Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Elspeth expected the morning after her wedding night to feel different…
more ruined, perhaps, more tragic and more suitable for poetry written by women who stared wistfully from towers and died before supper.
Instead, she woke with her body wholly intact, her dignity somewhat bruised, and a strip of linen still clutched in one hand.
For several minutes, she lay still and stared at it. Then she turned her head. Laird MacKenzie was already awake.
He was sitting near the window, half-dressed, sharpening a small blade with slow, even strokes.
Morning light cut across his face, finding every stern angle and leaving the rest in shadow.
He did not look like a man who had spent the previous night laughing at his wife’s preparations for terror.
He looked like a man who never laughed at his life and might punish anyone who suggested otherwise.
Elspeth sat up, pulling the covers to her chest. “Have ye been sitting there watching me sleep?”
His gaze did not lift from the blade. “Nay.”
She narrowed her eyes. “That was too quick.”
“I was watching the door.”
“That is also unsettling.”
Now he looked at her. One dark brow rose. “Would ye prefer I watched ye?”
Heat climbed into her face before she could command it away. “I would prefer ye turned intae a crow and flew out the window.”
His mouth moved. Then he stood and she remembered, most inconveniently, that the man had a body under all that severity, a body she had seen too much of by the loch, and too little of in the dark, and far too much of in her thoughts since.
He tossed the blade onto the table. “Dress. We go tae breakfast.”
“Oh, dae we?” she asked. “How graciously phrased. I hoped marriage might include invitations rather than military summons.”
“It may, when yer husband has married a woman capable of obeying a simple one.”
Elspeth climbed from the bed with as much dignity as she could manage while searching for her slippers. “Then I pity ye, for ye have clearly chosen poorly.”
“Aye,” he said dryly. “I begin tae suspect as much.”
Skye came in soon after, carrying a gown of deep blue wool and a face full of questions she dared not ask while Colin remained in the room.
Elspeth permitted herself to be dressed, pinned, laced, and inspected, though every tug of the bodice reminded her that she was not a guest in this castle. She was its lady.
His lady.
The thought sat badly with her.
When she was ready, Colin offered his arm. Elspeth looked at it.
“Must I?”
“Aye.”
Elspeth sighed, then placed her hand upon his arm.
“There,” she said. “Dae try nae tae become unbearable from triumph.”
“I was unbearable long before ye came.”
She almost smirked. “At last, a confession.”
They left the chamber and entered the corridor.
The castle seemed different by daylight.
At night it was all shadow, fire, and stone.
Now, pale morning spread through narrow windows, touching tapestries faded by age and carved doors darkened by generations of hands.
Servants dipped their heads as they passed.
Some glanced at Elspeth with curiosity, some with suspicion.
Elspeth lifted her chin. They should.
They turned into a broader passage hung with portraits. Men and women of the MacKenzie line watched from the walls, stern-faced and richly dressed, each one looking as though they had been painted while displeased by the artist’s very breathing.
Elspeth slowed despite herself. One portrait in particular caught her eye.
It was larger than the others and set in a heavy dark frame.
The man within it stood with one hand resting upon the hilt of a sword.
He had black hair, hard eyes, and a mouth shaped for command rather than kindness.
His face was older than Colin’s, rougher at the edges, but the likeness was unmistakable.
Elspeth glanced from the painting to the man beside her.
“Oh,” she said before sense could stop her. “Ye look exactly like him.”
The change was instant. Colin’s arm hardened beneath her fingers, as if flesh had become stone by force of will. The air around him seemed to close. The little warmth that existed between them, if it could be called warmth and not simply the remains of last night’s strange truce, vanished.
“Dae I?” he asked.
The words were quiet.
Elspeth’s fingers loosened against his sleeve. “I only meant—”
“I ken what ye meant.”
There was no anger in his voice, and that made it worse. Anger she could answer. Anger she could meet with her own and feel armed. This was a door being shut while she still stood on the threshold.
She looked again at the portrait.
“Is he yer faither?”
Colin’s jaw moved once. “Aye.”
Something in that single word warned her away. She heard it as clearly as if he had drawn a blade and laid it between them.
