Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
By the time the sun stood properly above the hills, Elspeth decided there was far too much outdoors in the Highlands.
It rose around her in endless, unreasonable abundance of slopes of heather, damp stone, dark pines, distant mountains wearing mist like old ladies wore shawls.
The road became narrower, rougher, and far less respectful of her bones.
Every hour upon the horse taught her some new discomfort, and every hour pressed her back against Colin MacKenzie until propriety seemed less a rule of society than a luxury enjoyed by people who were not fleeing murderers.
Niall had ridden ahead some time before to watch the bend of the road, leaving her with Colin and the horse, neither of whom showed any tenderness toward her present suffering. Then, without warning, Colin drew the beast from the path toward a bright break in the trees.
“What are ye doing?” she demanded.
“Stopping.”
“I can see that. I object tae the practice of the word.”
He did not answer, which she had learned was a favorite masculine habit when a woman’s argument was inconveniently sensible.
The trees opened, and the loch appeared before them, lying blue and silver beneath the morning sun.
It was a beautiful place, which annoyed her at once.
Beauty had no business appearing when she was tired, frightened, bruised from the saddle, and married against her will to a man who looked as if he belonged in the sort of wild landscape that ate lesser men for breakfast.
Colin dismounted.
Elspeth remained seated, glaring down at him. “We are being hunted.”
“Aye.”
“We are on a road which may or may nae be safe.”
“Aye.”
“Me maither’s fate remains unknown.”
His expression altered, but only slightly. “Aye.”
“And yer conclusion, from these excellent reasons fer haste, is that we should admire water?”
“I am going fer a swim.”
For a moment, Elspeth believed she had misheard him. Then she saw his hand go to the fastening of his cloak.
“Nay,” she said.
He glanced up. “Nay?”
“Nay. It is a small word, but wonderfully clear. I recommend ye attend it.”
“I need tae wash.”
“Then wait until we reach a castle where washing is done behind doors, with basins, servants, and at least the smallest acquaintance with civilization.”
His mouth almost curved. “Ye are welcome tae remain mounted and offended.”
“I am nae offended.”
“Elspeth.”
“I am scandalized. There is a distinction.”
He removed his cloak. Elspeth sat very straight.
“Colin MacKenzie,” she said, in the voice her mother used upon servants, cousins, and disobedient dogs, “dinnae dare tae remove another article of clothing.”
He removed his belt. Her mouth fell open. She shut it at once.
“This isnae amusing.”
“I am nae laughing.”
“Nay. Ye are undressing with the solemnity of a priest, which is somehow worse.”
He bent to remove his boots, utterly untroubled by her horror. Sunlight struck the dark crown of his head and slid along the broad line of his shoulders when he pulled his shirt free. Elspeth looked away so quickly her neck protested.
She fixed her gaze upon a pine tree. It was, she told herself, an excellent pine tree: tall, green, respectable and entirely clothed.
Behind her came the quiet sounds of a man continuing, without shame or hesitation, to make himself unfit for female company.
“This is barbaric,” she announced to the pine.
“Then look elsewhere.”
“Ye vile man, I am looking elsewhere.”
A soft sound came from him. The knowledge that it was a near laugh brushed against her temper and made it flare.
She risked one glance, only to ensure he had not fallen, died, or done something else equally inconvenient, and instantly regretted her devotion to practical matters.
He was standing at the edge of the loch with his back half-turned, all hard lines and sun-warmed skin.
She had seen his chest the night before when she had tended to his wound, but there was a difference, an alarming and unforgivable difference, between a wounded man seated by firelight and this one standing in the open morning, unashamed as Adam before anyone had had the good sense to invent modesty.
Her breath caught. She turned her head away violently. Unfortunately, imagination proved almost as treacherous as sight.
There was the soft scrape of cloth, a brief silence and then, the splash of water. Elspeth closed her eyes. That was somehow worse. She opened them again and stared at the pine with renewed desperation.
The loch moved behind her in quiet strokes.
