Chapter Four
Logan took the empty bowl from her hands and asked Jamie to show her to her rooms. He didn’t want to be tempted to look at her anymore.
Not even if she was standing right in front of him.
He wanted Ewen to take her away, but he didn’t tell him again to do it.
He knew Ewen would obey him as if Logan were already the Lochiel.
He remembered her threats to kill him. Since she was his enemy, he should stay close to her and keep his eyes on her. Should he not?
When Jamie took her to her room, Ewen continued to stare at him.
“Ye lost the use of yer arm because of her.”
“Aye,” Logan answered, also hating that fact.
“I’m sorry I brought her here.”
Logan offered his cousin a smile. “She hasna killed me yet.”
“Och, Logan.” Ewen scowled at him. “Dinna jest aboot such a thing. I wouldna have brought her to ye without restraints if I knew how passionate she was aboot endin’ yer life.”
“Does she think I had a hand in killin’ her kin?”
Ewen stared at him for a moment then shook his head. “She made mention of hatin’ Camerons, nothin’ more. Fear no’, now that I know, I’ll be quick to remove her from yer sight.”
Logan shook his head and smiled, though it was less vibrant than before. “I’m no’ afraid. Stay and rest a few days before ye take her away.”
“Logan?” Steafan said when both men finished speaking.
“Hmm?”
“What aboot now?”
Logan turned to him with a questioning look.
Steafan swallowed slightly and clarified. “If ye hadna suffered because of her, would ye still be tempted to admire her?”
Logan thought about it; about the fire blazing out of control in her eyes.
Power fueled by hatred. He understood it.
He felt it too. But what he felt was hatred toward a broader audience.
Presbyterian Covenanters. He didn’t even know she lived until a short time ago.
She hated him in particular. How did she know him?
It dawned on him that she sounded as if she hated him above all else. Why? Did she know him somehow?
“Aye, I might be tempted to admire her, Steafan,” he admitted.
Tempted to stare at the delicacy of her smile while she reached her hand out to a rabbit.
But all traces of the gentle smile were gone.
In their place anger, hatred, and pain molded her features.
Aye, she hated him because, if not for his admiring eye, he would not have been captured, and her kin, killed by his.
He would be enjoying full use of his arm.
He looked down at it and then flicked his gaze away. He was too late in stopping the slight sound of a growl rising from his throat.
“But I was a fool once and the cost of it was too high.”
He should feel no pity for her. Her father’s political beliefs dictated the deaths of Catholic Royalists. Had it been what the kirk demanded? And if so, why should any Royalist side with the church over the king?
The violence, both political and religious, had become so horrific that King James had finally issued the Declaration of Indulgence this past spring. The Declaration suspended penal laws, which had previously removed all power from Protestants who did not conform to the Church of England.
It made the times more peaceful, but most Catholics weren’t sure it was best for the king and their religion.
Logan exhaled a long breath. These were some of the concerns of his kin, concerns of his. He didn’t need to consider William Woodburn’s daughter any more than he had already.
“I’m goin’ fer a ride,” he said, turning to leave the Main Hall.
“I’ll come along,” Steafan offered quickly and caught up to him.
“I want to go alone,” Logan told him. He sensed Ewen’s movement behind him, likely to stop Steafan from following. He would thank his cousin later.
He stepped out of his house for the second time that day and looked around before he strolled to the gated enclosure where his and his cousin’s horses grazed on the summer grass.
The Camerons, staunch supporters of the Catholic King James, had many enemies. He had also been given some information about a rebellion rising from William of Orange, the king’s Protestant son-in-law.
He was planning on riding to Tor Castle today to inform his father, the current Lochiel—or chief of the Camerons of Lochaber. He also wanted to tell his father that he would fight—whether or not the Lochiel approved.
But first, he needed to get his arm stronger.
After scanning his land and finding it free of enemies, he mounted his saddleless horse.
Wrapping his fingers around the horse’s mane, he rode out of the pen.
He raced across the vast glen and circled it once, twice, three times more.
All the while, he held the reins in his right hand—or he released the reins altogether so that he could hold his left arm out against the force of wind that fought him.
