Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Colin had ridden out before noon and no one told her why. That was, perhaps, the most insulting part. She had been bought, married, stolen, installed in a castle, stared at over breakfast, and then left behind like a piece of troublesome furniture while men went off to do things.
Skye was brushing out one of Elspeth’s gowns by the window when Elspeth finally rose from the chair.
“I need paper.”
Skye looked up at once. “Fer what?”
“Tae write.”
“Tae whom?”
Elspeth gave her a flat look. “The King, naturally. I shall complain that me barbarian husband is insufficiently communicative.”
Skye’s mouth twitched. “Then ye’ll need more paper.”
Despite herself, Elspeth almost smiled. But the ache beneath her breast was too heavy for amusement. All morning, her thoughts had returned to one image, and that was her mother at the cathedral door, pale and unsteady, vanishing behind smoke, shouting, and men’s bodies.
Skye brought paper, ink, and a quill to the small table. Elspeth sat. For several breaths, she only stared at the blank page. Then, she started writing.
Tae Lady Morven Fraser,
Her hand paused. Not Mother. If her father opened it, and of course he would, if it reached him first, she would not give him the softness of that word. He had already taken enough.
She dipped the quill again.
I am alive and presently at Castle MacKenzie. I wasnae harmed during the attack at the cathedral.
That was true enough, if harm meant blood. If harm meant being torn from one’s life, sold by one’s father, and carried into a marriage one had not chosen, then the sentence was a lie large enough to shame the paper.
She continued anyway.
I saw ye near the doors before we fled. I dinnae ken whether ye were injured, and nay one here has yet been able tae tell me what became of ye after I was taken away.
I ask ye, if this letter reaches ye, tae send word at once.
Nae through Faither, if it can be helped.
Tell me in yer own hand whether ye are safe.
Her vision blurred. Elspeth stopped writing and blinked hard, furious with herself.
She would not cry over her father. She would not waste tears on the man who dressed betrayal in ivory silk and walked her to an altar as if delivering goods already paid for.
Her anger toward him was a clean thing, bright-edged and easy to hold.
But her mother complicated everything… her mother, with trembling hands, whispering terrible advice because terrible knowledge was all she had been given, her mother, looking at her as if apology had no language large enough.
Elspeth swallowed and wrote on.
I am angry with Faither beyond anything I can set sensibly upon a page. If he reads this, then let him read it. I ken what was done. I ken I wasnae told. I ken I was given as payment fer a debt I didnae make.
The quill scratched harder.
I dinnae forgive him.
There. Let him choke on it if he wished.
Skye shifted softly behind her, but did not speak.
Elspeth drew a slower breath.
But ye, Maither, I need tae ken ye are safe. Whatever passed before, whatever ye couldnae say, whatever ye feared, send me only that truth. Are ye alive? Are ye hurt? Are ye watched? If there is any way fer ye tae write without Faither’s hand upon the words, dae it.
She hesitated, then added:
I am frightened fer ye.
The confession looked small on the page, almost childish. She hated it. She also could not strike it out.
She signed her name before courage deserted her.
Elspeth MacKenzie.
The name stopped her.
MacKenzie.
Her hand tightened around the quill until her fingers ached.
She was still angry at Colin. She was angry for the bargain and for the way he had gone cold that morning over a portrait and left her standing before a wall full of ghosts.
But when she thought of the moment he refused to let her run back into chaos, with his arm iron around her waist, and his voice saying I dae, anger did not stand alone. It had unwelcome company.
Elspeth folded the letter before she could think better of it and sealed it with plain wax.
“Find someone trustworthy,” she told Skye.
She pressed her hand against the cold glass as she watched the girl cross the courtyard.
“Let it reach her,” she whispered.
Not her father, not the family who stood by and watched, not the man who bought her and then rode away to whatever danger no one would explain to her.
Her mother.
If there was any mercy left in the road between them, let it carry the truth back.
Colin returned to the castle with blood in his thoughts and headed to the gardens as soon as he was told that Elspeth was there… alone.
