“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 meanLogan, 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.”