Twice, he dropped his right arm and his left held firm, parallel with his shoulder, a feat that had taken him over a year to master. Now the goal was to keep it up longer.
He practiced using his arm for the next three hours, lifting it against the wind, holding his dirk—of which the strength of will it took to achieve brought moisture to his eyes.
After practicing with his left arm, he practiced for another two hours with his right.
Without slowing his horse’s gait, he twirled the hilt of his sword around in the air and then brought it down with bone-crushing power.
He removed the heads of his enemies, sliced their bellies down the middle as they came upon him on their imaginary horses.
He ‘fought’ with six years of learning grace in lethal movement, speed, and brute force.
His cousins had followed him because he brought them home from every fight.
If he was to be the Lochiel of Lochaber after his father, he would practice every day of his life to be worthy of taking his father’s place.
But how could he protect his people if he couldn’t fight? So, his days became devoted to getting stronger, and to one day soon be drafted in again to the king’s army.
He sure as hell would not allow a lass to disrupt his life…or his practice.
Miss Woodburn put her spell—or her curse on him, since he lost six years of his life.
He would gain it all back and protect the king against her kind.
And then he would never think of her again.
*
Elspeth sat down on her bed to test the plumpness of the feather mattress.
It was heavenly. Was Logan Cameron truly giving her this bed to sleep in?
This bedroom with a small table and two carved chairs before a cold hearth?
It was temporary, she reminded herself. He wanted her to leave. And that’s what she wanted too.
But the bed was nice.
“Do ye want a fire, Miss?” Jamie asked her. For a moment, she thought about what a shame it was going to be to kill him. He was handsome, in a boyish, angelic sort of way. He seemed to be examining her as closely as she examined him.
“Nae, ’tis warm enough,” she replied.
He raised his eyes to hers for the space of five breaths and then, “Did ye know he was watchin’ ye? Was it ye who reported him to yer father?”
“Nae, I didna know.”
“Then—” he looked at his shoes and wrung his hands together in front of him, appearing suddenly uncomfortable. “How do ye know him? ’Tis clear ye have seen or even met him before. He has admitted to how he knew ye when ye rode into the glen with Ewen, but I dinna understand how ye know him.”
Elspeth stared at him and blinked. He looked innocent, but he was clever. She had nothing to hide, save for her shame that she had helped him in her father’s dungeon, only to have his kin kill her family.
Ewen hadn’t told the others that he’d known she was there that fateful night, hiding in the shadows after bandaging their leader up. She decided not to tell them either. “Ewen told me of him while he brought me here. He described him well.”
At this, Jamie smiled, but something about it was the smallest bit askew, as if he saw right through her.
She was tempted to hug herself against the cold.
“Aye, Ewen does enjoy speakin’ of Logan.”
She nodded then turned away. A moment later she heard his footsteps as he left the room.
She closed her eyes against the sun beaming in through the two deep set, narrow windows in the room. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be under such light and warmth. She did. It was the first time in six years that she let herself remember her home, her life before that terrible day.
She had been Miss Woodburn then. Young Miss Woodburn, the baron’s pride and joy despite all the worry she caused him by constantly running off to help someone in the village.
It wasn’t her fault that so many suffered this illness or that, a skinned knee, a broken arm, birth.
The list went on. Her father had told her that her compassionate heart would get her into trouble.
He was correct. It got him and her family killed. She swiped a tear from her cheek.
Cameron had been beaten almost to death for watching her unseen. Had he had dangerous intentions? It didn’t matter. Her father’s men had caught him.
But now, she was in his hands. Was she safe? Would she be safe tonight?
She reached into the pockets sewn into her skirts. There were four of them, and they each contained a blend of poison herbs and roots. She had to stay here long enough to have them trust her to let her prepare their supper. A little pinch of the blend over a fortnight was all it took to kill them.
She looked up at one of the windows. What was out there? Another view of a possible escape route? She left the bed and dragged a chair beneath the window and climbed upon it.
She squinted out at the sun to the west, just visible beside the much closer, much larger Ben Nevis that, if the house had been built just a few inches to the left, would have blocked the sun.
As it was, the view was glorious, open and free. She almost wished she could live here after they were all dead.