Sutherland's Secret (19 page)

“Riders approaching!”

With a curse, Brice was out of bed and tossing his shirt over his head and rolling into his kilt before Eleanor had a chance to slide out of bed. The call came from the bailey, and she could hear a confusion of noises from outside.

“Who is it?” she asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. They’d been asleep only a few hours. It didn’t seem like nearly long enough.

“Stay up here until I know who it is,” Brice said as he strapped on his broadsword. He was out the door before she could nod.

Quickly she grabbed the first thing that came to hand, which happened to be one of Brice’s shirts hanging on the back of a chair. It came to his knees when he wore it, as was the custom in Scotland. On her it came to mid-shin, and the sleeves were well past her fingertips.

She passed through the connecting door to her chambers and looked out her window above the bailey. Brice was already down there, ready to face the approaching riders, Lachlan beside him and his men behind him. All were fully attired with their weaponry. The sight made Eleanor shudder. They were always ready to defend themselves here in the Highlands, trusting few people.

The riders came through the portcullis and Brice stepped forward to greet them, Lachlan at his back, his hand on the hilt of his broadsword. Very quickly Brice, Lachlan, and the other men relaxed their stance. Upon closer inspection, Eleanor thought she recognized the colors of the visitors’ kilts, but she couldn’t place whom they belonged to.

Brice spoke to them at length, and the entire group of warriors entered the castle, out of Eleanor’s sight. Grooms scurried forward and took charge of the horses, and the activities in the bailey resumed a natural rhythm, which eased her fears. She called for Cecilia, deciding that after the ride last night, she needed to bathe before she faced her brother again.

Her door opened and Brice was standing there, his expression desolate. She didn’t think she’d ever seen him so, and she hurried to him. “What is it?”

“Colin. He’s been arrested by Blackwood and taken to Fort Augustus.”

Eleanor’s hand covered her mouth but not before it could stifle her gasp of horror. “Oh, no. What for?”

His look was bleak, and it made her blood run cold. She well knew what it meant to be arrested and taken to Fort Augustus, where Cumberland and his men were living. She’d seen many Highlanders come and go through that dungeon, and those who left weren’t released to continue living their lives.

“He was arrested for attacking the soldiers who had yer brother.”

“But he did that for us. To help us.” She’d been so positive Colin would escape that she’d given him little thought after the episode last night. Colin was a warrior, a fighter, and a smuggler. He could get himself out of any situation. “Brice…” She didn’t know what to say. She saw the guilt in Brice’s eyes, the self-blame. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t ask Colin to be a decoy so we could grab Thomas.”

Brice cursed and ran a hand down his pale face. “That damn MacLean. He always was impulsive. He never did think before he acted, and now look what happened.” He was speaking of his friend in the past tense, as if Colin were already dead.

“There has to be something we can do.”

“And what would that be? Walk in and ask for him back?”

She pressed her lips together, recognizing the futility in that. But there had to be something they could do. There
had
to be. She wrapped her arms around his waist and put her head against his chest to listen to the steady beat of his heart. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

He lifted her head and kissed her, a hard and passionate kiss that poured out all of his fear and sadness for his friend. She took that fear and sadness from him gladly, making it her own so he would not be alone in it.

Her door opened. “Eleanor—”

Eleanor jumped away from Brice at the sound of her brother’s voice. Thomas stood in the doorway, his gaze jumping from one to the other, his lips twisted in disapproval.

Brice’s arms dropped to his sides and his chin dropped to his chest. He cursed and rubbed his eyes. “Thomas, can you please knock before entering? I could have been dressing, for all you knew.”

“I’d rather you were,” Thomas said tightly. He took in her attire, or rather, lack of. Dressed in Brice’s overlarge shirt, she might as well have been wearing nothing. Realizing this, she crossed her arms over her chest and glared at her brother.

Brice stepped in front of her. “Eleanor will meet you in the great hall as soon as she dresses,” he said, his tone broking no argument.