Colin swam as he did everything else, with a confidence that suggested the world had been made to bear his weight.
Water slid and broke around him. She could hear it lapping against his arms. She hated that she could picture it.
She hated that every small sound made awareness pass through her like heat beneath skin.
She had been taught many things suitable to a gentlewoman: how to walk, how to sit, how to lower her eyes without seeming dull, how to speak sharply enough to be admired but not so sharply as to alarm.
No one had taught her what to do when her unwanted husband stripped naked beside a Highland loch and expected her to endure the event without combustion.
She folded her hands very tightly in her lap.
“I hope the water is freezing,” she called out.
“It is.”
“Good.”
“It improves the blood.”
“I am delighted yer blood is receiving such advantage. Perhaps it will carry sense tae yer head.”
He laughed, openly and loud enough that the sound came across the water and settled, most unwelcome, in her stomach. Elspeth refused to smile.
A bird moved in the reeds. The horse lowered its head to graze. The world, traitor that it was, continued as if nothing improper were happening. She dared another look, meaning only to see whether he had finished.
He had not.
Colin was farther out now, cutting through the shining surface with long, easy movements. His dark head broke the silver water and droplets flashed around him like scattered glass. He seemed part of the place in a way she could never be: made for cold water, hard land, and danger beneath open sky.
Elspeth’s throat went dry. It was not admiration, she told herself. It was shock, a perfectly natural female shock at unexpected nakedness. Any woman might stare, in the same manner one stared at a lightning strike, a house fire, or a pig entering a ballroom.
Colin turned in the water. His eyes found her. Even from that distance she knew he had caught her looking. Elspeth immediately examined the reins.
“I was checking that ye hadnae drowned,” she explained hastily.
“Kind of ye.”
“It wasne kindness. Drowning would delay us.”
He floated for a moment, unbothered, the sun turning the water around him bright enough that she could pretend it hid what she had no intention of seeing. “Ye may swim, too, if ye like.”
The suggestion was so outrageous that she forgot to be flustered.
“I beg yer pardon?”
“The water is clean.”
“So is me dignity, despite yer repeated attempts upon it.”
“Suit yerself.”
“I always endeavor tae.”
He disappeared beneath the surface. Elspeth lurched forward before she could stop herself.
Then he rose again several yards away, pushing wet hair back from his face.
He looked younger for one dangerous instant, less severe, less like the man who had bought her, and more like a man who could laugh and breathe and feel cold water upon his skin without being made of stone.
The thought unsettled her more than his nakedness, because a monster, properly understood, could be hated cleanly.
Seeing him as a man was far less convenient.
She sat back, angry at herself, angry at him, angry at the sunlight for touching him with such generosity and angry at the loch for receiving him as if it had any right.
At last, Colin swam back toward the shore.
Elspeth turned away before he could rise from the water. “I shall face the trees until ye are decent.”
“I wouldnae hurry on me account.”
“I assure ye, naething in this world would persuade me nae tae hurry so I could see that sight.”
There was a pause.
Then, from behind her, his voice came lower and nearer than before. “Ye already did.”
Heat flooded her face. “I didnae.”
“Nay?”
“Nay.”
The rustle of cloth told her he had reached his clothes. She kept her gaze fixed so firmly ahead that the pine tree began to blur.
“I saw ye,” he told her playfully.
“Then yer eyesight is poor.”
“Me eyesight is excellent.”
“Then yer manners are poor.”
“That I will grant.”
His amusement was unbearable. Worse, it did not feel cruel. It moved around her like warmth from a fire she refused to approach.
She heard him dress at last. Each ordinary sound seemed indecent merely because she understood too well that it followed linen over wet skin, belt drawn through leather, and boots pulled on with efficient force. When he came to stand beside the horse, she allowed herself to look at him again.
His hair was wet. His face had been washed clean of road dust and blood. A drop of water slid from his jaw into the open throat of his shirt.
