Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Skye knew something had happened even before Elspeth spoke. This was partly because she possessed the instincts of a suspicious hound and partly because Elspeth had spent the better part of breakfast staring into a cup she had forgotten to drink.
“Well?” Skye demanded.
Elspeth looked up. “Well what?”
“Ye have smiled at that tea three times.”
“I have done nay such thing.”
“Four, now.”
Elspeth set the cup down with dignity. It was difficult to appear dignified when her face had become unreasonably warm.
Skye was seated opposite her near the chamber fire, folded her hands, and waited. Elspeth endured the silence for nearly ten seconds.
“Colin told me about his maither,” she revealed.
Skye’s expression softened at once. The words came slowly at first. Elspeth explained how she had found Colin in the dungeon, how he had asked whether she feared him, and how astonished he had looked when she had said no.
She told Skye about the blood upon his hands and the way he permitted her to wash it away, though receiving kindness seemed to cause him greater discomfort than any wound.
Then she told her about his father.
“He was only a boy,” Elspeth whispered. “He saw what was done tae her, and all his life people have looked at him as though cruelty might be inherited like land.”
Skye’s eyes filled with sorrow. “Poor man.”
“Aye.”
Elspeth looked toward the bed. The curtains remained half drawn. The linen had been changed, but the room still seemed altered by what had passed there. She remembered Colin’s face when he finally spoke of his pain. The coldness had not vanished. It merely opened enough to show her what it guarded.
“He is different when he allows himself tae feel,” Elspeth continued. “Nae softer, precisely. Colin MacKenzie could make tenderness sound like a military order. But there was something in him…”
She stopped.
Skye tilted her head. “Something?”
Elspeth folded her hands in her lap.
She told Skye the rest in a voice that grew quieter with every sentence. She admitted that she had asked Colin to make her truly his wife. She spoke of his patience, his care, and the way he watched her as though her trust were more precious than anything he possessed.
Skye’s mouth slowly opened. “Ye asked him?”
“Aye.”
“After all yer threats?”
“I reserve the right tae revise me opinion when presented with new evidence.”
“And was the evidence convincing?”
“Skye!”
Her maid laughed, but the sound held no mockery. She reached across the space between them and took Elspeth’s hand.
“Were ye happy?”
Elspeth meant to answer at once. Instead, she thought of Colin bending to kiss the wound at her ribs. She remembered his fierce promise that no one would hurt her again, and the still more dangerous gentleness with which he had held her afterward.
She remembered how afraid he had been that she might see a monster when she looked at him, and how impossible it had seemed to see anything but a man who had spent his whole life protecting others from the darkness he feared within himself.
“Aye,” she whispered. “I was.”
The truth settled quietly inside her. It was no longer merely desire, though desire remained. It was not curiosity, gratitude, or the confusion of a woman whose husband had proved different from every warning she had received.
She cared whether Colin slept, whether his wounds healed, whether he stood alone before his father’s memory and believed himself condemned by it.
His pain hurt her. His rare laughter warmed her. His life had become necessary to the shape of her own.
Elspeth drew in a startled breath. “Oh.”
Skye watched her carefully. “What is it?”
Elspeth looked toward the door, as though Colin might enter and discover the truth upon her face.
“I… dinnae ken how tae say it,” she smiled, feeling her cheeks warm up.
Skye returned the smile. “I think I ken what ye mean tae say, so ye decide whether ye wish tae keep it a secret, even from yerself.”
“I couldnae even if I wanted tae,” Elspeth pressed her hand to her heart. “Skye, I… I think I love him.”
The words frightened her more than the dungeon had.
Skye’s hand tightened around hers. Elspeth stared at the closed door, her heart beating with the dreadful certainty of a woman who had finally understood herself.
She loved Colin MacKenzie.
And she had not the faintest idea what she was meant to do about it.
The attackers had entered through the northern ridge.
Colin knew it before Murdoch dismounted.
