Chapter Three #2
Jamie’s jaw tightened with words he held at bay, but all too soon his hard expression dropped away and was replaced by a pout. “Cook’s food leaves me hungry.”
Ewen shook his head but smiled at his repentant kin.
“Steafan,” he said to another Highlander entering the Main Hall. “What did I tell ye aboot stayin’ oot of Logan’s hair?”
Steafan had carried his cousin out of the dungeon the night they came. He was big and brawny with shoulders wide enough to rest a tree across them. When his dark blue eyes found her, he didn’t bother to look away.
She guessed they all hated her for who her father was. It made her prouder to be a Protestant. She wondered if Steafan had killed any member of her family.
She would find out, one way or another, which of them had done it.
“We werena’ in his hair, Ewen,” the burly Highlander told him. “We were in his practice field.”
Ewen scoffed. “I hope ye learned some new moves fer when I drag yer arse oot there.”
Steafan continued to stare at her. “Why did ye bring her here?”
“Because she now belongs to Logan by King James’ decree.”
“I dinna belong to him,” she argued.
“If King James says ye do,” Steafan said in a gravelly voice, “then ye do.”
She stepped back. There was a wooden bowl somewhere on the table behind her. She felt around for it behind her back and caught Ewen’s warning glare. She thought about flinging the bowl at him instead.
She’d imagined this for too long. The day she got to exact her revenge for never again hearing her father praise her for some silly thing or feel her mother’s comforting arms around her.
Not a day went by in six long years that she didn’t dream of killing these men.
With every slap and degrading shout she suffered, she prayed more and more to find her enemy.
These murderers had come to Dunley Keep for him.
They’d killed everyone in it as revenge. For him.
But she couldn’t be rash in her thinking now that the day had finally come. She would die an instant after she killed one of these men. She wanted more than one, but she left the bowl where it was and ignored them. But soon, Logan of Lochaber arrived.
“There’s food,” he announced with a feigned glare at Jamie.
Without looking directly at her, he headed for the stack of bowls behind her.
She moved just before he reached her. He would have had to lean over her.
She would be too tempted to pick up a knife and stick it in him—or equally tempted to stare into his eyes, face the contempt of a killer, and perhaps see something else in their depths. Something others loved.
She watched him move to the trivet and dip a ladle into the pot.
He held a bowl out to Ewen. He filled a second bowl and held it out to her.
She took it. She would hate herself later for accepting anything from him.
After she tasted the delicious porridge, she worried that refusing what he offered would be difficult.
He filled a third bowl for Steafan, and the last bowl, he gave to a waiting Jamie.
Elspeth noted he did not feed himself. Had he eaten earlier? He’d told them to arrive at sunup, according to Jamie. Why did she care?
She turned her back on him and shoved her spoon into her porridge.
“Ewen, is there nae news of the revolution?”
“More and more people are turning toward the Protestant William of Orange and his wife, Mary, daughter of King James.”
It was visibly apparent what Logan thought of hearing that.
He was a Catholic after all. Of course, he wouldn’t want to hear about a movement to overthrow the throne to make room for a Protestant king.
If the movement grew any larger, King James was going to need every man available to fight.
Did that mean Logan, her father’s once prisoner, would be leaving to fight?
She wasn’t sure how she felt about not being the one to kill him if he died while fighting.
She listened while the men groaned and complimented Logan on his cooking. She didn’t join in. She had to eat. She didn’t have to revel in it.
“I will help ye cook,” she blurted. One second, she was thinking it, and the next—
“I dinna need help,” he replied behind her.
“I am good at chopping and dicing. I have learned many ways of cooking in six years.”
She would admit that when he stared at her with eyes like twin, turbulent seas, she felt as if she might drown.
“I wish to make myself useful, my lord,” she let him know with a bow.
Och, let me serve ye. Let me serve ye. What better way to poison him than with the food he cooked?
She just had to be in the Main Hall to drop her poisons into his stew.
She almost clapped when he gave in and ordered her back in two hours.
“Where am I going now, my lord?”
Ewen’s warning glare almost stopped her, but she kept her smile and her voice sickeningly sweet.
“Please allow me to refresh myself first.”
He waved her away, but instead of moving, she stared at him with her jaw hanging ajar. “Will ye not even glance my way, my lord?”
She sounded neither hurt nor offended.
He stopped what he was doing and turned to look at her. She could tell by the way his eyes kept trying to look away, but couldn’t, that he thought her pleasing to his eyes despite her knotted hair.