Thomas’s lips thinned, but he nodded and backed out, closing the door behind him.

Brice gave her a long, steady look filled with disappointment. Eleanor looked away. She didn’t know what to do or how to behave. Her actions were bordering on—no, definitely crossing over—indecent. For her brother to see her acting so loose was embarrassing. And yet she knew Brice was feeling as if she were drifting away from him.

“I’ll leave ye to dress.” He left her standing in the middle of her bedchamber. Cecilia entered, chattering incessantly about the MacLean’s men. From the sparkle in her eyes, Eleanor concluded that Cecilia had found one to her liking. She let the girl talk while her mind wandered.

“Cecilia,” she said suddenly.

The girl stopped her observations on the attributes of a man named Rory.

“I see the Sutherland women occasionally wearing a plaid over their gowns.”

“Oh, yes, my lady. We don’t wear kilts like the men, because that would reveal our knees.” She giggled as if such a thought were ludicrous. “So the women wear what we call an arisaid and attach it with a broach.” She thought for a moment. “I believe the former mistress”—she shot Eleanor an apologetic look that Eleanor waved away—“might have one somewhere.” Cecilia went to the wardrobe and, on her hands and knees, entered headfirst, talking the entire time. “She never wore it much, to my lord’s disappointment. She wasn’t much of one for the Highlands, even though she was a Highlander herself. Here it is!” Cecilia backed out and held up a length of tartan in the blue and green of the Sutherland clan. She draped it over Eleanor’s shoulder and gathered it at her waist with a belt she unearthed from the floor of the wardrobe.

Eleanor looked at herself in the mirror and barely recognized the woman staring back. She’d gained weight since coming to Castle Dornach, and there was color in her cheeks and on her nose from the days she’d spent in the sun. Her blond hair was streaked with lighter blond.

In England women would have been appalled that there was color on her cheeks, claiming she was ruining her skin. And the fact that she rarely wore shoes inside the castle would have been completely unacceptable. Not to mention the plain linen tunic she preferred to wear instead of elaborate, expensive gowns.

In England she wore silk and French lace. And she didn’t miss it one bit.

Cecilia rummaged through a jewelry box and produced a sapphire broach. It was breathtakingly beautiful in its simplicity. Cecilia pinned it to Eleanor’s breast, then stepped back and smiled. “Ye look like a proper Highland woman now. No’ like a
Sasannach
at all.” Her eyes widened. “My apologies, my lady. I didn’t—”

“It’s all right, Cecilia. I’m proud to look like a proper Highland woman.”

Satisfied with her attire, Eleanor made her way down to the great hall. Brice and Thomas were sitting at a table across from each other, glaring at each other. Eleanor hurried over, unsure how she was going to dispel the tension between the two, worried that she never would.

She sat next to Thomas because it seemed that it was he she needed to work on the most, but as soon as she sat down, she knew she’d made the wrong decision. Brice’s eyes flashed. And yet if she’d sat with him, Thomas would have been angry. She was caught between the two men who meant the most to her.

Thomas took in her attire with a steely-eyed glare. His gaze went from her bare feet to the simple linen tunic to the arisaid draping her shoulders. He looked at her without words, telling her she was dressing and behaving inappropriately. She lifted her chin and stared back, letting him know she didn’t care.

“We will leave as soon as we can be prepared,” Thomas said to her, dragging his gaze from Brice.

“I still say it’s no’ safe,” Brice said.

Thomas looked at him before turning to Eleanor. Eleanor winced at her brother’s rudeness and clear dismissal. From the color climbing in Brice’s cheeks, she gathered he hadn’t missed the slight, either.

“We’ll go to Campbell and ask him to lend us some of his men for safe passage. According to Blackwood, Campbell is sympathetic to the English.”

