Chapter One #2
Elspeth watched from the shadows as they gently laid hands on the prisoner. Her heart thumped madly in her ears as the first man took note of the strip of her skirt holding her poultice close to his wound.
Seemingly forgetting the evidence of her hidden presence, he spoke quietly to the others and then watched as they lifted him in their arms.
“Damn it, Logan,” said the second man with the pistol, “how could ye get caught?”
“Thank the Good Lord we found ye,” another Highlander said. He was brutish and bulky with dark hair and beard and carried his friend under his arm without help from anyone else. “Though, ye know we would have burned every Presbyterian village to the ground to find ye.”
Elspeth nearly went down in a faint. The village…her home.
“Aye,” the first man agreed, and returned his attention to the bloody rag and basin of water, the chains and post dangling from the high wall.
Watching from the shadows, Elspeth was certain her heart was about to burst out of her chest.
“And fer takin’ care of our enemies withoot us havin’ to lift our swords,” said the one with the pistol.
Horribly, it was she who they should thank for that. She closed her eyes, trying to stop herself from being ill. She’d put the guards to sleep. The village was without protection because of her! Her family—!
She almost rushed out. It took every ounce of strength she possessed to wait until the men left the dungeon with their friend.
The instant they were gone, she raced to the stairs. She didn’t make it far when something smashed into the back of her head and sent her sprawling onto the hard ground.
Above her, a man’s laughter echoed through her ears just before the world went black.
*
She woke sometime later and sat up. Her head pounded. Who had struck her? She had run out too soon and one of the cursed Highlanders hit her.
She sniffed the air, once, twice…Was that smoke?
She cried out. Their enemies had truly come; they had come and set her home on fire; the ones her father had always protected her from.
They were the reason he didna let her wed.
Any man could use her to get to him. But he never mentioned who the enemies were and they had never appeared, making his warnings after so many years of peace, less believable.
But here they were. They had finally come, and she had put Dunley’s protection to sleep while their enemies lit the keep and the village on fire. Nae! How would she ever live with it?
She sprinted up the stairs with her face shoved into the crook of her elbow to keep smoke out of her nose. She burst into her parents’ chamber. It was empty. Her brothers’ as well.
She raced outside and then ducked behind one of the sheds. Her eyes saw the things of her nightmares. Her younger brother, Padrig, lying in the dirt.
Elspeth’s heart stopped. Padrig. Nae. She felt faint and began to sob, not caring what would happen to her if she was found.
For a moment, Elspeth thought about going after them, finding out who the men were and avenging her brother.
But she had to find her parents and her older brother, Roderick.
While the keep burned behind her, she searched amid the embers until she came to the bodies of her parents.
She fell to her knees and held them both to her chest, for they died close to each other, as if her father had known they would die at that moment.
Her brother Roderick’s body was close to theirs.
Nae! Nae! It was her fault! All that Highlander’s fault.
He must have done something terrible indeed to make her father capture him and treat him so poorly.
She should never have tried to help him.
If he hadn’t been here, his barbaric friends would not have come to find him.
She screamed out in anguish and swore to avenge what their enemies had done—what she had done.
Whoever the prisoner’s clansmen were, she would find out and kill them. She would kill them all, even if it cost her her life. She would begin with him. Logan.
While she clutched her parents to her chest, she realized that she was completely alone. What would she do? Where would she go? Who would protect her, feed her, clothe her?
She heard the sound of someone walking, coming near. She spun around and came face to face with another man she had never seen before. Who would help her? Who would save her?
She looked around. Screaming would do no good. She was alone.
When he reached her, the man swung his fist into her jaw.
She fell over with a single thought. Death. Death to them, whoever they were. No compassion, no mercy. Not ever.
*
Summer, Six years later…
The kitchen floor seemed to be taking hours to get all the greasy grime off.
“Hurry up, gel.” Someone kicked her softly in the arm. “The lord wants ye to concoct something to help him shyte.”
The scullery maid wiped her forehead with her aching arm. “Do ye not know my name by now, Beatrice?”
“Of course I know it, Elspeth Woodburn. But why form any attachments in this place? Ye have been here long enough to know ’tis a useless endeavor. We are not our own.”
“I am my own,” Elspeth whispered for no one’s ears but her own.
“Still,” she said louder to Beatrice, while she scratched the mats in her knotted hair, “even if I die young here, I will still always regret not being friends with ye.”
She turned to step away to prepare her master’s tonic. Beatrice’s voice stopped her.
“Verra well. I’ll call ye Elspeth from now on.”
Elspeth smiled and looked up to see her master with another man standing beside him. Her smile faded. Would her master strike her for being in his way?
“Fergive me, my lord,” she said, softening her voice.
The stranger was watching her. She had never seen him before—or…had she? Her belly flipped and then dropped, making her feel instantly ill. He was the first man to the dungeon six years ago. The one with the auburn hair who had killed Gilchrist. The night she lost everything.
