Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Elspeth tied the bandage with more force than charity required.
Colin did not flinch, which annoyed her.
She hadn’t meant to hurt him, at least, not seriously, but some small, wicked part of her would have been gratified had he shown the least sign that she was capable of leaving a mark upon him just as he had left a mark upon her.
“There,” she said, releasing his hand. “Ye may continue bleeding through it if ye wish, but I have done what civilization demands.”
He looked down at the bandage, then at her. “Me thanks.”
“Keep them. I didnae tend ye fer gratitude.”
“Nay?”
“I did it because infection is unpleasant, and I have had enough unpleasantness fer one day.”
The fire cracked between them. Its small light trembled over his face, catching the severe line of his jaw and the blood she had not quite managed to wash from beneath one fingernail. He sat too still, as if the woods, the danger, and her fury were all things he could outwait.
Elspeth hated his stillness. It made her feel the disorder of herself more keenly.
She folded the stained cloth in her lap. “When?”
His gaze sharpened. “When what?”
“When did ye buy me?”
The words fell into the little camp with a vulgar weight.
Buy.
It was such an ugly word, a market word, a word for cattle, grain, land, swords, not daughters, not for women standing unsuspecting in ivory silk while their mothers wept.
Colin’s expression changed by almost nothing, and yet she saw that he understood.
“A week ago.”
Elspeth stared at him.
“At the Masquerade?” she asked, though she already knew.
“Aye.”
“But there were nay women there this time.”
“Nay.”
“Because of what happened last year,” she spoke slowly. “Because men made a contest of a bride and nearly turned ceremony intae bloodshed.”
His jaw tightened. “The Crown thought it… cleaner.”
“Cleaner,” she repeated.
The word nearly made her laugh. She looked down at her hands, at the half-moons of dirt beneath nails that had been clean that morning. “How tidy of them tae keep the women absent while men arranged what should become of them. This way, there arenae tears or refusals.”
“Elspeth—”
“Dinnae say me name as if it belongs tae ye.”
Silence struck harder than any reply.
She lifted her eyes. “Why me?”
For the first time, Colin looked away. The answer came before he spoke. It came in the heaviness of his mouth and way his wounded hand closed once and opened again.
“Yer faither owed the Crown a blood debt.”
The fire gave a soft, hungry snap.
“A man died under Fraser protection. There were accusations, witnesses. The matter could have cost him lands, perhaps more.”
“So he offered me.”
Colin did not soften it. “Aye.”
Elspeth felt something inside her go cold and clear.
Her father had not merely hidden the marriage.
He had not merely bartered her future for alliance, advantage, or pride.
He had used her to pay for blood. She had been placed upon a scale, weighed against a dead man and her father’s convenience, and found sufficient.
“And the Crown accepted,” she whispered.
“They demanded a bride in payment.”
A strange calm came over her. It frightened her more than tears would have done. Tears belonged to wounds that still expected comfort. This felt older, deeper, a door closing in a house she had once believed her own.
“Me maither kent,” she said.
Colin’s eyes returned to her.
“She kent and could dae naething. He held her wrist in the church. I saw it.” Her voice trembled then, and she despised the sound. “I said the vows because he was hurting her.”
“I saw.”
“Then why did ye nae stop it?”
The question left her like a blade. Colin took it without movement. Outside their small circle of firelight, the trees whispered in the damp wind. Water moved in the dark, cold and ceaseless, as if it had no patience for human grief.
“I didnae ken enough then,” he admitted.
“Ye kent enough tae finish the ceremony.”
His silence was answer enough. Elspeth rose, because if she remained near him she would either strike him or weep, and she preferred he be denied the satisfaction of both.
The ruined silk of her gown dragged at the moss.
She knew that she looked absurd, a bride in wilderness, married by force, tending the wound of the man who had taken her.
“I will never fergive ye,” she hissed through clenched teeth.
His face revealed nothing, but something in his eyes went still.
“Fer buying me, fer carrying me away, fer letting that priest call me wife when I had been told naething.” Her throat tightened, but she forced the words through. “But most of all, Colin MacKenzie, I will never forgive ye for taking me from that church before I kent if me maither was safe.”
He stood then, and his height seemed to fill the small space between fire and trees.
“I had tae get ye out.”
“And I had tae ken if she lived.”
“She was standing when we left.”
“Standing isnae safe,” Elspeth whispered. “Nae with him.”
For once, he had no answer. That should have satisfied her. It did not.
She turned away before her face could betray her, wrapping her arms around herself against the cold. Behind her, Colin remained silent, and she hated him for that, too. She hated that his silence did not feel empty, but burdened.
The bandage she had tied showed pale against his wounded hand. Elspeth wished she had made the knot tighter.
Elspeth had never before considered a tree branch to be an article of feminine defense, but necessity, she was discovering, had very poor taste.
She found it near the edge of the water, half-hidden in moss, stout enough to bruise and long enough to give her courage where courage was otherwise in short supply.
By the time Colin entered the tent, ducking beneath the low flap with his shoulders too broad for the small space and his expression too unreadable for her comfort, she had both hands closed around it.
He stopped. His gaze travelled from her face to the branch, then back again. For several heartbeats, neither of them spoke.