“If ye’re hell-bent on leaving, I’ll lend ye the men to get ye to the Campbell,” Brice said, but Eleanor could tell the words cost him. He looked at her, but there was nothing in his cool blue eyes that alerted her to what he was thinking.

“That’s very good of you. I thank you,” Thomas said.

Eleanor hated that they were speaking about her as if she weren’t there. She hated even more that neither of them asked what she wanted.

And what would you answer?

She had no idea. She desperately wanted to see her parents, and she knew they needed to see her as well. She wanted to hug them, to feel her mother’s familiar arms around her. She’d never properly grieved Charles’s death, and she needed to speak to his family, to reassure them that he had not suffered and that she would do what it took to clear his name of the treason charges.

And yet she didn’t want to leave Brice. Scotland, Castle Dornach, was where her heart lay and where she felt the most complete. However, Brice had never asked her to stay. Beyond telling her he loved her, he’d never spoken of marriage, and she would not stay outside of marriage. She may have thrown away most of her beliefs of how a lady should behave, but she wouldn’t discard that one.

“My lord.”

Both Thomas and Brice looked up at Angus. When Thomas realized he wasn’t the one being addressed, he turned away.

“What is it, Angus?” Brice said.

“Ye’re needed in the stables, my lord.” Angus’s gaze flicked to Thomas.

Brice rose. “Excuse me,” he said.

As soon as he left the hall, Thomas said, “Pack your things, Eleanor. We’re leaving within the hour.”

She looked at her brother in disbelief. “Pack my things?” she asked, her anger overtaking her.

“Yes. Be ready to leave.”

She stood, her legs shaking, and without a word she turned and lightly ran up the steps to her room. Like Cecilia had earlier, she dug through the wardrobe until she found what she was looking for. She stomped down the steps and back into the hall. Thomas was still sitting there, eyeing a group of men on the other side of the room as they laughed and talked. A clutch of serving women were a few tables away, chattering to each other.

Eleanor slammed her hand on the table, making Thomas jump. “You wanted me to pack? Well, I’m packed.” She placed the garments on the table in front of him. He looked at the shredded, torn, and dirt-caked dress she’d put in front of him. Slowly his hand came up, and he fingered the once fine material, his thumb running across a bloodstain. “That’s all I have. That’s all I had on me when Brice found me. This is all I own. Are you happy now?”

He looked up at her in dawning horror. “Eleanor—”

“I don’t want to hear it, Thomas.” She spun on her heel and marched out of the castle and straight to the stables.

Brice was standing outside, his head bent as the stable master spoke to him. The sun glinted off his dark blond hair, and Eleanor paused to admire his broad shoulders and the muscled calves beneath his kilt. But her anger didn’t allow her to stop for long.

He saw her coming before she reached him, and dismissed the stable master. He waited for her with indifferent eyes, his feet spread wide, his arms folded in front of him.

She marched right up to him until they were toe-to-toe and she had to look up at him. She poked him in the chest. “I am not Alisa,” she said with clenched teeth. “I do not go to London because I miss that life or because I want the excitement of a big city. I go because my family needs me and I need to see them. Do you understand?” She emphasized her last question with a poke to the chest for each word.

His expression did not change, but his eyes twinkled with amusement. “I understand.”

“Good.” She dropped her hand to her side and looked at him for a moment. “That is all,” she finally said, and turned around to head back to the castle and her chambers, where there were no men looking at her in disappointment and sadness.

“Eleanor?”

“What do you want, Thomas?” She was sitting at her window looking out over the bailey.

He approached and stood beside her to look out the window as well. “I apologize.”

“For what?”

“For not fully comprehending when you told me what had happened to you.”

She glanced up at him. “Did you think I would make something like that up?” She held her wrists up. “Do you think I did this to myself to back up my story?”

The skin over his cheekbones tightened. He looked pale. “I…I don’t know what I thought. Your story seemed so implausible. Treachery, treason, imprisonment. An improbable escape.”

