Highland Surrender

by Dawn Halliday

  The gentlemen excused her, and shortly afterward, Elizabeth lay rigid in bed, eyes closed. She tried not to shake, tried not to imagine the forthcoming punishment.

  Please let Uncle Walter come in alone. Please let him give me one more chance. If he comes alone, I shall never speak to Ceana MacNab for the rest of my life. I swear it.

  As she did each time she’d earned a punishment, her mind filtered through her options. Could she go to someone? Cam? Explain everything to him? What then? He’d approach her uncle, who would convince Cam of his innocence. Uncle Walter was a duke, above reproach.

  The last time she’d trusted someone enough to ask for help—her governess—the woman had believed her uncle when he said she’d been altered by the deaths of her parents. They’d threatened her with Bedlam. For so long, people had looked at her with pity in their eyes. It had taken years to undo the rumors that she’d gone mad.

  Perhaps she could run away. She’d escaped from Purefoy Abbey on one occasion, when her uncle had gone to fetch Bitsy for a punishment. Uncle Walter had forgotten all about Bitsy until his men had found Elizabeth shivering in a nearby abandoned barn the following afternoon. She’d learned two important lessons as a result of that ordeal. The first was that if she wasn’t present, her uncle had no reason to abuse Bitsy, and her maid would be safe. The second was that when Elizabeth returned, the repercussions would be severe.

  She couldn’t run away. Where would she go, and what would she do? She didn’t know the Highlands well enough, and if she was found, she didn’t doubt that the reprisal to Bitsy would be more than either of them could bear.

  Hopeless options still tumbled about in her mind until the clock struck one and Uncle Walter opened the door. “Are you awake, Lizzy?”

  She couldn’t summon the voice to answer.

  He entered her room, and relief coursed through Elizabeth, for he was alone and empty-handed. But the relief turned into ice-cold panic when wavering candlelight came into view behind him.

  “No,” she whispered.

  “You leave me no choice.” He sounded tired. “You will never learn.”

  Bitsy appeared at the door, holding the flickering candle, her face sallow behind the yellow light. “You should beat me, Uncle,” Elizabeth said breathlessly. “Please. Beat me instead. Perhaps then I will learn.”

  He sighed. “I wish I could, but you know the many reasons why I cannot. You’re to be married in less than a month. We can’t have you unable to sit at your own wedding feast, now, can we?”

  Bitsy set the candle on the table beside the door and stood just inside with her arms clasped behind her back, staring at the floor.

  This couldn’t be happening. Panic surged through Elizabeth as she looked desperately from the windows to the door. “Please . . .”

  She couldn’t scream, couldn’t fight. She’d tried both before, and to punish her for being difficult, he’d made it worse for Bitsy.

  All she could do was watch. She slid her gaze to her maid, who stood still, her thin body vibrating like a plucked violin string.

  “Go to the bed,” Uncle Walter ordered, not deigning to look at the frightened woman.

  Mechanically, keeping her gaze averted from Elizabeth, Bitsy walked to the bed. She lay on her stomach beside Elizabeth, hitching up her skirts until she revealed her pale, bare buttocks.

  A small whimper leaked from Elizabeth’s throat, and she looked away.

  “Pay attention,” he snapped.

  Her eyes watered. Streams of liquid rolled down her cheeks. “Please,” she whispered.

  “Quiet!” He strode to the side of the bed and shoved Bitsy’s skirt higher up her back. “Your mistress has been disobedient again, girl, so you must take another punishment for her.”

  Elizabeth choked back a sob. “No!”

  “You defied me, Elizabeth. After I warned you, very clearly, against doing so.”

  Uncle Walter’s reptilian eyes flicked to Elizabeth, ensuring she watched. She was well trained by now. Knew that she must observe every moment, every detail. She must follow the rules he’d laid out at the beginning, or he would make it worse.

  “How many strokes? Ten?” He shook his head gravely. “No, twenty. I think twenty will do it.”

  Elizabeth released a low sound of disagreement and shook her head vehemently. The last punishment she’d received was at Purefoy Abbey a year ago. He’d caught her sneaking into the village to deliver a satchel of stolen books from his library to a boy who wanted to learn how to read. Twenty strokes. It was the harshest beating to date. Bitsy wouldn’t sit for days.