The ground there fell sharply between two walls of dark rock, forming a narrow passage hidden by heather, thorn, and low pine.
From the main road, it appeared impassable.
From within the hills, it offered a clear descent toward the village without forcing a rider into open ground.
Breac crouched beside a patch of churned earth and pressed two fingers into the mud.
“Six horses,” he pointed out. “Perhaps more. The rain has spoiled part of the trail.”
Murdoch led his horse farther beneath the trees, following broken stems and the faint scars left by hooves upon exposed roots.
“They waited here,” he called out. “Long enough fer the horses tae trample the ground.”
Colin remained in the saddle and studied the ridge.
The morning wind carried the smell of wet soil, pine resin, and heather bruised beneath careless boots.
Below them, his lands stretched beneath a grey sky: scattered cottages, fields divided by stone walls, cattle moving slowly through pale grass, and the distant dark shape of the castle upon its rise.
It was everything Robert wished to take from him, everything Colin had promised to protect.
He dismounted and walked the length of the passage. Near the lower slope, he found the remains of a branch cut cleanly rather than broken. Someone had cleared enough of the path for mounted men to pass quickly.
“They kent the land,” Colin concluded.
Breac rose, wiping mud from his hand. “Or someone showed them.”
Murdoch looked toward the castle. “Dae ye think it could have been a villager?”
“Nae necessarily,” Colin answered. “It easily could have been a trader, a servant or a man who rode these hills years ago. Robert daesnae need loyalty. Only coin, fear, or resentment.”
The possibility followed Colin all the way back.
Before noon, he returned to the ridge with four trusted men. Two were ordered to remain concealed above the passage, where they could see anyone approaching through the hills. The others would watch the lower descent and change positions after dark.
“I want nay fire,” Colin instructed. “And nay banners. Make nay sound unless ye must. Any rider who approaches is stopped before he reaches the trees.”
“And if he refuses?” one man asked.
Colin looked into the narrow passage. “Then he daesnae leave.”
The men nodded. Only when every position had been chosen did Colin ride back to the castle.
His shoulder ached beneath the bandage, each movement of the horse pulling at the wound. He ignored it. Pain was presently less troublesome than thought.
In his study, letters waited beneath his hand like smaller weapons.
He wrote first to Niall, then Domhnall and Ruaridh.
He asked for men, information, and any whisper of Robert Munro’s movements.
He described the prisoner’s confession and warned them that Robert no longer intended a single attack.
He meant to destroy the clan slowly, striking families, guards, tenants, and anyone whose death might cause Colin suffering.
He did not write Elspeth’s name until the final paragraph. Even then, the ink seemed darker upon the page.
Robert intended to kill her first.
Colin stared at the words before forcing himself to continue. His friends needed to understand the danger. He could not protect her by hiding the truth from men that could help him.
The following letter to the Crown was colder. He described the attack on the feast, the prisoner’s confession, and the newly discovered passage through the ridge. He requested soldiers and demanded that Robert’s threat be treated as more than merely an old quarrel between Highland families.
This was no longer vengeance spoken over whisky or carried in private letters. Robert had attacked women, children, and unarmed villagers. The Crown could either act before more blood was spilled or explain afterward why it had chosen silence.
When the final seal cooled, Breac was already standing near the door.
“Ye think they will come?”
Colin nodded without hesitation. “Me friends will.”
“And the Crown?”
Colin looked down at the royal letter. “They will come when caution begins tae resemble cowardice.”
Breac’s mouth tightened. “That may take them longer than we possess.”
“Aye.”
Colin handed the messages to three waiting riders. Each man carried a second horse and orders to avoid the main roads, where possible. By sunset, they were gone in three directions.
Colin remained at the window, watching until the last rider vanished beyond the darkening hills. Below, guards crossed the courtyard in pairs. Torches were being lit along the walls, one flame after another answering the approaching night.
Robert was searching for a way into Colin’s lands. He had found a passage. But he would not find it unguarded again.