Not all men thought the same as him. Thankfully. She was considered plain with her eyes giving color to her pasty, pale skin. She appeared sickly and poor with dull yellow hair tied behind her nape. So different than how she used to look.
But Logan the Catholic reacted as if he found her bonnie.
She looked away, and then he did too.
“Jamie, show Miss Woodburn to a room.”
“I will do it, Logan,” Ewen stepped up and stood beside her.
“Jamie will do it,” Logan corrected and silenced any further argument.
Ewen stepped aside, making way for Jamie.
“Does she tempt ye to protect her?” Logan asked his cousin.
“Tempt me?” Ewen chuckled. “If I feel pity fer her fer havin’ to endure a servant’s life after knowin’ only comfort as Lord Dunley’s daughter, then aye, I’m guilty.”
“Yer mercy fer her could get us all killed.”
Elspeth sucked in a breath. “Pardon me? I’m standing right here!”
Logan looked at her. “Am I wrong to think ye would kill us all first chance ye got?”
“Nae,” she said after some hesitation. “Ye are not wrong.”
“My clan brought catastrophe to yers,” he said with a gentle thread lacing his voice.
Or mayhap she just imagined it was gentle.
“I understand why ye hate us,” he went on.
“My reasons may be more private, more subtle, but they exist and they remind me of what I feel every time I try to lift a sword. If ’twere up to me, I would do away with every Covenanter I came across, just as was done to us. ”
Elspeth’s gaze dipped briefly to his arms, hanging at his sides. What did he mean by he tried to lift his sword? Ewen had mentioned his cousin suffering a great loss. She had thought he meant a loss of his loved ones. But could he have been speaking of Cameron’s arm? Mayhap, his fighting arm?
She blinked and raised her gaze to his again. If she was correct, she was glad he could no longer kill.
But though he just threatened innocent people, his eyes belied the hard warning with something soft and warm.
She had heard of the times Catholic Royalists were hunted and killed like game.
After trying to discover why her father had taken a Cameron as his prisoner, she came up empty-handed.
She could find no crime the prisoner had committed.
Nothing, save that he was a Catholic. But she refused to believe her kind father would bring a man to the brink of death just because of his political and religious beliefs.
“Yer kin murdered my family,” she said, holding tight to her convictions to hate him and his kin. “I dinna care if ’twas to save ye. My kin should not have died fer ye.”
“They died,” Steafan interjected angrily, “because yer father held Logan captive and tortured him. He likely wanted information on Logan’s father so he could attack and kill more Royalists.”
Was that true? Her belly flipped and made her feel ill. Was her father involved in the Royalist/Covenanter war? Nae! He couldn’t have been. She wouldn’t listen to these deceivers!
Feeling her insides burn with unquenchable flames, she turned her glare on Logan Cameron.
“What did ye do to incite my father’s wrath?
” She smirked as if she knew his secrets.
“Tell yer murdering kin the truth. My father didna take ye prisoner fer believing differently than him. What is the true reason?”
He stared at her long enough to make her steady herself firmly on her two feet. She mustered her strength against his potent gaze. “What did ye try to steal from him?’
His jaw danced as he grinded his teeth, then. “A glimpse of his daughter.”
The Main Hall went silent.
“Pardon me?” Elspeth finally managed. It took her an eternally long moment to realize what he said. Her father had him stabbed and beaten for seeing her somewhere and looking at her? It was even more absurd than her father capturing him for being a Royalist.
“Logan,” Jamie interrupted. “What are ye sayin?”
Logan had never told his kin about Woodburn’s daughter or what he was doing alone when Woodburn’s men had come upon him. He’d felt ashamed that he’d been so distracted by a lass to have gotten caught. He was sorry. Sorry to think she had been killed with her kin.
He exhaled a long breath. “I had come upon her, without her knowin’ and watched her fer a wee bit. I returned the next day to see her again—”
Elspeth was almost too stunned to think straight, but she heard Ewen curse under his breath.
“’Twas where Woodburn’s men found me,” he continued without making eye contact with any of them.
“He did all to ye fer admirin’ her?” Jamie asked to clarify.
“He likely believed ye would kidnap her,” Steafan offered to Logan.
“Why did ye no’ tell us?” Ewen put to him with an angry scowl.
“I was ashamed to have been caught fer such weakness.”
Looking at her was a weakness? Elspeth glared at him.
“I’m no’ usually a fool fer such things—”
Elspeth’s glare on him grew darker.
“Since my punishment was so great,” he said, shifting his gaze to her, “I have taken a vow to never be such a fool again.”