  He pulled his paddle from an inside pocket of his coat. It was a long, narrow strip of wood that, when hit against flesh, made a thwack—a sound Elizabeth had grown to equate with suffering.

  Bitsy made a low murmur, anticipating the pain.

  “Be still, or I’ll make it thirty,” Uncle Walter commanded.

  When the first strike came down over her buttocks, the maid flinched and released a low, gravelly cry. Uncle Walter closed his hand over the top part of her skinny thigh and pinned her to the bed as he released another hard blow low on her back. Elizabeth watched, stoic, frozen, but a deep, dark emotion twisted inside her, scraping against all the shields she’d built to keep it contained.

  Blows rained down on her maid’s back, thighs, and buttocks. At five strokes, the pale flesh pinkened, and at ten, welts erupted over her skin. At fifteen strokes, blood streaked her buttocks, and she began to make sobbing noises that tore at Elizabeth’s chest.

  Elizabeth watched it all, her body quivering, the coverlet held to her throat.

  Since she’d arrived in the Highlands, she’d been lured by the promise of friendship, by the idea that she someday might belong, and that had begun to soften her. But she would never find that elusive happiness, acceptance, desire. She wrought only pain and suffering on others. She was a naive fool to have forgotten it.

  Her uncle finally stopped. Mottled red spots covered his face, and sweat beaded on his forehead. His close-cropped graying hair stood up in sparse, damp spikes over his head.

  He leaned down over Bitsy and gave her his standard warning. “You speak of this to anyone, and the pain you feel now will be merely a soft caress. Do you understand?”

  The steely hardness of his tone made it clear that he did not exaggerate. Elizabeth wondered why he bothered with his warning. Bitsy believed every word Uncle Walter told her, and she had never dared to speak to anyone of the beatings. Elizabeth knew that some of the servants at Purefoy Abbey had suspected what was happening, and she’d noted their special kindness to the withdrawn maidservant, but still Bitsy never talked.

  He shoved the paddle back into his coat. Elizabeth didn’t watch him leave. Instead she scrambled off the bed, only a dim part of her brain registering the door clicking shut behind her uncle.

  She reached down and touched Bitsy’s cheek. “Stay there. Don’t move.”

  Long ago, she’d bribed one of the older housemaids at Purefoy Abbey to give her a gallon of the soothing unguent the woman had once made for her brother when he’d fallen and scraped his knee. As a child, Elizabeth had seen the sweet-smelling concoction as a miracle cure, because his tears had turned to smiles and he’d jumped out of her lap and continued running about the countryside, with Elizabeth and their nurse trailing behind him.

  I’m sorry, Bitsy. And William, and Mama and Papa. I’m so, so sorry . . .

  Now all that was left of the unguent fit into a small jar. Elizabeth stumbled to her dressing table, finding the bottle where she kept it among her lotions and perfumes. Removing the stopper, she returned to Bitsy, who still lay on her stomach on the bed, unmoving but for her chattering teeth.

  Elizabeth swallowed. “I’m sorry, Bitsy.”

  Bitsy stared at her with blank eyes. There was no pain, no anger. Just a dark, fathomless blankness.

  Biting her lip hard enough to draw blood, Elizabeth smoothed the medicine over the hot, flame-red marks on her serv
ant’s backside.

  Her fingernail scraped the bottom of the little unguent bottle. Irrational panic bubbled up within Elizabeth. What would she do the next time this happened? She’d have nothing with which to help Bitsy.

  Impulsively, she jumped off the bed and returned to her dressing table to open the single drawer. She removed the smallest of the jewelry boxes, the one containing her mother’s diamonds.

  She returned to the bed, carrying the box. “Bitsy, look at me,” she commanded. “Look here.”

  Slowly, Bitsy’s eyes came to focus on her.

  Elizabeth opened the lid and tilted the box so that Bitsy could see the contents. “I want you to take these. I want you to run away.”

  Some life flared into Bitsy’s eyes. “No.” Her voice was a harsh croak. “No, milady.”

  “He hurts you . . .”

