Page 34 of Sutherland's Secret
Eleanor slid her hand from under his, but before she could stand, he grabbed her wrist, moving surprisingly fast for one so injured. “Stay.”
“I was going to get you something to drink.”
“Have someone fetch it. Do no’ leave.”
She looked down at this big bear of a man laid low by a pistol ball to the shoulder. “Very well. But I need to tell the guard to fetch something.” It took only a moment before she was back at his side, but he had fallen asleep already.
Eleanor resumed her seat, thoughts of her mother and father and brother intruding. She hoped they weren’t grieving for her. She’d hate to think that they thought her dead. Or worse, that they knew her to be imprisoned. That would be worse than thinking she was dead. She wished she could write to them, but she didn’t dare. Blackwood might find out, and then he would discover where she was. She shuddered at the thought of that man.
“Talk.”
She jumped and looked at Brice. Though his eyes were closed, he was awake. He slid his hand out to her and she took it again. His fingers closed over hers. She liked the feel of that large, calloused palm.
“I beg your pardon?”
A smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “Ye sound so prissy when ye say that.”
“Sassy and prissy?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Aye.”
“What do you want me to talk about?”
He made to shrug, then grimaced and cursed. “Damnation,” he breathed through clenched teeth.
“It’s probably best that you move as little as possible.”
He cracked an eye open to glare at her. “My thanks for the warning.”
His face had gone pale again, and Eleanor fell silent, hoping he would fall back asleep and she wouldn’t have to talk. Her throat hurt, though she found that it was getting easier and easier to speak. She wasn’t certain what had made her stop speaking to begin with. Just one day she couldn’t.
She thought back to that day and the memories came pouring out, unstoppable. Desperately she tried to think of something else, but it didn’t work. Even reciting her Latin verbs didn’t work. Suddenly she remembered the exact moment when she stopped speaking.
She’d been in that prison for…she had no idea how long. One day was the same as the next until they all melted together, punctuated only by the people who came and went. And the beatings.
There had been a boy, no more than twelve, in the cell next to hers. She hadn’t spoken to him. No one spoke to anyone, because that could result in a beating or even torture if the guards thought you were conspiring. As if prisoners even could. No one made it out of the Fort Augustus dungeon. That was made perfectly clear to all of them.
She didn’t know what had happened for the guards to pull that boy out of his cell, but they did, and they beat him unmercifully. They liked to do it in the middle of the dungeon where everyone could see. It was a warning of sorts:Behave or you will be next.
The young boy cried and begged them to stop. Eleanor had put her hands over her ears to muffle the screams, and even that didn’t work. The strike of the whip against the boy’s flesh was a sound she would never forget. His screams were etched on her brain to visit her in the middle of the night.
Then he started begging for his mother, and that had urged the guards on. They thought it was funny that the boy wanted his mother. They mocked him, telling him that he hadn’t needed his mother while he tried to kill the English. He cried, and his cries spurred them on. The whip flew through the air, hitting the boy’s tender flesh until the screams stopped.
The boy had died.
Eleanor never spoke after that.
“Yer thoughts are so heavy, I can feel them over here,” Brice said into the silence.
“My apologies. I will endeavor to think lighter thoughts.” She shook the memories away. There was naught she could do for the lad now. She just wished she’d known his name, spoken to him before that. Offered some sort of comfort. Maybe she could have found his mother. No, it would have been horrible for his mother to hear such a story.
“Where do ye hail from, Lady Eleanor?”
“It’s just Eleanor. No lady. Not anymore.”
He turned his head to pierce her with those bright blue eyes. “Ye canno’ deny who ye are.”
“I can try.”
