Chapter Eighteen
“Ellie’s turn!”
Elspeth felt her brother’s palm smack her in the back of her head. His laughter followed him as he ran off.
“Roddy, I am telling Papa ye struck me!” she cried out, then rubbed her sore head.
“Never fear, fair lady!” her younger brother, Padrig sang out as he appeared from behind her. “I shall defeat the dragon on yer behalf.”
She smiled and curtsied, going along with his game of knights and chivalry.
Twelve-year-old Padrig was nothing at all like sixteen-year-old Roddy.
Roddy was constantly getting into trouble, like when he raided the henhouses in the neighboring villages, or his latest infiltration of at least fourteen daughters of Dunley.
He was responsible for every gray hair on her poor father’s head, and the more their father punished him, the more Roddy seemed to enjoy upsetting him.
She smiled at Padrig as he raced past her and headed home.
She squinted up at the sun. It was a beautiful day. She thought she might take a walk and look for some herbs. Mother always said her wee Elspeth knew more about medicines than the royal physician.
When she returned to the keep later on that day, it didn’t take long to see that something was terribly wrong.
“There ye are!” her mother exclaimed, rushing to her. “Come quickly and tell yer father that Roderick doesna beat ye!”
“What—?” She had no time left to ask any more questions before she was dragged to her father’s private study.
Rushing inside, she was utterly relieved that her father was there alone.
“Papa,” she hurried into his waiting arms. “What is this about?”
His gaze was filled with affection for her, but there was also a cool detachment that threatened to escalate to violence, especially when her eldest brother was involved.
“I was told that Roderick strikes ye.”
“What? Nae!” she defended. “That is not true! What did ye do to him, Papa? Tell me.”
“Elspeth, are ye looking me in the eyes and telling me Roderick doesna strike ye?”
Och, but his sea-colored eyes could be so cold. She had to protect Roderick.
“Aye, Father, he does not.” She hated herself for lying. But Roddy was always at the end of her father’s whip.
“Where is he, Papa?”
“He is in his chambers,” her father answered tightly. “There is no reason to see him.”
When he took a step forward, she tried to block his path. “Papa, what did ye do to him?”
Instead of waiting for him to answer, she stepped around him and raced above stairs.
When she reached her brother’s door, she didn’t hesitate and pushed it open.
Her gaze raced over the sitting room. Empty. A sound, faint enough to almost miss it, settled across her ears. She ran for his bedroom and found him in his bed, unattended. His face was swollen and lumpy. One eye was swollen shut.
“Roderick!” she screamed and ran to him. When he whispered, she inclined her ear to him.
“Ye… ye told him, Ellie. …Look what ye did.”
“I didna tell him anything,” she swore.
“Elspeth,” her father scolded, “Come away from there now.”
“Father, do ye know what yer firstborn has done?” she asked, then continued without waiting for an answer.
“He has endured beatings on my behalf in one way or another and has never been cruel to me because of it. He doesna treat me like something delicate, because an enemy wouldna. He has promised to teach me to protect myself instead of wasting my days away learning how to sew pretty flowers on kerchiefs. I insist ye quit believing every rumor creeping through the walls.”
“Well then, my precious Elspeth. I must punish ye, as I would punish him.”
She swallowed. What had she done?
“Bring her to the cleanest cell. Tell Gilchrist to give her twenty lashes.”
Roddy tried to sit up and failed.
Elspeth would not plead or beg. If her father thought doing this was best for her, she would not argue. Besides, Gilchrist would never hurt her.
She went. Her brother’s low growls and outbursts of emotions broke through her shield and she almost collapsed backward.
She didn’t but stubbornly marched toward the stairs.
Her father appeared at her side. “My Elspeth, ye know I would never have ye flogged. Tell me ye werena afraid of me.”
“Ye are imposing, Father.”
He smiled, liking the compliment. “Go to yer chambers, daughter. I will fix all this.”
He kept his word. When she returned to her brother’s side later, he finally opened his eye long enough to smile when he saw her.
“Ellie, when did ye get so brave?”
After that, they hardly argued. He kept his word and taught her archery and how to fight at close range, the way she might fight a man who grabbed her.
But Elspeth’s heart was not in her practice.
Her greatest desire was to help others, so he taught her how to help a person heal with physical tasks.
He also brought her to the village healer, who taught her everything he knew about herbs, roots, and leaves.
Her father never stopped her endeavors. She was his favorite and he gave in to her every request—which was always for someone else’s gain and not her own.