  “If I weren’t here, he’d hurt you. Or someone else.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes stung. “I don’t care.” For goodness’ sake, she wanted Uncle Walter to hurt her. It would be far less painful than being responsible for someone else’s suffering.

  “I won’t go.”

  “Please, Bitsy. Please. I cannot bear to watch him do this to you again.”

  Bitsy closed her eyes. “There is nowhere for me to go.”

  Elizabeth remembered Gràinne, the mountain, how all the women there had rallied around her. If Bitsy told them her story, they’d protect her as well. She knew they would. “I know where you can go.”

  “He will be gone soon.”

  But that didn’t satisfy Elizabeth. She knew herself. She knew her uncle. He’d executed tonight’s punishment with more glee—and more might—than usual. For some reason, his desire to punish her had increased with their imminent separation. He was searching for a reason to punish her. And she couldn’t promise she could prevent him from finding another reason. She didn’t trust Uncle Walter. Worse, she didn’t trust herself.

  “Very well.” She sighed and replaced the lid. “The offer shall remain open. If this happens again . . .” She took a gulping breath. “I fear for your safety, do you understand?”

  “I will be all right,” Bitsy said tonelessly.

  “You take the diamonds if you like. Anytime. You know where I keep them.”

  “I shan’t be needing them.”

  Elizabeth shook her head, and as she gently tugged down her maid’s skirts, she recited precise directions to the mountain.

  A loud, hollow noise resonated downstairs. Rob leaped to his feet, dirk in hand, before he registered that someone was banging at the door to the stables, which he’d bolted before going to bed.

  Gripping the dirk, he took the stairs three at a time and threw open the door, convinced someone had come to tell him disgruntled Jacobites had finally killed the Earl of Camdonn.

  Instead, with her golden hair falling over shoulders covered only by the material of a thin shift, the future wife of the earl stood before him. Elizabeth’s blue eyes were wide, and her shoulders shuddered beneath the thin linen.

  Rob glanced beyond her into the empty courtyard, then at the darkened windows of the keep. He took her hand to pull her out of the way of curious eyes and shut the door behind them before relocking it.

  He clasped her upper arms. “Why are you here? What happened?”

  “I . . . I . . .”

  She buried her face in her hands and burst into tears.

  Rob gathered her close and lifted her in his arms. She grasped his shirt and turned her face, weeping into his shoulder as he carried her. Once upstairs, he gently set her down on the sofa.

  Her sobs subsided as he added peat to the fire, and he felt her eyes coming to focus on him. Already abed when she’d knocked, he wore only a linen shirt that covered him to midthigh.

  He glanced at her over his shoulder, then rose and went to sit beside her. Her tears had turned silent, but they still coursed down her cheeks in two clear streaks.

  He wished he could kiss them away. Kiss that haughty look back onto her face.

  Pulling her against him, he reached up to stroke her hair. “What happened?”

  “I . . . cannot tell you.”

  “You can tell me anything.”

  Still, she didn’t speak.

  “What was it? Was it the earl?” Goddamn. He stiffened all over but tried not to let her see it. Despite everything, despite his increasing trust and confidence in the earl, he’d kill Cam if he had anything to do with these tears.

  “No.” She gulped. “Not Cam.”

  Her fingers curled over his arms and gripped the backs of his shoulders, and she burrowed into his chest. Rob shifted, pulling her more fully onto his lap. She seemed to take comfort from his touch, so he wrapped one arm tightly around her while continuing to stroke her hair with his other hand. After just a few seconds, his cock was so tight and hot, he thought he might explode beneath her.

  Hell—this wasn’t the time or place for that. He shifted to adjust himself, then ground his teeth and tried to ignore it.

  “Who, then, Elizabeth?” he gritted out. “Who has made you cry?”

  Her fingers tightened over his shoulders, and she looked up at him with glassy blue eyes that widened when she saw the rage in his own. “You mustn’t say or do anything, Rob,” she said in a hushed, urgent voice. “Please. Swear it. I don’t want you in the middle of this. He’s too . . . too powerful.”

  Those final words melted his confusion.

  “Your uncle,” Rob said flatly.

  Pressing her lips together, she turned her face to the fire.

