“Constantine is fair, he will do the right thing,” Logan’s mother said and stood up. “I was going to fix ye something to drink. Ye two stay seated and I will prepare it and something to fill yer bellies.”
“Let me help,” Elspeth offered quickly and was just as quickly refused.
Alone again once his mother set off to prepare her ale, Logan glanced at Elspeth and smiled. He was sure that even on the worst day, just looking at her could make him smile. He understood that grinning at her like a damn fool was likely due to the fact that he was in love with her.
“Elspeth, after we eat, let’s go fer a walk along the mountainside, aye?”
She looked at him with her melancholy gaze that held back the sorrow and betrayal eating away at all her defenses. How long could she hold on before she needed to weep or scream?
“The moment ye need to leave, we will go. She will understand,” he promised about his mother. “She has her own tale to tell of how she was a runaway bride—” he nodded when Elspeth gasped “—who ran straight into the arms of my father.”
There it was, the smile he’d been hoping to see.
“The man she was to marry by order of her stepmother, didna like the way others looked at her long, red locks. So he cut them off—” He paused to acknowledge Elspeth’s second sharp intake of breath.
“Aye, she told me that a man cut off her hair,” Elspeth told him. “She disguised herself as a lad.”
“My father claims to have known he was a she all along.”
“And then what?” Elspeth tugged on his sleeve.
Logan smiled inside. He got her thinking of something else besides her murderous brother.
“He promised to protect her and slept outside her room, on the other side of the door.”
“Fer two nights!” Logan’s mother corrected enthusiastically while entering the sitting room. She carried a wooden tray and on it were three goblets, a loaf of black bread, and honey.
“Your father brought the heather ale from the castle,” she let him know, handing him a goblet and then one to Elspeth. “Miss Woodburn, do ye cook?”
Logan nearly choked on his ale. His mother and Elspeth both hurried to his chair. He held up his palms to stave them off. He was all right. It was the thought of Elspeth cooking for his kin that jolted him. Suddenly, it was a very real possibility. But…she wouldn’t try to kill them now, would she? They were innocent.
“Goodness, Logan,” his mother said, concern filling her storm-colored eyes, “I think ’tis too soon fer ye to be up and about! Let us get ye back to bed.”
“I am well,” he reassured her. “My drink just went down wrong.”
She did not look convinced but thankfully, his brother chose to swing open the front door and come inside.
“We didna find him!” he ground out and slid into a chair near Logan.
“Where is yer father?” his mother asked.
“Comin’, and he is no’ pleased.”
This was not good news, Logan thought, standing from his chair to pace in front of it. A murderer was out there and he wanted Elspeth. He gave her a worried glance. Her brother had gotten into the house and was bold enough to wake her in her bed. Logan wasn’t about to let him do it again. “We need to go to the castle.”
“That was to be my next suggestion,” his father said, coming into the house and hearing Logan.
The lads were close behind him, with Ewen in the lead. “Lochiel told us who the culprit is,” his cousin said, and then went to stand next to Elspeth. “Miss Woodburn, please tell us everything there is to know aboot yer brother.”
She said nothing long enough for Logan to think she was not going to answer. But then, she looked down at her hands clasped in her lap and finally spoke. “My brother killed my family and used me to…to participate unawares. I had prepared—” She choked back a sob.
Logan was there immediately, kneeling before her. She didn’t have to do this.
But she started again. “I had seen my father’s men bringing ye—Logan—to the dungeon. He appeared badly hurt and in need of my medicinal concoctions. I wanted to help him. I went toRoderick fer advice, knowing he would go against our father to help me. He suggested I prepare a dwale concoction and pour it into the guard’s water barrel in the kitchen, and then put extra salt in their food, ensuring that they drank the water.
“They were helpless, and made of nae use, thanks to me. Roderick had used the opportunity to kill our parents and our brother whilst they slept.” She wiped her tears away and continued. “After the Camerons had set fire to the keep, he found me in the dungeon, knowing precisely where to look. He knocked me out and set me near my parents in the ashes of the inner yard. I dinna know what his plans fer me were. He has spent his life angry at our father—and with plenty of reasons. But fer the most part, we got along well. He isna that lad anymore. I stopped knowing him the day he murdered my family.”
“He is capable of anythin’,” Logan said. The others agreed.