The gardens lay behind the western wall, protected enough in peaceful years to be treated as part of the house.
These were not peaceful years. They were barely peaceful hours.
A murdered guard lay cold, enemy tracks marked MacKenzie soil, and Elspeth Fraser…
no, Elspeth MacKenzie, curse the name and the trouble it brought him, decided to wander where hedges, walls, and shadows could hide a blade.
He found her at the far end, near the old yew walk.
“Elspeth.”
She turned. The moment she saw his face, her own expression sharpened.
“Ah,” she said. “The storm has returned wearing boots.”
“What are ye daeing here?”
“Standing. It is a skill I mastered some years ago, though I thank ye fer yer concern.”
His temper, already frayed, snapped tight. “Dae ye have any sense at all?”
Her brows lifted. “Good afternoon tae ye as well.”
“Ye are alone at the farthest end of the gardens after a guard was murdered at me border.”
The color shifted in her face. “A guard was murdered?”
“Aye.”
“And ye thought the clever course was tae tell me by shouting at me among shrubbery?”
“I thought ye smarter than this.”
The words landed. He saw them strike because her chin lifted half an inch, and her eyes went cold in a way that had nothing to do with him and everything to do with wounds made before he knew her.
“I see,” she said softly.
Colin’s jaw tightened. He meant to frighten sense into her, not wound her. There was a difference, though he was learning he had a poor grasp of it where she was concerned.
“Ye shouldnae be alone.”
“And ye shouldnae use me as a wall upon which tae throw whatever black mood ye brought home.”
“This isnae mood. This is danger.”
“Nay,” she corrected, taking one step toward him. “Danger is outside the walls, if I understand ye correctly. This is temper.”
“Elspeth—”
“Dinnae speak tae me as though I am a foolish child because ye failed tae catch whoever made ye angry.”
He moved closer. “Men entered me land. They slit the throat of one of me guards and vanished. I dinnae yet ken whether they remain hidden nearby or have gone. And ye wandered tae the one place in this castle where a person might come upon ye before anyone heard ye scream.”
She stared at him, and for a moment he thought he had finally reached her fear. Then, she smiled. It was not a comforting sight.
“Is that what worries ye, husband?” she asked. “That I might be unsafe? Perhaps if ye had warned me before leaving, I would nae have wandered out here.”
He should have heard the warning in her tone. He did hear it. He simply did not expect what came next.
Elspeth stepped past him as if turning away in offended dignity.
Colin allowed it because he was a fool for exactly one heartbeat.
In the next, he felt the whisper of movement behind him and the unmistakable touch of a small blade placed with alarming precision at the most vulnerable part of his future. He went very still.
Elspeth’s voice came from behind his shoulder, bright with satisfaction. “I am safe enough.”
Colin looked down without moving his head. The point of her little dirk rested where no man wished a blade to rest.
“Elspeth.”
“Aye?”
“Move that.”
“I thought ye wanted proof of me sense.”
“This isnae sense.”
“This is a demonstration.”
“It is a threat.”
“Only if ye make sudden movements.”
Despite himself, despite the ridge and the blood and the dark fury twisting through him, he almost wanted to laugh out loud. Again. What was it with her?
He kept his voice calm. “Where did ye learn tae hold a blade?”
“Wouldnae ye like tae ken.”
“I would, aye.”
“Then perhaps ye should ask politely rather than accusing me of stupidity in a garden.”
He smiled then. She could not see it, which was fortunate for them both.
A moment later, Colin moved. He caught her wrist, turned beneath her arm, and stripped the dirk from her grasp before she had managed more than an indignant gasp.
She was quicker than he expected. She twisted away, reaching for his throat with her free hand as if she meant to claw sense from him.
He caught that wrist, too, swept one foot behind her ankle, and took her to the ground with enough care to save her skull and enough force to steal her breath.
She landed beneath him in the damp grass. Her own dirk rested lightly beneath her chin. Colin braced himself over her, with one knee between her skirts and one hand pinning her wrist above her head. Her eyes were wide now with fury so bright he could have warmed his hands by it.
