Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Colin left Elspeth at the foot of the stair and did not look back. He had the sense that if he did, he would see her watching him with those fierce, wounded eyes, and the Council waiting below would receive a laird whose temper had already been placed too near an open flame.
She had arrived exhausted, half-frozen, and furious, with mud on her bridal gown and fear hidden so stubbornly beneath pride that only a fool would fail to see it. Colin was not a fool. He was, however, beginning to suspect he had been other things which were no better.
The council chamber was already filled when he entered.
Men were standing near the long table, with their faces turned toward the door.
Breac was nearest the hearth, broad-shouldered, quiet, and watchful in the manner of a man who wasted neither breath nor loyalty.
Murdoch stood by the far wall with his arms crossed, harder about the mouth, his temper more readily sharpened.
Both men had served him long enough to know when silence was wiser than greeting.
Colin took his place at the head of the table.
“The wedding was attacked before we cleared St. Andrews,” he announced.
Anger moved through the chamber at once. There was no surprise. That told him enough.
“How many?” Murdoch asked.
“Enough tae turn a cathedral intae a killing ground had they nae lost the advantage of surprise.”
“Whose men?”
Colin set both hands upon the table. The bandage Elspeth tied pulled tight across his knuckles.
“Robert Munro’s, most likely.”
The name struck like a flint in dry grass. Curses rose. One man spat into the rushes. Another crossed himself, though whether from piety or rage, Colin could not tell.
“Munro has wanted MacKenzie blood since before ye were born,” Breac reminded him.
“Aye,” Murdoch added. “And he has waited because he is a coward with patience, nae because hatred ever left him.”
Colin said nothing. He knew the story as well as any man in that room, though he never cared to hear it spoken.
Robert Munro had loved Colin’s mother before she became a MacKenzie.
He had loved her, desired her, and claimed in drunken rage that she had been stolen from him.
Colin’s father had married her instead, and what followed had been sung about in whispers for years by those foolish enough to enjoy tragedy at a distance.
His mother had gone into the MacKenzie keep a bride. She had died there a wife. And his father’s hands had not been clean.
“Munro blames this clan for her death,” one of the older men said. “He blames yer father. And after yer father, he blames ye.”
“He can come fer me, then,” Colin replied.
“He did,” Murdoch said. “Yesterday.”
“Nay,” Breac answered with a dark gaze. “Yesterday, he came fer more than Colin. He came fer the new marriage, the Crown’s witness, the strength this union gives us. He means tae strike before the clan settles around its lady.”
Its lady.
The words sat strangely in the room. Colin thought of Elspeth standing in the wilderness with a branch in hand, threatening his skull in a torn bridal gown.
He thought of her fingers cool against his wrist, of her face when she spoke of her mother, of the way she called him a thief without using the word.
“She is nae tae be touched,” he warned.
No one mistook his tone. Breac inclined his head. Murdoch’s eyes narrowed slightly, but not in objection, more in calculation.
“If Munro is behind it,” Murdoch continued, “he willnae stop at one failed attack. He will test the borders next. He will burn stores and cut throats.”
“He wants us suspicious and weak,” Breac nodded. “A young bride from a clan already tangled in Crown debt gives men something tae question.”
Colin’s jaw tightened. “Let them question me.”
“They will,” Murdoch replied. “Quietly.”
“Then they may learn quietly that I still hear well.”
That earned a grim silence. The fire hissed as damp wood surrendered to heat.
Rain tapped faintly against the shutters.
Colin looked at the faces around him and measured each fear beneath its anger.
These were not soft men. They had held passes in winter, buried sons, negotiated with wolves in human shape.
Yet Munro’s hatred was old enough to have become weather over their lives.
One of the older councilmen shifted. “Munro sees ye as yer faither, because ye are a spitting image of him.”
Colin went still. The chamber did the same.
The man seemed to realize his error too late, but pride made him continue badly. “I only mean… ye have his face, me laird. The same look. The same—”
“Enough.”
Colin felt the old coldness rise inside him, not sudden but familiar, like a door opening to a room he had sworn not to enter and yet knew by every stone.
His father’s face. His father’s temper. His father’s blood.
Men had been telling him of the resemblance since he was a boy, as if bone could pass guilt into flesh, as if a jawline were a prophecy.
He looked at the councilman until the man’s gaze fell.
“Me faither is dead,” Colin reminded them all. “Speak of threats that still breathe.”
Breac’s eyes had lowered, not in fear, but respect. Murdoch watched Colin closely, perhaps seeing more than he should. Colin disliked that. He disliked being known almost as much as he disliked being compared.
“Double the watches at the western pass,” he ordered. “Send riders tae the lower road and the ford. Nay man travels alone. Nay stranger enters the outer gate without being searched. I want names of every servant newly hired in the last year and every trader expected before market day.”
Breac nodded. “It will be done.”
“Murdoch, send word tae the villages, but dae it quietly.”
Murdoch pushed away from the wall. “And Munro?”
Colin looked toward the shuttered window, where the last of the day had gone black.
Munro had reached into a church on Colin’s wedding day.
He had sent blades among women, priests, Crown witnesses, and men who came unprepared for slaughter.
He had made Elspeth’s first hours as wife into a flight through blood and rain.
