Page 52 of Taming the Highland Misfits
“She killed herself,” her father replied, a little too quickly. “She took arsenic.” His gaze slid away from Isla’s and he stood up and turned away from her.
Isla did not believe a word of it. “If there was any arsenic involved,” she said scathingly, “you put it there. You poisoned her—why do you not just admit it and be done with it?”
Something flickered in Robert Thomson’s eyes, and all at once Isla knew that she was looking at her mother’s killer.
“How did ye know it was arsenic?” Finley asked suddenly.
“I-I didn’t,” Robert spluttered. “It is the most commonly used for suicide, so I supposed that she must have used that.” He looked at Isla again, his eyes furious. “I was stupid to marry her in the first place. She was disobedient and willful right from the start. I would have been better off with a herd of cows! They cannot give you heirs, but they are productive and useful. They give you meat and milk, and they are predictable, unlike women.” He stood up and strode across the room, slapping his fist onto his thigh in a gesture of frustration.
Finley’s hands were almost free, but he was not finished with Thomson yet. In a voice that was throbbing with menace, he bellowed, “ye are a monster o’ evil, Thomson! Ye killed my mother—but ye will pay for it, one way or the other!”
This seemed to drive Robert Thomson mad. “She had it coming!” he roared into Finley’s face. “She should have married me! I was doing her a favour—a man of my status marrying a tavern wench was a big step up in the world for her—and I loved her! She should not have fought me, but submitted. If she had, she would have been alive now!”
“She was already married tae my Da!” Finley yelled back. “What were ye going tae dae wi’ him? Was he goin’ tae ‘commit suicide’as well? Dinnae tell me Isla’s mammy killed herself! We arenae stupid, ye evil bastard!”
Finley’s face was red with rage; he gave the rope behind him one last tug and it gave way, then he lunged at Thomson and threw him backwards on the floor. A second later the point of the knife was touching the skin of his neck, a bead of blood already welling up.
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Robert Thomson’s deep brown eyes were even darker with terror as he stared up at Finley, who had trapped his body between his knees so that it was impossible for him to move.
“Have a care, Thomson,” Finley said silkily. “My hands tend tae get a wee bit shaky these days. I might just accidentally slit your throat wi’ this dagger if ye squirm too much.” He chuckled as he felt the other man’s body trembling with fear. “There is a lot ye dinnae know about me, Robert Thomson, but I was once a very dangerous man. I have given up my life o’ crime, but old habits die hard. I can very easily go back tae it again. Just you remember that.” He had no intention of harming Isla’s father, but it suited his purpose to scare him.
Unfortunately, he was also frightening Isla. She was terrified by what seemed to be a new side of Finley. The feral expression on his face made him look like someone else entirely, a man Isla did not know. He had been furious with Iain, but this stranger was not Finley. His eyes, blazing with anger, made him look almost bestial, and she could see by the trembling of his hands just how difficult it was for him to restrain himself from doing her father any further harm.
Robert Thomson was mesmerised by the blue eyes that were staring down at him. Their pupils were enlarged, making them almost black, and he fancied he saw murder in them. His murder.
Finley was becoming impatient, but he tried to keep his voice calm as he asked: “Now, you an’ I both know the truth, so ye might as well tell me in words. If ye are honest, I will be merciful. If no’, then -” he shrugged, leaving the rest of the sentence unsaid. They both knew what he meant. “Did ye poison your wife?”
Thomson said nothing for a few seconds, his lips trembling with fear, and Finley pressed the knife a little harder into his throat so that a trickle of blood began to flow down his neck. “Yes!” he called, in a panic. “Yes, I did!”
“Why?” Isla asked. She was baffled. What had her precious mother done to deserve such a fate? She pulled against her restraints, and Finley looked over at her apologetically. He could do nothing while he was using the knife to threaten her father.
“Because I hated her,” Thomson answered. “Agnes was dead, and I loved her.”
Finley’s lip curled in disgust. “If ye had loved her, ye wouldnae have killed her!” he yelled.
Thomson’s lips thinned in annoyance.“Although I know you don’t believe me, your mother’s death was an accident. I never meant to hurt her.” He paused and swallowed nervously. “I saw Edina every day, walking around, healthy, with everything she could ever want in her life while Agnes was dead. One day I just had enough. I put the poison in her ale and I watched her drinking it, and a few hours later she was dead.”
“And did that make you happy, Father?” Isla asked bitterly. “Did it bring Agnes back?”
Thomson did not answer the rhetorical question, merely lay silent, looking up at his daughter with terrified eyes.
“So you have taken the lives of two women and achieved absolutely nothing,” she observed with a growl. She wished she could have rushed over to her father and clawed his eyes out, but she was hampered by both the ropes around her wrists and her conscience; she could never do such a horrible thing! It came to Isla then that she could thank her mother for the fact that she had a sense of right and wrong.
Finley stood up then. “Tell your guards tae go,” he ordered.
Robert Thomson did as he was told, then Finley closed and locked the door behind them. He turned to Isla and sawed through the ropes around her wrists, then rubbed her raw flesh tenderly. When he faced Thomson again, he ordered him to stand up. The man did so, very stiffly, then brushed his clothes down fastidiously.
Isla looked at him with complete contempt. How like her father to be worried about his appearance at a time like this! She raised her chin and squared her shoulders, then folded her arms in front of her and looked him up and down. “Nobody is going to be looking at you, Father.” Her voice was withering. “You will not be seen by anyone who cares about you for a very long time—if such a person exists at all.”
Robert Thomson gave a short laugh. He was attempting to sound brave, but he could not meet his daughter’s eyes. “What do you want from me?” he asked.
“First of all,” Isla began, “I would like a sincere apology for the way you treated my mother, and Finley’s, and for their deaths. I know it will do no good, and it will certainly not stop you from going to hell, but we would both like to hear it.”
Her father looked as though he wished the floor would open up and swallow him. Suddenly he dropped his mask of bravado and his shoulders slumped in defeat. He flicked a glance up at Isla, but she was staring back at him with a face that looked as though it had been carved from marble, so hard was its gaze. Eventually, he admitted defeat.
“I am sorry for what I did to your mothers, and to both of you,” he said, looking at the floor. “I cannot undo the crimes I committed, but I wish I had never done them.” Then he flicked a glance up at them, and the look in his eyes gave the lie to what he had just said. He did not mean a word of it; he was merely obeying orders for the sake of his own safety.