“Ah, yes. The thing of good books and an overactive imagination, because I had nothing else to do, whiling away my time in Scotland.”

His jaw worked and yet he did not look at her. “There’s no need to be difficult.”

She laughed. “But being difficult is so much better than being compliant.” She slid off the bench and left her room. As she entered the great hall, her angry strides slowed and she passed a weary hand across her brow. “Men.” She looked up to see Hannah leaning against the table in front of her.

“Men,” Hannah agreed. She pushed away from the table and patted Eleanor on the arm. “Don’t let them get ye down. Ye do what ye want.” She winked and walked into Lachlan’s waiting arms. The two wandered up the stairs and disappeared.

“Easy for you to say when you have your own man,” Eleanor muttered.

The castle doors opened and Brice strode in. Behind him followed a man she’d never seen. He was tall and lanky, with short dark hair and dark eyes. He wore breeches and a white shirt, a waistcoat, and a leather coat that hit the heels of his knee-high boots.

Curious, Eleanor watched as Brice led him to the group of chairs that circled the fireplace. A low fire was burning there, enough to give light but not a whole lot of heat.

Eleanor sidled closer, interested in this new man. He appeared dark and dangerous, and she could tell Brice wasn’t entirely comfortable with him.

“Eleanor, come closer.”

She jumped, unaware that Brice knew she was near. She walked up to them and studied the newcomer closely. He smiled at her, but it wasn’t a complete smile, more of a curling of the lips that never reached the dark eyes.

“Iain Campbell, this is Lady Eleanor Hirst, the Countess of Glendale, daughter of the Earl of Hopewell. Eleanor, this is Iain Campbell, Marquis of Kirr.”

So this was the Campbell. The man no one liked. She could see why. He was cold and distant, inviting no confidences.

She tilted her head to him instead of curtsying. “My lord.”

A touch of amusement lightened his eyes. “My lady.” Campbell studied her for a moment with an expression that told her no one got under his skin and he let no one into his thoughts.

“I came as soon as I could,” Campbell said to Brice, pulling his gaze away. He crossed one boot over his knee, his black leather coat falling open. He wasn’t dressed as a Highlander and spoke more like a Lowlander.

“I appreciate ye taking time to come up here.”

Those lips curled again. “It’s hardly that far. We are neighbors, after all.” He made a show of looking around the hall. “Although this is the first time I’ve entered your walls.”

Though Brice appeared chagrined, Eleanor was more and more intrigued and slid onto a chair to listen. Brice leaned forward to place his elbows on his knees and pin Campbell with a direct look. “We need yer help,” he said simply.

Campbell raised a brow. “It’s not often that a Sutherland asks for help.”

“It occurs occasionally,” Brice said. “Eleanor needs safe passage back to England.”

The words stabbed Eleanor in the heart. Campbell flicked a glance at her and steepled his fingers under his chin.

“Her brother as well,” Brice said.

“You need me to do this?”

“The English leave ye alone. Ye’re the only one I can trust to get her there unharmed.”

Campbell looked between them with narrowed eyes but let nothing of his thoughts show on his face. “Tell me what’s really going on,” he said.

Eleanor looked at Brice, wondering if he would tell Campbell the truth.

Thomas wandered down, saw them sitting there, and headed toward them. Brice made the introductions, and for the first time Thomas seemed more relaxed. More than likely it had to do with Campbell’s appearance.

Campbell nodded at him, then turned his attention to Brice. “You were going to tell me a story?”

Brice flicked a glance at Eleanor and proceeded to tell Campbell everything. She wasn’t certain it was the right decision, but she trusted Brice and would trust him in this as well.

When he was finished, Campbell stared into the fire and didn’t speak for a long time. Brice sat back, appearing at ease. Thomas’s gaze flickered back and forth, and Eleanor felt as if the very air were standing still.

“You’re making the wrong move,” Campbell finally said. “Going to London isn’t the answer. You need to go to Fort Augustus.”

