Page 97 of Sutherland's Secret
Eleanor took a step back, allowing him to breathe a little easier, but the look in her eyes didn’t put him at ease. “You come from gentry,” she said. “You’re the fourth son.”
He looked down at her in surprise. How did she know?
She smiled but it wasn’t a friendly smile. “Lord Glendale told me about you. He admired you. Said you worked hard and that your father, not that well off, scraped the money together for your commission. Charles thought that was admirable. But it wasn’t enough, was it?” she asked softly. “You wanted more. You wanted Charles’s position. Being a colonel would elevate you, but even that wasn’t enough. You wanted to open doors for yourself. It’s understandable,” she said in a soft voice that almost convinced him that she truly did understand. “What was a fourth son good for besides the military? But if you could step out of the gentry and into the nobility, you could be someone of importance. My family was to help you with that. Am I right, Colonel?”
Blackwood was breathing hard, feeling it all crumbling away from him, all his dreams and aspirations. “You have no idea,” he burst out, seeing only her and the possibilities she could have brought him. “Without the army, I had nothing. What was I going to do when the army was finished with me? Return to my father a failure?”
“So you kill Charles and take over his life?” She placed a hand on his arm and looked at him.
He shook her hand off his arm. “Yes! No. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. You pretend to understand, but you understand nothing, my lady. You don’t know what it’s like to be hungry because your parents had too many children. To know that nothing trickles down to you and that you have to fight for everything.”
He grabbed her arm, and Sutherland moved so quickly that Blackwood had no time to retreat. His hands were yanked behind him, and a fatally sharp dagger was pressed into the soft part of his neck.
“Ye do no’ touch the lady,” a deep voice growled in his ear.
“My apologies,” Blackwood said, breathing shallowly for fear the dagger would prick him.
“Admit ye killed her Charles.”
“Lord Dornach,” Cumberland said in warning.
Good God, this man was a lord? He appeared to be something out of the stories told to frighten children into doing what their parents wanted them to do.
“Brice,” Eleanor said, her eyes round with fright.
Campbell, still leaning against the wall, seemed to smile, and Scarbrough gaped at Brice. “I’m fair weary of hearing his tall tales. We’ve heard nothing but lies come from the man. Tell the truth,” Brice growled.
Cumberland came around his desk and stood before them. “Did you falsify the papers that accused Lord Glendale of being a traitor?” he asked.
Blackwood’s eyes darted around the room. There seemed to be no help from any quarter, no possible way to escape the strength of the Highlander who held him captive. He sagged in the Highlander’s hold and the dagger drew blood. He felt it roll down his neck and onto his shirt. “Yes.”
—
Eleanor’s chin came up. Tears pushed against the back of her eyes, making Blackwood blurry.
“Release him, Brice.”
Brice hesitated, his startled gaze going to her. It wouldn’t do for a Highland chief to kill an English colonel, no matter what kind of a snake he was.
Brice stepped away but stood at the ready, watching her warily as she stepped closer to Blackwood. “Say it again,” she said between clenched teeth. “Tell me again that you had my husband murdered.”
He glared at her, his usually perfect hair mussed and blood dripping on his shirt. Those cold, dead eyes stared at her as his jaw worked, and the anger she’d been holding back erupted. Before she knew what she was about, she’d slapped him so hard that his head jerked sideways and a red handprint appeared on his cheek. He turned his face back to her, the glare intensified.
“Tell me,” she said.
“I had him killed.”
“Tell me you falsified those charges. I want to hear it.”
“Eleanor—”
She cut off Brice’s warning with a slice of her hand through the air. She’d waited so long to hear this. All those weeks in the prison wondering, doubting her own husband.
“Say it,” she yelled, making Blackwood jump.
“I falsified the charges of treason.” He bit out each word, but she didn’t care. She’d heard what she wanted, and she stepped back.
“I want something in writing. I want Charles’s name cleared,” she said to the room.