  Rob continued grazing her hair with his fingertips, but inside him a battle raged. What had the man done to her?

  God, how could he promise to separate himself from this when she’d chosen him as the man to reveal her sorrow to? Not Cam. It should have been Cam. Yet the thought of thrusting her off his lap and taking her to her betrothed made nausea swirl in his gut. He held her more tightly.

  “I’ll take care of it,” he said quietly.

  She whipped her face around so fast, a strand of blond hair stung his cheek. “No!”

  “What did he do to you?”

  “You are just a stable master. If you face him, you will not win. He’ll crush you.”

  “I am no weakling.”

  “You’re just a servant.”

  “I’m more than that.”

  She laughed bitterly. “I might know that. I see the strength in you. But to the Duke of Irvington, you’re no more important than a gnat.”

  “I’m the Earl of Camdonn’s brother!”

  He blinked in surprise at his outburst, and his eyes stung. He quickly looked away from her in an attempt to regain his composure.

  “You’re . . . you’re Cam’s brother?”

  He clenched his teeth. What in hell had possessed him to blurt out the truth?

  It was her. She weakened him. Her vulnerability brought out his own.

  “What? How? Does he know?” she said softly.

  “No.”

  It took her several moments to absorb this. “How can he not know?” She gazed up at him, her teary eyes thoughtful. “That is why your father resented you. The earl and your mother . . .”

  Rob nodded briskly. “Aye. He never forgave her. Or me.”

  “I should have known,” she murmured. “You are so like him.”

  He stiffened further. “What do you mean?”

  “You remind me of Cam in many ways. You . . . you have the same mannerisms. The same hands.”

  Rob was silent. Too many unfamiliar feelings tumbled within him. He’d never before revealed his true parentage to anyone.

  “Why haven’t you told Cam?”

  He shrugged. “He hasn’t been here to tell. He’s spent most of his time in England.”

  Rob had come to Camdonn Castle seven years ago in hopes of learning more about his father and only brother. He’d remained in the shadows, never approaching the old earl, just watching and learning. The truth of it was, wh
en Rob was younger, his da had said the Earl of Camdonn would never accept him as his own. He’d said Rob belonged to no one.

  Upon meeting the earl, he quickly realized it was true. The late Earl of Camdonn was a dour man, a hard man who’d brought only misery to those around him. He’d never have accepted Rob as his son. As the years went by, Rob’s disenchantment had grown, and by the time Cam returned home after his father’s death, Rob had little desire to reveal their bond.

  Despite his resentment and despite his status as a bastard—and an unknown one at that—Rob had remained quietly steadfast first to the old earl and then to Cam. They were his family, even if they didn’t know it.

  A tear slipped down Elizabeth’s cheek, and he brushed it away with his thumb.

  “It’s all so unfair,” she whispered.

  “What is?”

  “Your life. My life. Bitsy . . .”

  “Bitsy?”

  “My lady’s maid. Uncle Walter . . . He . . . he beats her when I displease him.”

  He pulled back from her in disbelief. “Why?”

  “He is determined that I shall remain untouched. She has always borne my punishments for me. And each time it happens, something in me dies a little more.”

  Rob sat stunned. “Elizabeth . . .”

  “No.” Desperation brimmed in her blue eyes before she looked away from him to burrow into his chest again. “Please. Please, Rob, just hold me. You make me feel so safe. When you touch me everything is pure and white, and I am safe from my own horrid self. Everyone is safe. Everything will be all right.”

  He closed his eyes. Bending his head, he pressed a gentle kiss to the top of her head.

  “Very well,” he murmured. “I will hold you.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Cam stared into the face of one of his tenants. Bram MacGregor was angry; that much was clear. The man was itching for a fight.

  Cam leaned back on his chair and stared up at the burly man prowling his study, plaid swishing over his hairy legs with every long stride. Robert MacLean stood by the door, his eyes wary and alert as he watched the proceedings, and Cam’s young factor, Charles Stewart, stood near Cam’s desk. Before he’d left Scotland last year, Cam had taken on Charles, who was Sorcha’s brother, as his new factor. Though young, the boy was quick-witted, and since his father had served in the capacity before him, he’d adapted to the duties easily.