They didn’t ask questions. They knew who he was because his sister, guarded behind a Cameron, pointed him out. He wished he’d killed her. So much for showing mercy. His father never had, and now Roderick understood why.
“Ye will never be rid of me, Ellie,” he called out as he was wrestled to the ground by the Lochiel’s guards.
A raven-haired Highlander drew his pistol and pointed it at him. “She will be rid of ye when ye are dead.”
“Put him on his feet,” another, older version of Ellie’s new beau commanded the guards. He was immediately set upright.
The Lochiel, Roderick surmised, sizing him up.
“Fer murderin’ yer parents and brother,” the Lochiel ordered, “ye will face yer own death by hangin’ in the mornin’. Take him away.”
“Ellie, I’ll return from the grave and kill ye.”
The guards pulled on his arms.
“Wait.” The command came from Elspeth’s dear Cameron.
Roderick watched him walk up to him. He wasn’t overly muscular but formidable, carved from rock and steel.
Roderick thought he would strike him. He struggled with the guards to be free.
“Let him go,” Elspeth’s lover commanded. “Give him a sword.”
One of the guards came forward with a sword, but the Lochiel held up his hand.
“Son, what are ye doin’?”
“I’m goin’ to make his last day on earth more painful.”
He unsheathed his sword, and Roderick watched the blade, wondering if there was an end to it.
“Take the sword offered to ye,” Cameron ordered him.
Roderick took the hilt. Did this fool think he didn’t know how to wield a—
Cameron’s heavy blade smashed into his and the hilt flew out of his fingers.
“Pick it up,” his opponent barked.
Roderick went to the sword and bent to pick it up off the ground. He took a moment to look at Elspeth. Tears made her eyes sparkle like seas under the sun.
He wondered if he threw his sword like a spear, could he impale her? He’d always meant to kill her with the rest of them.
“Ye want to know why I didna kill ye that night?” He knew she wanted to know, so he didn’t wait for her answer. “’Twas because I wanted ye to live and suffer.”
“As I want fer ye,” Elspeth’s Royalist lover said and kicked the sword away from Roderick’s hand. He tossed his own blade to the ground then drove his elbow into Roderick’s face—and all in the space of three breaths.
Cameron did not stop the barrage of fists until Roderick could barely hold on. He felt his teeth break, his nose shatter, lips and eyes swollen to three times their size.
He strained to stay awake and open his eyes to find her. When he did, he smiled at her through the veil of his lashes. He remembered the young, vibrant lass he used to mercilessly tease. He didn’t like her with her sun-kissed locks and enormous blue-green eyes. Their father adored her. Roderick hadn’t thought it could get any worse, until Padrig was born. Roderick suffered the worst beatings of his life because of that brat.
But it was also because of those beatings, somewhat like this one, that Roderick remembered how she had gone to their father and stood up to him for Roderick’s sake. How she was willing to be punished for his sake.
“Ellie,” he cried out, with the last shred of strength he possessed. “I didna kill ye because I cared about ye. Ye were the only one I cared about.”
Something hard hit him in the jaw. He felt something break, and then the world went black.
Chapter Twenty-Two
