Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Elspeth went to the kitchen with excellent intentions.
She had a purpose. Several purposes, in fact.
She meant to speak to the cook about oatcakes, broth, roasted meat, and whether sweetened apples might be managed without offending the present shortage of provisions.
She meant to be useful, sensible, composed, and entirely occupied with matters of food.
Then she passed the lower courtyard and Colin ruined everything by not wearing a shirt.
Elspeth stopped. Her feet simply refused to continue, because his shirt lay discarded over a barrel. That was her first observation. Her second was that no man had any business looking so severe while half-undressed.
He held a practice blade in one hand and moved with a speed that made his size seem suddenly unfair. Sweat gleamed across his shoulders and chest. His dark hair had fallen loose around his face, and each strike made the muscles in his arms and back shift in a way that made Elspeth’s breath catch.
A woman ought to be warned before encountering such things.
One of the men lunged. Colin turned, caught the blow, and drove him back with a force that sent mud spraying beneath their boots.
Another came at his side. Colin ducked, twisted, and struck the man’s ribs with the flat of his blade.
The man cursed. Colin did not smile. He only gestured for the next to come.
Elspeth swallowed. She was not admiring him. She was observing.
A lady might observe her husband’s form in combat for reasons of safety.
It was practical to know whether he could defend the castle, or himself, or, if necessary, her.
The fact that his skin was damp and golden in the light, and that his shoulders looked as if they had been built by a particularly ambitious sculptor, was entirely incidental.
Unfortunately, her body seemed not to understand incidental. Warmth rose beneath her bodice.
Colin turned suddenly, catching another strike before it reached him. His gaze swept the courtyard and found her. Elspeth froze. His expression did not change at first. Then, slowly, wickedly, the corner of his mouth lifted.
Oh, nay.
He said something to the men. They stepped back and then, Colin crossed the courtyard toward her, still shirtless, still holding the practice blade, still possessing far too much chest for civilized conversation.
“Me lady,” he greeted her.
Elspeth lifted her chin. “Me laird.”
His gaze moved over her face. “Lost?”
“Nay.”
“Then ye meant tae stand here.”
“I was passing.”
“Fer some time.”
“I walk slowly when thinking.”
“About what?”
“Food.”
His eyes gleamed. “Food.”
“Aye. The feast. A subject of great importance, though I can see ye prefer tae occupy yerself with striking men until they regret rising from bed.”
“They need practice.”
“So dae manners, yet I see nay one training those.”
A laugh sounded from somewhere behind Colin. He turned his head slightly. The laugh died at once. Elspeth felt a dangerous satisfaction.
Then Colin stepped closer, and satisfaction became much harder to maintain. He smelled of sweat, leather, sun-warmed skin, and the faint bite of steel.
It was not gentlemanly. It was not proper. It should not have appealed to her. It did.
His eyes lowered briefly to her throat, where her pulse had, quite without permission, begun behaving dramatically.
“Ye were staring,” he said.
“I certainly wasnae.”
“Nay?”
“I was assessing.”
“What?”
“Whether ye were likely tae survive yer own arrogance.”
“And?”
She looked deliberately past him toward the men. “The matter remains uncertain.”
His mouth curved further. “Ye watch me fight fer that?”
“I watch all manner of unpleasant things. Yesterday I watched a storehouse burn.”
The amusement in his face faded, and she regretted the words at once, though she meant only to deflect him. For a heartbeat, the smoke seemed to return between them.
Then Colin looked back at her. “The feast preparations?”
“That is where I was going before I was interrupted by public indecency.”
He glanced down at himself as if only just recalling the absence of his shirt. “Daes this offend ye?”
“Deeply.”
“Ye look wounded.”
“I am. In me standards.”
His eyes warmed again. “Shall I fetch me shirt tae ease them?”
“Aye,” she said quickly.
He leaned one shoulder against the stone arch, close enough that she could see a thin scar near his collarbone and a small bruise darkening along his ribs. Her fingers twitched before she caught herself.
“Ye could turn away,” he suggested with a smirk.
“I could.”
“Yet ye dinnae.”
“I am waiting fer ye tae move.”
“I am nae in yer path.”
“Ye are in me patience.”
“That must be a crowded place.”
Elspeth narrowed her eyes. “Has anyone ever told ye that ye are insufferable?”
“Several times.”
His gaze dropped to her mouth. The air changed at once.
It was absurd how quickly it happened. One moment they were trading insults in broad daylight with men nearby and servants passing through the yard.
The next, she was thinking of the garden, his kiss, the tree at her back, and his voice asking whether she wished him to explain what her body did not understand.
She hated memory. It had no manners.
Colin’s voice lowered. “Ye are blushing.”
“I am warm.”
“It is cold.”
“Then I am ill.”
“With what?”
“Annoyance.”
His smile became almost dangerous. “I have noticed yer annoyance often makes ye look at me mouth.”
“I look at yer mouth because it says arrogant things. One watches an enemy’s weapon.”
“And me chest?”
Elspeth’s brain stopped. Unfortunately, her eyes betrayed her by flicking downward for the smallest, most ruinous instant. Colin saw and his satisfaction was intolerable. She gathered what remained of herself and stepped around him.
“I am needed in the kitchens.” She pointed at him. “And put on a shirt.”
His smile deepened. “As me lady commands.”
Elspeth turned before her face could reveal any further treachery and walked quickly toward the kitchen passage. She did not run. Running would suggest she was fleeing him, and she was not fleeing. She was proceeding with urgency.