The thought turned Eleanor’s blood to ice. She wanted to stand up and run from the room. She would never, ever go back to Fort Augustus. Never.

“Confront the devil in his own lair?” Brice asked.

Campbell nodded thoughtfully. “Put him on the defensive right away. Take him off guard.”

“It’s brilliant,” Brice said.

“No, it’s not,” Eleanor said. “I’m not going back to Fort Augustus.”

Campbell regarded her as if he’d forgotten she was there. As if he’d forgotten this was about her and her murdered husband.

“I agree,” Thomas said, finally stirring. “She needs to go back to London to be with our family. I’ll not be dragging her across Scotland to confront that devil. She’s been through enough.”

Campbell shrugged. “Obviously it’s your choice.”

“Running to London isn’t going to solve anything,” Brice said. “Blackwood will know ye have gone. He’ll get his story together before ye even get there.”

“She’s not going to Fort Augustus,” Thomas said. “We are returning to London.”

Eleanor looked at her brother. Was this about Thomas returning her to London or his concern that she not face Blackwood? Brice was looking at her as if asking what she wanted to do. “What can he do to me in London?” she asked, finding it ironic that she was asking a Highlander this question.

“He’ll protect himself any way he can. You said he forged the papers naming Charles a traitor; he can do the same with anything else, more than likely.”

Eleanor leaned her head against the chair and stared at the ceiling. “So what if he does? Will that affect me?”

“You’ll accuse him, people won’t believe you. That’s all,” Campbell said.

She looked at Campbell and found she trusted him. He had nothing to gain or lose in any of this. He was simply giving her his opinion as he saw it.

“Why do you care?” she asked.

Those lips curled again. “I don’t care, my lady. If you want me to take you to London, I will. There will be a price, though.”

Thomas shifted forward and Brice’s gaze sharpened.

Campbell looked at Brice, then Thomas. “Nothing comes for free, and I don’t offer my services for nothing.”

“This is preposterous.” Thomas shoved himself off his chair and paced away.

“What do ye want?” Brice asked.

Campbell appeared to think, but his shrewd eyes told Eleanor that he already knew what he wanted.

“My parents will pay you,” Eleanor said.

“Nay,” Brice said. “I asked for his services, I will pay.”

Eleanor pressed her lips together. She understood that she had pricked his pride, but hers was already precarious. She’d taken so much from him that she didn’t want to take any more.

Thomas paced back to her chair. “Eleanor, we are returning to London.”

She looked at Thomas, then at Brice, whose gaze was steady on her, and at Campbell, who was taking in the scene with an air of amusement that didn’t touch his eyes.

“What is your price?” she asked Campbell, uncomfortable with his silence.

“A favor.”

All three stared at him, more than interested. What favor could Campbell want from Brice?

Brice raised a brow. “What favor?”

“A favor to be given to me at a later time.” Campbell was completely still, like a coiled snake ready to strike. He watched Brice shrewdly.

Brice seemed to contemplate Campbell’s odd request, his eyes narrowed.

“No,” Eleanor said. “I’ll not have you make a promise and not know what you’re promising.”

Brice held up his hand to quiet her. The two stared at each other as if in some sort of contest to see who would blink first. It was rather ridiculous, to Eleanor’s mind. She didn’t want Brice to agree to something that could cause him problems in the future. They had no idea what Campbell would ask for.

“Aye,” Brice finally said. “That’s fine.”

Eleanor drew in a breath. Campbell smiled as much of a smile as he’d shown, and Thomas seemed to sag in relief.

“That’s settled, then,” Thomas said. “We’ll leave for Campbell’s lands as soon as possible and then to London.”

“I want to defeat Blackwood,” Eleanor said, apparently stunning them, for all three men looked at her in surprise. “I want him ruined, and I want Charles’s name cleared. I want his parents to know that their son died honorably, and I want their shame erased.”