Page 79 of In Bed with a Highland Brute

“Let me go,” she pleaded. “If there’s any heart in ye at all, any humanity, ye willnae take me from this place. Ye will let me go back tae me betrothed.”

“Have ye nae heard the celebrations?” the man in the doorway asked, pointing at the ceiling. “Yer betrothed has married another. I dinnae see him here looking fer ye, dae ye?”

All sorts of mad and panicked ideas ran through Eloise’s head. Was it possible that Murdoch still hadn’t realized she was not the woman beneath that veil? Surely not by now, as light was fading from the sky, and they would soon retire to their chamber. Another gutting idea filled her head – what if he preferred Harper? What if he was happy to find Harper under that veil?

Nay, nay! That is a foolish thought. Did he nae make love tae me the other day? Did he nae say he couldnae bear the thought of anything ever happening tae me?

Her fears were playing tricks on her mind, that was all.

“Let me go,” Eloise ordered again, finding more volume in her voice. Yet she had shouted for hours for help, for so long that her throat hurt to call out now. It barely sounded like her own voice at all, but a faint version of what it once had been.

“Take her,” the man ordered, jerking his head and stepping back through the doorway.

The hooded man behind Eloise took hold of her waist and lifted her high. No matter how much she kicked out, striking anything in order to impede his progress, it was no good. He kept on walking with her, and he was so strong that when she planted the soles of her shoes against a doorframe, he merely pushed forward harder, beating the muscle in her legs so she was forced to crumple.

He dragged her up a set of spiral stairs, but rather than coming out into the main courtyard of the castle, they emerged in a small square toward the back of the curtain walls. They were far away from the keep and the main events.

“Murdoch! Murdoch?” As Eloise shouted for him, praying that her voice would carry toward him on the wind, she realized that it was a foolish wish. The wind whistled so strongly it drowned out her voice completely. “Where are ye taking me?” she demanded of the two hooded men as they tossed her over the saddle of a horse and bound her wrists to the saddle, so she could not fall off the horse.

“Ye’ll see soon enough,” one of them answered grimly.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“Nay!” Eloise could see the clifftops as she was dragged down from the horse. They cut through the ropes that had bound her to the saddle in their haste to be rid of her. With her hands now free, she thrust them against each man in turn, trying to be free, but she was too weak to fight two strong men.

One lifted her by the waist as she kicked out, connecting with the other hooded man’s gut. He winced, bent forward and rubbed his belly, but soon gathered himself and directed the way up the cliffs.

“We have tae be quick,” he ordered his friend. “Before she can call anyone up here with her screams.”

“Nae one would hear her scream out here,” the man carrying her said easily.

Eloise decided to test it. With the gag long gone, she was completely free to try. She screeched as hard as she possibly could, calling for help repeatedly. The man carrying her plastered his hand over her mouth, trying to block out the sound, but she bit his hand so harshly, she drew blood, forcing him to release her swiftly enough.

“Argh,” he cried out in pain and thrust her into the other man’s hands.

He took no chances and threw her over her shoulder, so far, that she was in danger of dropping down. She clung to the back of his cloak, terrified she’d fall on her head and be knocked out. He barely caught her in time around the knees near the top of his shoulder, grunting as he trapped her and carried on up the cliff.

“Quickly!” one of the men barked, though she no longer knew which one. She just kept screaming and pounding on the man’s back.

I willnae make it easy fer them.

She vowed all sorts of things in her mind, mad promises to enact revenge on these two men and Harper too, if there was such a thing as ghosts and she could walk this earth again.

The higher up the cliff they got, the more she panicked, seeing just how close they were to the cliff edge.

“Throw her off,” the man following ordered, trying to bind his hand where she had drawn blood. “Let’s be done with this already.”

“Remember what Lady Harper said. It has tae look natural.”

“Natural?” the other scoffed. “Aye, perfectly natural fer a woman tae go walking off the cliff in the exact same spot another walked off a cliff many years ago.”

As the first hooded man tried to look over his shoulder at the other, his hand adjusted on Eloise’s legs a little. It was enough of a chance to allow her to lift her knee and drive it down into his sternum.

He grunted in pain and dropped to his knees, so winded by her attack that he was gasping for breath. Toppled over his shoulder by the movements, she landed in the dirt, her hands splayed against the grit and her head mere inches from colliding with a grey stone. She pressed herself back from that rock, scrambling back on her haunches when she felt the rush of the wind behind her, tugging at her hair and at her skirt as if it had large hands.

Looking quickly over her shoulder, she saw the wind came off the sea and up the clifftop. She had inadvertently brought her body so close to that cliff edge that she was in danger of her hand slipping over the precipice. Buffeted by the wind, she scrambled back in the other direction until a firm hand came down upon her shoulder, gripping her tight.

Eloise rolled away from that grip, striking her body into the man’s shins in order to dislodge him. He fell forward, his face now so close to that cliff edge that he too froze, unable to move from terror.