Over the years of her servitude, she had asked about the killings at Dunley. Most people told her the same thing. It was said the Royalist Cameron clan was responsible.
She scowled her darkest scowl at the one before her now. She wished she had a dirk. She would use it—
“Aye, she is a Woodburn,” Gilchrist’s murderer said. “How did she come to be here?”
Her master stepped forth and reached over his shoulder to let a slap fly. “Get that glare off yer face, wench!”
She closed her eyes to prepare for the strike, but it didn’t come. She looked up to the Highlander holding her master’s wrist above her.
“Dinna lay a hand on Logan Cameron’s servant or ’twill cost ye yer head.
” His growl was menacing enough, but his warm gaze on her said much.
He knew she had been hiding in the dungeon that night.
The sole survivor, and witness to all the crimes the Camerons had committed.
It didn’t matter if he hadn’t seen her face, he’d heard her.
He had seen her rags and the dressing on his friend.
Would he kill her? Or—try to? She’d kill him first. Him and his master, Logan Cameron. Logan.
“Why does Cameron want her anyway?” her master asked. “She is nothin’ but trouble. She has a rebellious nature—”
“Dunley Keep fell to him,” the Highlander explained. “He has been given title of it and ownership of whatever can be salvaged. She is the only thing I have yet to find.”
So, this Logan Cameron owned her? Her blood boiled. For the past six years she’d been carted off to eight different masters. Each one, worse than the other. Now, och but now, she was to be handed off to the man responsible for her family’s death!
Good! Truly, it was a blessing in disguise. Now she would be brought to him. Now she could begin killing Camerons. Finally.
“Ye’re comin’ with me, lass,” the red-haired devil said. “Gather yer things.”
She wasn’t given much time to pack her belongings. In truth, she didn’t have much. She headed out, following the Highlander on foot, while he rode his gray horse. None of the other servants bid her farewell, either jealous that she was getting out of there, or indifferent one way or the other.
She didn’t shed a tear for anyone. It was the way they all wanted it. None of the servants dared get attached to another servant. It was too difficult to lose everyone, and then to lose a friend, too.
But just before she stepped out the front gate, she heard her name being called. She looked to see Beatrice stepping out from the small crowd.
“Farewell, Elspeth! Godspeed to ye!”
Elspeth smiled and waved to her. The Highlander kept his horse at a slow trot in front of her.
He looked down at her and smiled. She didn’t smile back.
He killed Gilchrist. Gilchrist was her friend.
She wanted to curse him to his face, but surviving these many years had made her appreciate life too much to throw it away by insulting a murderer.
Let it wait until she had an opportunity to kill him.
“I am called Ewen,” he told her. “Ewen MacDonald. I am—”
“I thought ye were in the Cameron clan,” she interrupted.
“The Camerons are my kin. I am as good as one.”
She narrowed her eyes on him and smiled slightly. “Ye dinna say.”
“Ye were there in the dungeon that day,” he admitted.
“Aye, and I saw ye murder Gilchrist.”
He frowned, clearly not even remembering the man whose life he had robbed.
“The sleepin’ guard,” he finally said, proving her wrong. “What did ye give them all to sleep, lass?”
He knew! He brought it all back. Tears welled up in her eyes, but she bit her tongue to keep them from falling.
“What was his crime?” she asked instead. “Yer friend, Logan Cameron. What did he do to end up in my father’s dungeon?”
“If I tell ye, will ye regret tryin’ to save him?”
“I already regret it,” she let him know.
He laughed softly. “’Tis why I am here today, lass. I suspected ye survived that night and I set oot to find ye. I owed it to ye fer savin’ him. He didna get an infection thanks to yer cleanin’.”
“Nonsense, the wound had been dirty all day. If he didna get an infection ’tis because he…”
… “Aye, his constitution is strong, lass. ’Tis the strongest I know. He has never given up.”
What did she care? “Are ye going to tell me his crime?”
“I canna tell ye his crime. Fer that, ye would have to ask him. I will say that word reached us that Logan had been captured and was put to death. We searched frantically, even just fer his body, until we found him.”
“And killed—my family.”
There. She had wanted to say it, but she wasn’t sure she could without breaking apart. But she didn’t break. “Ye killed my father and mother. My brothers.”
“We set the keep aflame. They should have woken up and gotten oot.” He stared at her with accusing eyes. Nae, it was too much to consider. Was she directly responsible for killing her family by making them sleep?
“Do ye think I believe ye?” She wanted to cry. To scream! “Ye killed them, MacDonald. I willna let it go.”
He laughed for a moment and then grew serious when he realized that she was.
“Will ye try to kill me?” he asked, reminding Elspeth of a snake hissing at her.
“Nae,” she let him know.
He nodded and turned back to the road.
“I willna try,” she muttered. She would succeed.