tried to lift his head to make certain she was still breathing.
He couldn’t move. Even his thoughts were fading fast. How could she do it?
When had she done it? The last thought he had before darkness overtook him was that he wasn’t angry with the wildcat for doing what wildcats did.
He was angry with himself for trusting her.
Over the course of a long night, he approached the edge of wakefulness a half dozen times. And each time, he imagined he saw Miss Woodburn crouching over him. He dreamed that she didn’t appear happy about his condition but concerned over it.
Why was his room so cold? The ground was hard and cold when he fell. Nae. He had fallen on her body. She was soft. Soft and warm. Like his bed. Were those…stars over his head?
Thankfully, he sank deeper again—away from the years of learning how to live with a useless arm, away from the beauty who tempted him to madness for the second time.
Was he dead? he thought, coming closer to the edge of reason a little later. He must be dead. How else would he be able to purge the contents of his belly so violently that it made him pass out again? Until he woke up a little more, sometime later when he was being dragged by the ankles.
“Fool.” He heard her voice over his head—out of breath while she pulled him. “Ye would think ye knew the difference between poison—”
Poison? She was talking about poison. What did she say? Was he dreaming? He tried to hold on as the sun ascended over the hills. He failed and fell asleep from the poison for the last time.
He came awake the next morning as he was being hefted over the shoulder of Steafan, with Ewen and Jamie close behind.
He remembered another time when his cousins carried him away from a place…
the dungeon of Dunley Keep. Was he back there?
Where was Miss Woodburn that night? His cousins never stopped to kill her family.
They did not stop until they got him home to his family and the physicians at Tor Castle.
If they would have paused to kill anyone, he would have died.
He grew confused now when they reached his house and brought him inside. “Where…?”
“We havena seen her, Logan,” Steafan let him know.
“Put me doun,” Logan demanded. He cast his burly cousin a black look when he was dumped on his bed. “I meant where was I? But I see ye have brought me to my room. My new question is, where have I been?”
“In the glen,” Jamie told him. “Just inside the tree line. We found ye after returnin’ to the house this mornin’. Ye were covered in yer blankets, unresponsive until Steafan lifted ye up.”
“I was alone?” he asked hollowly. Then, her concern was, in fact, a dream.
“When we found ye, ye were, but someone had tried to keep ye warm.”
Why would she after poisoning him? She had told him she had, hadn’t she?
“What happened to ye, Logan?” Ewen asked him. “Did the lass poison ye?”
Logan began to nod his head—but why hadn’t she let him die then? “Why would she stay with me and keep me warm enough to live?”
“Mayhap she changed her mind,” Jamie reasoned, then glanced at the other two. “I told ye both she fancied Logan.”
“She hates me, Jamie,” Logan corrected him. “Truly. She believes she must fer her kin’s sake.”
“Many of us believe the same way, Logan,” Ewen reminded him.
“Aye.” Logan didn’t need reminding. He knew most Highlanders believed in avenging one’s kin. But she did not even give him a chance to be forgiven. She tried to kill him twice in one day!
He closed his eyes and covered his forehead with his hand. His left hand.
At first, no one noticed. Not even Logan. Then Jamie pointed to him.
“Logan, yer arm is truly healin’.”
Logan opened his eyes and looked at his hand. He hadn’t even thought of lifting his arm. He did it instinctually.
“I dinna believe Miss Woodburn poisoned me,” he told them.
“Ye dinna want to believe it, cousin,” Steafan told him.
Aye, Steafan was correct. Logan wouldn’t argue with him.
“What do we do aboot her?” Jamie asked him.
“We dinna have to do anything,” Steafan insisted. “She will want to make sure he’s dead and will return to check. We will catch her then.”
“And do what with her?” Jamie asked him.
“Bring her to Tor. To Lochiel.”
“Nae,” Logan told them all. “No’ until we know fer certain she is guilty.”
“What else but poison could have set ye on yer arse in the middle of the glen, Logan?”
They all knew Steafan’s question was a valid one. What else but poison indeed?
“What are ye all doin’ here again?” Logan asked them, veering off the topic, glad that they hadn’t listened to him and had returned.
“We told ye we werena going to leave ye here alone with her,” Steafan reminded him. “Until ye return with us, we will keep on returning day after day.”
