“Please leave,” she said and turned away from him. She didn’t turn around again until she heard him shut the door behind him.
She was thankful none of them had tried to force his way with her. The thought of it spurred her to think of the new herb packets that were wrapped and labeled, ready for their task. Foxglove, pinches of the rarer, potent Belladonna, and the pine needles of the yew. It was all mixed and ready to be fed to them in the tiniest amounts to avoid the quick, violent deaths they deserved.
Her belly flipped at the thought of finally avenging her family. She didn’t ponder if what she was going to do was morally right or wrong. She couldn’t let that stop her.
It hadn’t stopped them from killing young Padrig. What had he ever done to harm anyone? His eyes misted when their mother squished a spider crawling up the wall. Padrig, with his bright, untainted smile. He expected to see the best in everyone, and most of the time, they showed their best to him.
But the Camerons slaughtered him in front of their parents.
She allowed her tears to fall freely when she stepped into the basin. She sat for a long time, until the water grew tepid and memories of her family were set aside for the time being. Never too far away in her thoughts, but always ready to spark when the time came to exact her revenge.
Her bath though, when she set her attention to it, was heavenly. If Logan Cameron were anyone else, she would have thanked him for it. What kind of man was he anyway? He did not seem cruel or hard-hearted, the way she imagined he wouldbe when and if she ever found him. He clearly had power in his clan, whether it was because his father was Lochiel of Lochaber or because of something else, they all did what he wanted.
But he didn’t behave as all her other masters had. They all possessed power in one way or another. They all wielded it harshly, uninterested in the lesser folks who suffered under their hands.
The Viscount of Blackburn, Lord Geoffry Arlow was especially cruel to the less fortunate—like her. He was the first man who owned her. She likely wouldn’t have survived him for a full year in his house.
Thankfully, one of his many enemies killed him on the road when the viscount was returning home from a visit to Dundee.
The killer, Mr. James Frazier laid claim to her and the rest of the viscount’s servants. He kept her for half a year before he died of dysentery. She did not offer to help him with her knowledge of medicine.
After that, she was taken away to a village in Stirling and sold to the highest bidder.
She had cried. She cried every single morning when she opened her eyes and every night before she closed them. That was the first year of her captivity. In the five years that followed, every master she had slung his or her power around like a sword. She ate when others remembered to feed her, or to keep her obedient. The only way to keep going was to heap sins atop the Cameron clan’s head. Hatred had kept her alive, though the price was high. It poisoned her and tore holes in her where loneliness and terrible guilt settled to take root.
She could not let things like a soft bed and a long bath sway her.
When the sun set and her matted hair dried—there was nothing she could do to get the mats and tangles out, Elspeth sat in one of the chairs staring into the cold hearth. She’d dressed ina small pair of breeches and a dark brown tunic that was built for a boy. She didn’t care what she wore. At least the garments were clean.
She wasn’t surprised when a knock came at the door. Her food hadn’t been forgotten.
“Aye?” she called out when no one entered.
“Tis Logan.”
Her heart thumped at the sound of him speaking his name. She felt her forehead for fever.
“Come in,” she told him, even as alarms went off in her head to tell him to stay away.
The door opened. Her mouth felt a bit dry, her head a little light.
He appeared and then stepped inside, filling the room with his presence.
“Are ye hungry, lass?”
She nodded, grateful he hadn’t forgotten her locked away in this room. “Thank ye, Mr. Cameron.”
He crooked one side of his mouth. “Fer feedin’ ye?”
She nodded. “And fer not fergetting?”
She wasn’t expecting him to move so quickly to her by the bed. “Miss Woodburn,” he told her in a deeper voice than he’d used before, “Dinna thank me fer somethin’ I would do fer my enemy—of which ye are, lest we ferget.”
“I willna ferget,” she swore.
“Good. Hold up yer head as if ye deserve and expect to eat, because ye do, and ye should.”
She nodded, mainly because she didn’t know what to say to him. She hadn’t held her head up in so long, she’d forgotten how to.