She reached the kitchen door with her pulse still misbehaving and her thoughts in disgraceful disorder.
The cook looked up from a table of flour-dusted bowls. “Me lady?”
Elspeth took a steadying breath. “Apples.”
The cook blinked. “I beg yer pardon. Apples?”
“Fer the feast,” Elspeth said, far too firmly. “We must discuss apples at once.”
The cook studied her red face, then glanced through the open doorway toward the courtyard. A knowing look crossed her features.
Elspeth pointed at a sack on the table. “Nae one word.”
The cook lowered her eyes. “Of course, me lady.”
But Elspeth heard the smile in her voice and knew with deep irritation that by supper half the castle would know she had gone to discuss apples and nearly perished of her husband’s chest.
Lachlan Kerr was awake when Colin entered the lower chamber. That was the first useful thing the man had done since being dragged from the village.
The room beneath the eastern tower wasn’t built for comfort.
Stone walls drank the torchlight and returned it dimly.
The air held the cold smell of damp earth, old iron, and fear.
Lachlan sat bound to a chair near the far wall, with his wrists tied before him, and one cheek bruised from where he had struck the mill.
Murdoch stood behind him. Breac waited near the door. Neither spoke when Colin entered.
Lachlan lifted his head. His eyes were bloodshot, but alert enough. Fear had woken him fully.
Colin stopped before him. “Who sent ye?”
The man swallowed. “Nay one.”
It was a poor beginning.
Colin looked at the burned edge of Lachlan’s sleeve. “Did ye set the fire?”
“Nay.”
“Were ye at the storehouse?”
“I came tae help.”
“With oil on yer sleeve?”
Lachlan’s mouth opened, then shut. Colin waited. Silence was a weapon if a man had patience enough to let another cut himself upon it.
“I found it that way,” Lachlan said at last.
Murdoch gave a short, disgusted sound.
Colin did not move. “Found what?”
“The oil, the fire. I saw smoke and ran. That is all.”
“Ye ran away from the fire. Nae towards it tae help, then.”
“I was afraid.”
“That,” Colin pointed out, “is the first honest word ye have spoken.”
Lachlan’s gaze flickered. There was something there. Nae loyalty, Colin thought, nor courage. Terror, certainly. But terror of whom? Him? Munro? Some other hand hidden behind the first two attacks?
Colin stepped closer.
“If ye ken anything, this is the moment tae decide whether silence will protect ye.”
Lachlan licked his cracked lips. “I dinnae ken anything.”
“Who paid ye?”
“Nay one.”
“Who told ye where the village stores were kept?”
“I said I dinnae—”
Colin struck the chair with one hand. The sound cracked through the chamber. Lachlan flinched so hard the ropes creaked.
Colin leaned over him, close enough to see the pulse hammering in the man’s throat. “Dinnae insult me with the same lie twice.”
For a moment, he thought the man might break. Lachlan’s face had gone gray and his eyes darted toward the door as if mercy might enter. Then his jaw tightened.
“I have naething tae say.”
Colin straightened. Someone had told Lachlan what to fear. Someone made silence seem safer than speech, even here, in a MacKenzie tower with Colin standing before him.
Interesting.
Murdoch shifted. “Let me have him.”
Lachlan went rigid.
Colin did not look away from the prisoner. “Nae… yet.”
Lachlan’s relief was small but visible.
Foolish man.
Colin saw it and almost smiled. Brutality had its uses, and men expected it from him.
They expected the Black Lord of the Passes to come with blade, fist, and blood.
Some men prepared themselves for pain and found pride in surviving the first blow.
Colin preferred not to grant a man the comfort of expectations.
“He eats,” Colin ordered.
Lachlan blinked. Breac’s gaze sharpened from near the door.
“Enough tae live,” Colin continued. “Nae enough tae mend. Water enough that he daesnae die of thirst. Broth thin enough that his belly remembers hunger. Nay fire near enough tae warm him fully. Nay company beyond guards who dinnae answer questions.”
The relief drained from Lachlan’s face.
“And when he decides that silence has nay reward, he will speak.”
Lachlan shook his head. “I dinnae ken anything.”
Colin looked back at him. “Then ye will have a dull few days proving it.”
The man’s lips trembled, whether from cold or fear, Colin did not care.
“Please.”
The word was small.
Colin stepped away. “Begging works better with truth attached.”
He turned toward Murdoch. “Two guards always. Change them often so none grows friendly or careless. If he sleeps, wake him before comfort finds him too deeply. If he speaks, I am told at once.”
Murdoch nodded, though disappointment still sat plainly on his face. “Aye.”
“And Murdoch.”
“Aye?”
“Nay marks unless I order them.”
Murdoch’s mouth flattened, but he obeyed. “Aye, me laird.”
Then he left the chamber. The door closed behind him with a heavy scrape of wood and iron. In the passage beyond, the air felt no warmer, but it was cleaner. Colin stood a moment beneath the torchlight, flexing his hand once, then stilling it.
He could have broken Lachlan quickly. Part of him wanted to. That was why he had not.
His father loved quick cruelty. It was the immediate satisfaction of pain given and power proven. Colin learned better, though some days he was uncertain whether better meant mercy or merely colder discipline.
Either way, Lachlan Kerr would speak. Sooner or later, hunger, fear, and loneliness would turn silence into a burden too heavy to carry.
And when it broke, Colin intended to be there to hear every word.