But because she was Elspeth Fraser, and because warnings never suited her well, she added more softly. “I didnae mean insult.”
His gaze turned on her then. For a heartbeat she saw something beneath the coldness, something buried so deeply it had grown teeth in the dark. Then, it was gone.
“Come,” he urged.
The word was not rough, but it carried no patience. He began walking, and because her hand still rested upon his arm, Elspeth had to follow or be dragged like an unruly child. Pride made her keep pace.
Ahead, the noise of the hall grew louder: voices, dishes, benches shifting, the ordinary sounds of people beginning a day. But Elspeth barely heard them.
She glanced once over her shoulder. The painted man watched from his frame, dark-eyed and severe.
Colin’s father.
Colin’s likeness.
Colin’s wound, though she did not yet know how or why.
When she looked back at her husband, his face had become the same kind of portrait: handsome, distant, and impossible to touch.
Elspeth tightened her fingers lightly around his arm. He did not look at her. And by the time they entered the hall, the man who laughed in the dark over her strip of linen was gone entirely.
Colin had never cared for portraits. Dead men looked better in frames than they had in life. Paint softened cruelty, gave dignity to pride, and permitted a monster to hang upon a wall in velvet and be called ancestor.
He sat with Elspeth at breakfast with a rudeness sharp enough that even Murdoch looked at him twice, which was saying something, for Murdoch considered civility a decorative weakness. Colin ate little, spoke less, and returned to his study before the hall emptied.
Now, he was standing before the narrow window with a report in his hand and saw none of the words upon it.
Ye look exactly like him.
Elspeth didn’t know where she had struck. That was the worst of it. Had she meant to wound him, he might have admired the accuracy. But she had spoken with curiosity, nothing more. She glanced between him and the painted devil upon the wall and found the resemblance plain.
So had everyone else, all his life. He had his father’s eyes, his father’s jaw, and his father’s temper. It was something folk whispered when Colin was not meant to hear, as if blood were a chain and a son only a ghost waiting to repeat the sins of the man before him.
At that moment, a knock came. He did not answer. The door opened anyway, which meant it was either Breac, who knew better and cared little, or Murdoch, who knew better and cared less.
Breac entered.
Colin turned from the window. “What?”
Breac’s expression told him before his mouth did.
All private anger vanished. Colin set the crumpled paper down with careful control. “Speak.”
“One of the border guards is dead.”
The room seemed to narrow around the words.
“Who?”
“Alasdair Macrae.”
Colin’s jaw tightened. Alasdair was young and newlywed, with a wife who looked at him as though the sun rose upon his command. Even worse, they had a child due before winter.
“How?”
“Throat cut. Found near the eastern ridge by the birch line.”
“Raid?”
“Nay cattle taken. Nay goods touched.”
Colin’s gaze sharpened. “Then it wasnae theft.”
“Nay.”
Colin moved, reaching for his sword where it leaned against the wall. “Who found him?”
“Fergus and Tam.”
“Send word tae Alasdair’s wife before rumor reaches her.”
Breac nodded once. “Aye.”
“Send Morag. She has sense enough tae speak gently and strength enough tae stay after.”
“I’ll see it done.”
“His funeral is tae be arranged at once. Full honors. His widow is tae have coin from me purse, nae from household accounts. Food, firewood, whatever she needs. The widow and child will never beg under me roof or on me land.”
Breac’s face softened by the smallest degree. “I kent ye would say it.”
“Then why are ye still standing here?”
“Because I also ken ye would ride before hearing the rest.”
Colin’s fingers closed around the sword belt. “There is more?”
“Tracks. More than one man. Murdoch says at least six, perhaps eight. They crossed in and out near the ridge. The rain muddied some of it, but nae all.”
Colin buckled his belt.
Breac watched him. “If they entered the land—”
“They have.” Colin reached for his cloak. “Gather Murdoch and twelve men, but dae it quietly. I want nay panic in the castle.”
He fastened the clasp.
“Ye will stay here.”
Breac’s brow lifted. “I am more useful at the border.”