Her brother loved her kind heart, and though he was sometimes rough in his speech when teaching her something, he had never been crass or deliberately hurtful.
Elspeth opened her eyes, remembering the Roddy before the tragedy, the Roddy who knew how to fashion a shelter in the middle of nowhere. He’d been making them since the age of six.
She looked up at the branches tied together to create a roof and then felt the leaves and other bound branches below her. He’d laid four large rocks beneath the makeshift bed to keep it higher off the ground to protect them from slithering things. She was grateful for it.
She smelled meat roasting and sat up. Her brother was busy tending to a hare on the spit.
Belly rumbling, Elspeth left the shelter and went to sit beside him.
“I dreamed of ye,” she told him, watching him.
“Then why are ye smiling?”
“Och, Roddy, why would I not smile? We were close.”
He didn’t say anything about it. It made her feel uneasy.
“Ellie,” he finally said, “Ye still havena thanked me.”
There were many things to thank him for. Even when she told him she wanted to help their father’s prisoner, ’twas him who directed her how to do it.
Little sister, ye will need to put the guards to sleep…
She felt beads of sweat clinging to her temples. What terrible thoughts were forming in her head. “Thanked ye fer…?”
His expression darkened into a scowl. For the passing of a breath, he looked as if he could kill her.
“Fer saving ye from our enemy,” he practically spit out. “Did I not save ye, Elspeth?”
She felt as if saying the wrong thing could be disastrous. “Of course, ye came fer me, even after six years. Thank ye, Brother.”
He smiled, mollified.
“But the Camerons were no danger to me.”
“What did ye say?”
“The Camerons didna’ treat me poorly. Roddy, I would have ye know the truth before ye pass yer judgement.”
He looked too stunned to speak—but it didn’t last long before his expression changed yet again. “The truth?” he asked, aiming his darkest smile on her. “Fine. I will go first.”
Why did it feel as if her world was about to change?
“The night our parents and Padrig were killed, I was behind it all.”
Elspeth didn’t move. She couldn’t. Did she just hear him right? What? Nae! What was he saying? She brought her hands to her belly and twisted them together. He must have meant that he felt guilt over their deaths.
“Poor Roddy,” she cooed as a mother would. “’Tis not yer fault.”
He laughed, stilling Elspeth’s breath in her nose. “Tell me, are ye always so moved by a man’s smile?”
“Only certain men,” she let him know coolly. She didn’t like this game he was playing. It was not amusing.
“The rogue “prince” of Lochaber?” he ventured.
She blushed and looked away.
“Yer eyes speak fer ye, Ellie,” he drawled, then let out an exhausted sigh. “Nae matter, I will remedy that just as I remedied the other obstacles in my life.”
“What is that supposed to mean, Roderick?” she demanded. What would she do if he hurt or even killed Logan? “The Camerons will—”
“Ellie,” he interrupted, “ye were wrong to say all that happened that night wasna my fault. It was. I hated being their son. ’Twas hell fer me. I often dreamed of a life free of his rule.”
“That doesna make ye a murderer.”
“Mayhap not,” he said, allowing his smile to deepen, “but planning their execution and then carrying it out does.”
Elspeth’s gaze was blurred with tears on the verge of falling. What in blazes was he saying? He planned their execution and then carried it out?
“Roddy, I would suggest not speaking like ye actually killed them.”
There was no humor in his smile, only madness. “Sister, but I did actually kill them.”
She backed away, angry that he would jest so trivially about the death of their parents.
“There is nae reason to fear me, Ellie. I let ye live, did I not? Come now, dinna cry. I meant to spare ye of this knowledge, but yer fondness fer a Cameron infuriates me, so now I will tell ye the truth. The dwale ye brewed worked its magic and put our parents and brother into a deep, peaceful sleep. They never knew their son had stolen into their room and killed them. Padrig first and then Mother. I saved Father fer last. Ye werena in yer bed but I knew where to look, fer I was the one who led ye there. I found ye in the dungeon and I too hid in the shadows when the Camerons arrived. I then smashed ye in the head with the hilt of my blade. I brought our mother and father, along with his favored son, Padrig outside and tossed their bodies into the embers after the Camerons burned the place. I returned to ye after that and brought ye outside to wait fer ye to awaken, but I was attacked from behind. I think it was a bastard Cameron. When I came to, ye were gone.”
Elspeth shut her eyes and shook her head. Go away! Go away! she demanded her thoughts. This could not be! Not Roddy! Not his own family!
“Why? Why did ye do it?” she cried.