“Ye underestimate yer enemy,” he murmured.
Her chest rose against his. “And ye underestimate yer wife.”
Something in the word moved through him.
Wife.
It had sounded absurd in the cathedral. Dangerous in their chamber. Here, beneath him in the wet grass, with her hair loosening and her pulse beating hard in her throat, it sounded like a challenge.
His gaze dropped to her mouth… a mistake.
Her knee moved. Colin had half a breath to realize her intention before pain exploded through him with such clean, intimate violence that all thought fled. He rolled away with a strangled curse.
Elspeth scrambled up at once, snatching her skirts clear of his boots. She stood over him, breathing hard and looking entirely too pleased with herself.
“Did I underestimate that?”
Colin curled slightly on his side and fought to breathe like a man who had not just been unmanned by his bride in a flower garden.
Then, he pushed himself upright with great effort and less dignity.
Elspeth watched him, with suspicion and concern warring upon her face. The concern irritated him more.
“The guard,” she said more quietly. “Who was he?”
Colin rose, though every instinct below his belt protested the act. “Alasdair Macrae.”
Her expression changed. The sharpness remained, but it made room for sorrow.
“Was he young?”
“Aye.”
“Family?”
“A wife, newlyweds. A child coming.”
The garden seemed to still around them.
Elspeth looked away toward the hills she had been watching before he arrived. “I am sorry.”
He expected another barb. He almost wished for one. Her softness was less easily answered.
“So am I,” he nodded.
For several moments, neither spoke.
Then Elspeth looked back at him. “That is why ye were cruel.”
His eyes narrowed. “I wasnae cruel.”
“Ye were rude.”
“I am often rude.”
“Aye, but this time there was purpose in it.”
Colin stared at her. She did not look away.
It unsettled him, the way she sometimes saw too much while knowing too little.
She had no understanding of Robert Munro, of his father, of the blood-soaked path beneath Colin’s name.
Yet she could look at him after one sharp exchange and find the hidden bruise beneath the armor.
It made him want to step closer. It made him want to send her back inside and lock every door between them. He chose anger because it was simpler.
“Where did ye learn to fight?”
Elspeth’s mouth pressed together. He took one step toward her. She took one step back, but not from fear, rather from readiness.
Interesting.
“Who taught ye?”
For once, her answer came without jest. “A soldier in me faither’s household. His name was Malcolm.”
“A lover?”
Her eyes flashed. “Nay.”
The sharpness of his own reaction annoyed him before the word had even finished leaving his mouth.
Elspeth folded her arms. “He was older than me. Like a brither, if I had possessed one worth keeping. I was curious, and he was foolish enough tae indulge me. I hid from me faither and learned when I could.”
“Did Fraser ken?”
“If he had, Malcolm would have been dismissed… or worse.”
“Then Malcolm was a fool.”
“He was kind.”
The word had weight when she said it. Colin understood then that kindness, in Thomas Fraser’s house, had been its own form of rebellion.
He looked at her hands, fine-boned, pale, made for embroidery perhaps, or writing letters, or slapping men who deserved it. Yet she had held the dirk well. Not perfectly, but well enough to surprise him.
“Show me,” he said. “What he taught ye.”
“Why?”
“So I ken whether ye are dangerous or merely theatrical.”
Her smile returned slowly. “I can be both.”
He tossed the dirk back to her, hilt first. She caught it. The movement pleased him more than it ought.
Elspeth looked from the blade to him. “Are ye certain ye wish to place another weapon in me hand so soon?”
“Nay.”
“Yet ye did.”
“I am kent fer courage.”
“I thought it was barbarism.”
“There is an overlap.”
She laughed before she could stop herself. It was quick, bright, and gone almost at once. But Colin heard it, and something in his chest, still tight from death and anger, loosened by a dangerous fraction.
He drew his own blade, shorter than his sword, longer than hers.
Elspeth’s eyes widened. “That is hardly fair.”
“Neither is battle.”
“Neither is marriage, apparently.”
His mouth curved. “Then ye should be well practiced.”