She lifted her chin with all the dignity available to a woman who had just been defeated by a droplet. “Are ye quite finished with this display of Highland madness?”
“For now.”
“How reassuring.”
He stepped closer and found himself on the horse behind her once again. She breathed carefully, refusing to admit that some part of her found the morning less horrifying than it ought to have been.
Colin knew, of course. Men like him always knew the wrong things.
As he gathered the reins, Elspeth looked once more at the loch, glittering innocently beneath the sun.
A wild countryside, she thought resentfully. A wild husband.
She would have to be very careful indeed.
By the time Colin MacKenzie’s castle rose out of the dusk, Elspeth was too tired to admire it properly. It stood upon a dark shoulder of land above the water, all stone, shadow, and narrow windows catching the last dull fire of evening.
Elspeth had imagined many endings to her wedding day. None included arriving at a stranger’s fortress––a day late––in a ruined bridal gown, with her hair half-fallen, her body bruised from riding, and her pride held together by such thin thread that one more kindness might undo it entirely.
Colin dismounted first. She was preparing to refuse his hand when a cry sounded from the steps.
“Lady Elspeth!”
She turned. For one stunned heartbeat, she did not believe what she saw. Then, Skye was running toward her, with her skirts lifted and her face pale with fright and relief.
“Skye,” Elspeth breathed.
The next moment, her maid had her arms around her. Elspeth clung back before dignity could object. The familiar smell of lavender soap and wool nearly broke her.
“I thought ye were dead,” Skye whispered.
“I considered it briefly,” Elspeth said, though her voice shook. “But I was too angry.”
Skye pulled back, her eyes wet. “They sent me ahead. Yer faither said ye would come after the wedding. I didnae ken—”
“Neither did I,” Elspeth said softly.
Colin stood nearby, silent as judgment. Elspeth did not look at him.
Skye seemed to understand enough not to ask more before witnesses. She took Elspeth’s cold hands and led her inside, through halls smelling of smoke, rushes, iron, and unfamiliar stone. At last, they reached a chamber where a fire had been lit and water set out.
Only then did Elspeth speak. The words came badly at first, then all at once. She told her everything about the false wedding, her mother’s face, her father’s grip, Colin at the altar, the men in black and the flight through rain and road and wilderness.
Skye listened with both hands over her mouth. When Elspeth finished, silence settled between them like dust after a collapse.
“I… I am afraid of taenight,” Elspeth confessed. “I dinnae trust him. I dinnae trust anyone here, but ye, dear Skye.”
She took her maid’s hands into her own and squeezed them lovingly. She hesitated, but then had to ask, feeling her stomach turn cold.
“Tell me what I need tae ken.”
“I dinnae ken much meself.” Skye swallowed. “Some women say… it hurts. Some bite cloth tae keep from screaming.”
The fire snapped. Elspeth looked toward the great bed. It was too large, too solid and too plainly made for a husband and wife. Her mother’s voice returned, thin and frightened: Lie still. Dinnae cry.
Elspeth’s hands curled into fists in her ruined silk.
Skye touched her arm. “Maybe he willnae—”
“He bought me,” Elspeth’s voice trembled. “Men dinnae buy things tae leave them untouched.”
Her own words terrified her, but she refused to let them tremble.
Other women survived wedding nights. Her mother had.
Countless wives endured what was required, then rose in the morning, dressed their hair, and carried on as if their bodies had not become countries conquered in the dark. Elspeth Fraser would do the same.
She lifted her chin.
“If he expects tears,” she said, “he shall be disappointed.”
Skye’s eyes filled again. “Lady Elspeth—”
“Nay.” Elspeth turned from the bed and began pulling pins from her hair with fingers that shook only a little. “I have been sold, married, hunted, and dragged across half of Scotland. I shall nae finish the day by giving Colin MacKenzie the satisfaction of kenning I am afraid.”
But when Skye came behind her and quietly loosened the torn veil from her hair, Elspeth closed her eyes, just for a moment, just long enough to be frightened where no one could see it.