“If ye even think,” she warned, lifting the branch between them, “of consummating this marriage, I shall prove ye arenae the only frightening-looking person in this tent.”
Colin looked at the branch once more. “Is that so?”
“Aye.”
“It is a fine weapon.”
Had he smiled, Elspeth thought she might have struck him at once, if only to teach him the danger of amusement in the presence of a woman whose wedding day had included abduction, bloodshed, and outdoor lodging.
But he did not mock her. That unsettled her more.
He crouched inside the tent, careful not to come closer than he had to.
The fire outside threw a dim amber glow through the canvas, touching the hard line of his cheek and the dark fall of his hair.
His eyes were steady upon hers, and though there was something like amusement buried there, it did not reach for her fear. It did not make sport of it.
“I willnae take ye in the middle of the woods while we are being hunted,” he revealed.
Elspeth’s grip tightened. “How noble. Shall I embroider it upon a pillow?”
“Nay.”
“Good. I am out of thread.”
His gaze dipped briefly to her hands. “Ye can lower the branch.”
“I am content with its present height.”
“Elspeth.”
Her name in his voice made the small tent feel smaller. She hated that. She hated the warmth that went through her at the sound, hated the memory of his body behind hers on the horse, hated that his nearness seemed to press upon her even when he did not touch her.
“I said,” she replied, “I am content.”
He held her gaze a moment longer, then nodded as if the matter were settled by her will and not his patience. Without another word, he moved to the far side of the tent and lowered himself onto one of the blankets.
Elspeth did not move at once. It was an absurd tableau: a bride in torn silk, guarding her virtue with a branch against a husband with blood on his sleeve, lying down as calmly as if this were any ordinary wedding night.
The absurdity should have comforted her.
Instead, it made the terror beneath it seem sharper.
At last, slowly, she lowered the branch. Not entirely, only enough that her arms ceased to ache.
Colin noticed. He said nothing. She lay down as far from him as the tent allowed, which was not nearly far enough.
She arranged her skirts with violent care, placed the branch within reach, and turned her back to him.
The canvas above her stirred in the night wind.
Beyond it, the wilderness breathed and whispered and clicked with a thousand unseen lives.
Something rustled. Elspeth’s eyes opened. A branch scraped outside. Her heart leapt. A bird cried in a sound that was ugly and sudden. She sat halfway up before she could stop herself.
“It is only the woods,” Colin assured her quietly.
“I didnae ask.”
“Nay.”
Silence.
Then, from behind her, his voice came more softly. “Would ye feel safer if I came nearer?”
Elspeth went very still. The answer rose in her before pride could kill it.
Aye.
The word shocked her so deeply that she almost spoke the opposite with too much force.
“Nay.”
“Elspeth—”
“Nay,” she repeated. “I wouldnae feel safer with ye nearer. I would feel crowded.”
“We wouldnae want that.”
“We wouldnae.”
She lay down again, feeling her cheeks hot in the dark.
The branch remained beneath her hand. For a long while, she listened to him breathing steadily behind her, as though sleep were another thing that obeyed him.
She refused to be comforted by it. She refused to let the measured sound become a barrier between herself and all those rustling leaves.
Yet, gradually, exhaustion crept over her like mist. Her thoughts loosened.
Her fingers slackened around the branch.
The burn outside murmured over stones. The scent of damp earth, smoke, pine, and Colin’s leather cloak blurred together, and despite terror, rage, and every excellent reason to remain awake, Elspeth slept.
Then, she woke with his weight over her.
Panic struck before thought. A hard hand covered her mouth, sealing the cry in her throat.
His body pressed hers down with unyielding necessity.
In the blackness, she knew only the size of him, the heat, the terrible strength, and for one wild moment, every warning her mother had given her returned with such force that Elspeth began to fight.
His mouth came close to her ear.
“Quiet,” he whispered. “Someone is outside.”
The words cut through terror. Elspeth froze. Only then did she hear it. It wasn’t the ordinary murmur of trees, the water, or the settling fire. It was a footstep, soft, careful and too deliberate to belong to any fox or bird.
Colin lifted his hand a fraction from her mouth. His weight eased, though he did not move away entirely.
“Dinnae scream,” he breathed.
She shook her head once. His hand left her. Cold air touched her lips where his palm had been. She hated that she noticed.
Colin reached beside the blankets and placed something into her hand.
A dirk.
The hilt settled against her palm with a familiarity she had not meant him to see. His eyes narrowed faintly in the dark. Elspeth closed her fingers around it.
“If anything goes wrong,” he whispered, “ye run for the burn. Follow it east until ye reach the road. Dae ye understand?”
She nodded.
“Dinnae wait fer me.”
That, strangely, angered her more than the danger.
“Hold the blade low,” he murmured. “Strike up if ye must.”
“I ken.”
His gaze sharpened again, but there was no time for questions.
Another sound came from outside, nearer now.
Colin moved toward the tent flap without another word, silent as a shadow despite his size.
Elspeth remained where she was, with one hand gripping the dirk, and the other reaching blindly until her fingers found the branch.
A blade in one hand and a stick in the other… it was not how she had imagined her wedding night.
But then, Elspeth thought, staring into the dark after her husband, very little about marriage had proved as advertised.