“Ye enjoy tormentin’ me,” Logan playfully accused them.
They laughed with him, glad he was awake, all deeply grateful to anyone who had kept him that way.
They stayed into the evening, refusing to leave his side, even after he rose out of bed. He put his boots on and looked outside the window. There were shadows cast inside the vale, and a mist rolled down the mountain like a lavender blanket in the distance.
Where was she? She wouldn’t stay out in the darkness alone.
“Logan?” It was Ewen.
When Logan turned toward him, he saw the others with Ewen.
“I…” How did he tell them that he worried about her? After what happened, he’d look like a fool. He dropped his chin to his chest and headed for the door. “I dinna think she is all right.”
“Logan! Come inside. Ye just regained yer strength,” Steafan admonished.
Ewen stepped forward, holding up his palms. “Cousin, we will go search fer her. Ye stay here and rest.”
“Ewen,” Logan took hold of his cousin’s shoulders.
“It was she who kept me warm. The memories are returnin’ to me.
She couldna pull me back because I was too heavy, so she left me where I fell.
Save fer when she moved me away from…I expelled the contents of my belly, and she dragged me away from that.
” He smiled a little, thinking about it. But she didna leave me.”
“But what made ye sick?” Steafan demanded.
“I dinna know that yet,” Logan admitted.
“And where is she now?” Ewen wanted to know.
Logan also wanted to know.
“We will find her,” Jamie pushed Logan back inside. ‘We will find her and keep her safe, just as she kept ye.”
Logan nodded. There was no use arguing with them, so he thanked Jamie and then watched them ride off.
He waited as long as he could stand it, then took off for his horse and set out to look for her alone. He felt as good as new—thanks to her. He was sure of it.
Fool. Ye would think ye knew the difference between poison mushrooms and harmless ones.
The mushrooms he’d picked? Damnation! This was his fault.
He shook his head at himself as it began to rain.
He stopped and tried to think. She wasn’t lost. She could see the house from any vantage point.
She wasn’t choosing not to go to him because she was afraid of his cousins.
He would let no harm come to her, and she was well aware of it.
She was too afraid of being alone to be afraid of anything else.
She likely had not made it out of the glen alone…
He gave his reins a hard flick and raced toward the nearest village.
Someone had taken her. They were going to wish they hadn’t.
Kidnapping women to sell as slaves was forbidden throughout Lochaber.
Thanks to Logan’s father, Constantine Cameron, driving out slave drivers, this region saw the end of the traders.
That is, if they did not want to meet the Lochiel of Lochaber.
Someone had taken her. What would they do to her? Where had they taken her? Was he going the right way? Would he ever see her again?
He wanted to shout her name against the pelting rain. She hadn’t poisoned him. He’d poisoned himself. She was correct to call him a fool.
“Elspeth!”
He didn’t think she would answer. He wasn’t surprised when she didn’t.
He drove his horse until he reached the village nearest Ben Nevis. No one stirred in the rain, but he went directly to the tavern.
He stepped inside and dripped water onto the floor. He raked his gaze over the few men sitting around drinking in the dim firelight.
“I’m lookin’ fer a woman.”
“Ain’t we all?” mumbled one man almost face down on his table.
“She has nae hair on her head,” Logan provided, then corrected himself. “Well, verra little.”
“What has she done that her hair is shorn?” asked a patron who squinted at him. He would provide no help, Logan thought in frustration.
“What do ye want her fer?” another man put to him, eyes narrowed, lips turned upward, exposing missing teeth.
“I need her to keep me from returnin’ here with my Cameron and MacDonald kinsmen to slaughter everyone ye know.”
The warning in his voice was unmistakable. The truth of his words chilled the accompanying silence.
“I saw a gel like that,” one of the patrons called out in a shaky voice. “Thought she was a ghost.”
Ghost, angel, faerie, it mattered not. It was her. “Where?”
The terrified man aimed his wide eyes toward the door. “Last I saw, she and her companions were headed north on Knight’s Road.”
“Companions?” Logan demanded.
“Aye. Two of them. A man and a lass. The man came later.”
“Come with me,” Logan warned him. “If ye are deceivin’ me, ye will die on that road.”
He took hold of the patron’s collar and pulled him outside.
Hold on, Miss Woodburn. I’m comin’.