“Of course,” she said with a mocking grin. He wanted to check for poison.
After she consumed a spoonful, and then another, including on her wooden utensil, every ingredient she’d used, he watched her.
“It isna poisoned,” she assured him.
When he strolled back to the Main Hall door and called for the others, her heart raced.
“They havena’ eaten yet,” he informed her on his way back to her, still holding his bowl.
For six years she’d planned this. Now, when it was about to begin, her skin grew clammy, her mouth dry. Could she kill four men?
She remembered the way her father always let her hide behind him when she’d angered Roderick, the eldest, and he meant to punish her. Her father always protected her, spoiling her, according to her mother, who was known to give Elspeth more plum pudding than her brothers.
She watched Logan Cameron lift his spoon to his lips. He was about to ingest her poison. Her gaze fastened on the spoon, his mouth opening. Her heart thumped hard and loud in her ears. Could he hear it? Would he suspect something and not eat?
The spoon disappeared inside his mouth.
Elspeth almost passed out from lack of breathing.
She didn’t want to appear to be swooning at the sight of him eating her food, so she looked away.
It began. The first step…the hardest step, had been taken. Now, nothing would stop her until they all lay dead at her feet, then she would go find the rest of his clan. She had planned her revenge for six years. They killed young Padrig, Roderick, her parents. They had ended her life as well. All because of Logan Cameron. Now, her dream was finally coming true.
She would not allow guilt or compassion to sway her. So what if he gave her a room, a bed, a bath, and meals to fill her belly? Who cared if he didn’t put his hands to her as her other masters had? The reason she’d had masters was because of him.
“’Tis quite delicious,” he remarked.
She nodded, hating her natural instinct to help and not hurt. No mercy, she reminded herself. Still, she didn’t want to watch him begin his slow journey to the ground. So, she put down her bowl and left the hall as the others entered the room.
They all stopped to watch her leave. None of them spoke to her and that was best. She didn’t want to become friends with any of them. Tomorrow they would be a step closer to their graves.
Where her family was.
*
Logan watched herleave, then flicked his gaze to his cousins, all turning from her to him. They expected answers to why she was out of her room and in the Main Hall with him. Alone.
“She coulda picked up any one of these knives and stabbed ye,” Steafan was first to point out when they entered.
“Did ye unlock her door?” Jamie asked. “After she escaped earlier?”
“She didna use the door earlier,” Logan told him. “And she wanted to cook her own food, so I let her. ’Tis quite good.” He held up his empty bowl.
Steafan’s face fell. “Ye ate her food?”
“Were ye here when she prepared it?” Ewen demanded. “How are ye feelin’?
“Och, Logan!” Jamie pouted, appearing on the verge of tears. “Dinna tell me ye ate it.”
Logan smiled at him, then gave them all an exhausted sigh. “Quit yer worryin’. She served herself a bowl from the same pot as mine and ate it first. I watched her. She ate without any hesitation and ye all saw her leave in perfect con…” he cleared his throat, suddenly feeling a wee bit light-headed at the thought of her.… “perfect condition.”
His head cleared soon enough, and he and his cousins all agreed after eating her stew that Miss Woodburn could surely cook a delicious meal.
“I’ll bring her to Tor Castle tomorrow,” Ewen told him, scooping up the last mushroom in his bowl.
“I am also returnin’ to the castle tomorrow,” Logan informed him. “All of ye—” he pointed to Jamie and Steafan—“stay the night and we will all travel together.”
The others agreed, then left the hall with Logan and went with him to a small, separate sitting room down the corridor, where they drank mead and reminisced about battles they had fought in together.