“Ye are more useful here.”
Understanding moved across Breac’s face. “Fer her.”
“Fer the castle,” Colin corrected.
Breac, wisely, did not smile. “Aye. The castle.”
“If any stranger comes through the gates, hold him. If any servant behaves oddly, watch him. Nay one leaves without yer permission. Nay one enters without mine.”
“And Lady Elspeth?”
Colin looked toward the door, as if she might be standing beyond it with some insolent remark prepared to make him regret every order he had ever given.
“She is nae tae wander alone.”
Breac’s mouth twitched. “Have ye told her that?”
“Nay.”
“Then I wish ye courage.”
Colin gave him a flat look.
Breac was on the verge of chuckling. “I’ll keep watch.”
Within minutes the courtyard filled with controlled movement. Men tightened straps, checked blades, and murmured to one another in low voices. Colin crossed the stones with Murdoch at his side, and the dark mood that had plagued him since morning sharpened into something cleaner.
This he understood, the idea of an enemy bold enough to step onto his land. There was no confusion in that, only threat and answer.
Murdoch swung into his saddle. “Munro?”
“Likely.”
“Could be a trap.”
“It is certainly a message.”
“And if it is meant tae draw ye out?”
Colin mounted. “Then we will disappoint them by surviving.”
They rode hard. The eastern ridge lay where the land rose rough and stony before dropping toward a thin stretch of birch and pine. Mist clung low among the trees when they arrived, and the air smelled of wet earth, old leaves, and blood not yet fully washed away.
Colin dismounted before the horse had quite settled.
They had moved Alasdair’s body already, but the ground remembered.
Dark stains marked the grass near the rocks.
Broken bracken showed where a struggle took place.
Colin crouched, touched the earth, and felt cold settle into his bones with a steadiness more dangerous than rage.
Alasdair had drawn his blade. There were marks enough for that. He had fought, one man against many.
Murdoch crouched beside him. “He didnae die easy.”
“Nay.”
It was a foolish comfort perhaps, that he had died fighting, but a comfort all the same.
Colin rose and glanced at the treeline. “Show me the tracks.”
Murdoch led him toward the birches. The signs were there: a snapped twig too high for deer, mud pressed beneath boot heels and crushed moss where men had passed with haste.
Colin followed the trail with a hunter’s patience, saying little.
His men spread behind him, silent and grim. At the ridge, the tracks divided.
“They came in here,” Murdoch pointed with the edge of his blade. “Four, maybe five. Others waited lower.”
“And left that way.” Colin turned toward the west. “Toward the old burn.”
“Aye.”
“Then they kent the land.”
Murdoch’s expression hardened. “Or someone told them.”
Colin looked back toward the castle, though it could not be seen from here.
Enemy men had crossed his border. A guard had been murdered.
It wasn’t done for cattle or for coin, but for warning, for proof that his walls were not as safe as he wished and for the pleasure of making him look toward every shadow and wonder what waited inside it.
He thought of Elspeth. His wife had been in his castle less than two days. Already death had followed her there.
Nay, he corrected himself coldly. Nae her. Me.
This was his blood feud, his enemy, his shadow. She had been dragged into it by bargain and vows and his own hand around her wrist before a priest. And he was his father’s son, bringing another woman into danger.
The thought cut. Colin let it. Then he turned it into anger.
“Search everything,” he ordered. “The ridge, the burn, the old hunting paths. Pairs only. Nay man goes alone. If ye find a stranger, dinnae kill him unless he gives ye cause. I want tongues more than corpses.”
Murdoch nodded and began signaling the men. Colin looked once more at the blood-dark grass.
“Send two men farther north,” he continued. “If this was only one breach, I want proof. If it was nae, I want more found before nightfall.”
“Aye, me laird.”
The men moved out, vanishing between trees and mist. Colin remained where he was for a moment, listening to the land, to the wind through birch leaves and the distant water over stone.
The attack at the cathedral had already been bold. This had followed.
Robert Munro, or whoever wore his hatred, had not finished.
Colin drew his sword and stepped into the trees.
Let him begin, then.
Colin would finish it.