Page 60 of Sutherland's Secret
“Gu sealladh orm,”he said under his breath. He despised Blackwood with every bit of his being. If he had known just half of Eleanor’s story when Blackwood had visited, Brice would have stabbed him in his sleep. No, he would have brought Eleanor down and told the bastard that he was avenging Eleanor’s honor and then killed him. Slowly and without mercy.
“When the army moved to Fort Augustus, I moved with them…” she said.
Her voice trailed off, and Brice imagined that she was reliving the horrors she had seen there. He’d heard stories. Stories that had made grown men tremble. He couldn’t imagine a lady such as Eleanor witnessing the things that he had heard. The scars and bruises made sense now.
“Tell me, lass, did he starve ye for yer insolence?”
“I’m not sure it was so much that he deliberately starved me. All of the prisoners were starved. Food went to the soldiers first. Prisoners were the last to be fed. More often than not, we were forgotten.”
“And the beatings?”
“There were few. He was busy with the battle and, afterward, with rounding up the enemy. Things were chaotic. Prisoners filtered in and out. But we all knew that those who didn’t return were dead. The English just don’t release their prisoners. I heard them talking. They were instructed to kill the Jacobites.”
Brice grunted. He’d heard similar stories. A communication had been intercepted by a Jacobite in which Cumberland had instructed his men to kill any enemy by dagger, dirk, or broadsword.
“Ye said they didn’t release prisoners, and yet ye were released.”
“I escaped. One night a guard simply didn’t lock my cell door after delivering my dinner. I walked out, hid until nightfall, and crawled out of a window. I walked for days, until I couldn’t walk anymore, and that’s when you found me.”
Brice hugged her more tightly to him and thanked God that he had found her. What if it had been those soldiers who had been behind them? What if Brice had decided to leave her on the side of the road and they’d found her? She would be back in Blackwood’s hands, probably dead.
“I’m sorry for what they did to ye,” he said. Good God, but she’d lost her husband and her freedom within days of each other.
“Sometimes…” Her voice trailed off again; it was a while before she spoke, and when she did, her voice was soft. “Sometimes I thought about giving in to him. About sending a message to Blackwood that I would accept his terms.”
Something wet plopped onto his hand and he realized it was a tear. She was silently crying and it broke his heart.
“I was so hungry,” she whispered. “And so scared.”
“No’ a person would blame ye if ye had,” he said. “Even grown men have their breaking point. Ye held out a long time. Far longer than most.” The thought of her in Blackwood’s arms, of Blackwood using her in that way, infuriated Brice. There were no words to describe a person such as Blackwood.
“But then I thought of Charles, and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t give myself to my husband’s killer.” She swiped at her tears as if frustrated with them.
Brice halted Galad and, with a touch on her chin, lifted her head so she was looking up and back at him. “Ye are one of the bravest people I know, Eleanor Hirst. I have seasoned warriors who would no’ have been able to endure what ye did.”
Her eyes shimmered with her tears, making her eyes appear a brilliant blue. “I guess that naive girl from London grew up,” she said.
“Aye. That she did.” He kissed her softly, stunned that she was even here with him after all she’d endured. What fate had put her on the same road as he at the same time for him to find her? Was it sorcery? Or God’s will?
And how, after all of that, could he put her on that ship and send her away from him?
Chapter 24
Hannah and Lachlan were there to greet Brice and Eleanor when they rode through the portcullis. Hannah immediately swooped Eleanor up and, with a friendly arm around her shoulder, guided her into the castle.
Brice tossed the reins to a waiting groom and said to Lachlan, “Meet me in the lists,” before striding off. He was so filled with fury that he couldn’t speak. He’d never been this angry, and he knew the only way to burn some of it off was to hit someone, hard, with something sharp. Lachlan was the poor fool who happened to be there at the wrong time.
But the exercise didn’t work. Both he and Lachlan were drenched in sweat, their arms hurting. Brice’s shoulder ached like the devil, and he was fairly certain that the wound was bleeding, but he cared not. He bent over, placed his hands on his knees, and breathed deep.
“Can I ask what that was all about?” Lachlan said between breaths. “No’ that I mind the extra practice.”
Brice straightened and walked to the fence where he’d tossed his shirt. He wiped his face and looked toward the sea that battered the back of the castle. “I know ye do no’ like her,” he said.
Lachlan held up a hand. “I’ll admit that to be the truth at the beginning. And it wasn’t that I didn’t like her. It was that I didn’t trust her. She’s English. But when I saw her take charge of everyone in that great hall when ye were brought in with yer injury, my mind was changed. She was magnificent, Brice. She saved yer life, and for that I will forever be grateful to her.”
Brice looked at his friend in a new light. Lachlan held strong convictions; Brice had heard Lachlan admit he was wrong only a few times. This was a monumental moment. “She was magnificent?” he asked with a smile.
Lachlan nodded. “Very.”