Colin closed his wounded hand. The bandage held.
“We gather proof,” he told them. “Then we decide whether Robert Munro reaches judgment by Crown road or Highland steel.”
A fierce approval moved through the room. Colin did not share it. His anger was colder than theirs and far more patient.
“Until then,” he added, “me wife is guarded as ye would guard me own blood.”
Breac looked up. Murdoch’s mouth shifted almost imperceptibly. Colin saw it and let the silence sharpen.
“Did I invite comment?” he asked.
“Nay,” Murdoch shook his head.
“Good.”
The meeting bent quickly after that toward practical matters: riders, food stores, gate rotations, messages, scouts. Colin answered each in turn, but part of him remained elsewhere, up the stairs, where Elspeth Fraser had been taken into a chamber that was now his by law and hers by misfortune.
When at last the Council began to disperse, Breac lingered.
“She has spirit,” he commented carefully.
Colin looked at him.
Breac did not retreat. “The lady. She looked ready tae bite the stone walls if they stared too long.”
Despite himself, Colin remembered blood on his lip and her furious eyes at the altar.
“She has already tried biting,” he mused, more to himself.
Murdoch, halfway to the door, paused. “And lived?”
Colin’s mouth almost moved. “So far.”
For one brief moment, something like grim amusement passed among the three men. Then it was gone, replaced by the weight of the night ahead.
Breac’s voice softened. “Munro will expect a frightened bride tae weaken ye.”
Colin looked down at the bandage again, at the knot Elspeth had tied too tightly, whether from anger or care he could not yet tell.
“He may find,” Colin added, “that me bride daesnae frighten easily.”
And for the first time since entering the chamber, the thought did not feel like a problem.
It felt like a warning.
Elspeth had just begun to believe hot water might restore her faith in living when the chamber door opened. The sound made her freeze.
For one blessed hour, the world had been reduced to steam, lavender soap, and the copper tub set before the fire.
Skye had gone to fetch fresh linen. The castle beyond the door quieted into distant voices and footfalls.
Elspeth sank beneath the water until it covered her shoulders, letting heat loosen the ache of saddle, fear, and humiliation from her limbs.
Then, Colin MacKenzie walked in. He stopped only because a slipper struck the door beside his head.
“Get out!”
Colin looked at the slipper, then at her.
Elspeth sank so swiftly that water slapped against the sides of the tub. “Get out, ye great unmannered ox!”
His gaze moved over the room, the tub, the steam, then returned to her face with a composure she found deeply offensive.
“This is me chamber.”
“It is presently me bath.”
“Aye. I see that.”
Another slipper flew. He caught this one. Elspeth gasped, which was unfortunate, as it lifted her higher in the water. She dropped again at once, with her arms crossed over herself beneath the surface, and her cheeks burning so hot the bath seemed cool by comparison.
“Dinnae look at me.”
“I am trying tae understand how many slippers ye possess.”
“Enough tae kill ye if Providence is kind.”
His mouth moved. She hated that almost most of all.
He closed the door behind him. Elspeth sat bolt upright, then remembered herself and plunged down again.
“Did ye nae understand the part where I ordered ye out?”
“I understood it.”
“Then obey it.”
“I rarely obey orders given by women attempting murder with footwear.”
She seized the nearest object, which happened to be a small cake of soap, and hurled it with all the force available to a wet and furious bather. Colin stepped aside. The soap struck the wall and slid down with a sad little sound.
“That was French soap,” she snapped. “Leave.”
He did not leave. Instead, he leaned one shoulder against the door as though they were discussing weather, tenants, or any ordinary matter that did not involve his wife naked in a bath with steam curling around her throat.
His wife.
The thought struck her with a shock almost as sharp as his entrance. She was his wife. The priest had said so. The Crown had witnessed it. This was his castle, his chamber, and by every law that had failed her, he had some right to stand where he stood.
Her arms tightened over her breasts beneath the water.
Colin’s eyes noticed the movement. They were dark, steady, and far too careful.
He did not leer. That somehow made it worse.
Colin looked at her as if he saw too much and chose, with effort, not to take more.
Heat rose under her skin for reasons that had nothing to do with the bath.
“Ye have nay right,” she said, though the words sounded less certain than she wished.
His gaze returned to her face. “Ye saw me naked by the loch.”
“That was an assault upon me peace, nae an invitation.”
“One might call this fairness.”
“One might, if one had been raised by wolves.”
This time his mouth most certainly curved.
Elspeth hated the warmth that moved through her at the sight.
She was aware of every inch of herself beneath the water: knees drawn up, hair pinned badly, damp curls clinging to her neck, the surface shifting with each unsteady breath.
She was aware, too, of his size near the door, the breadth of his shoulders, the memory of his bare chest in firelight and morning sun, and the way his attention seemed to touch what his hands did not.
“Turn around,” she demanded.
“Fer what purpose?”
“So I may climb from this tub and preserve what remains of me dignity.”
“After the slippers and the soap, dignity may require stronger assistance.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I can still scream.”
“Aye. And every servant in the corridor will come running tae find their new lady in her bath and their laird defending himself from household items.”
Elspeth opened her mouth, then closed it.
The man was intolerable because he was correct.
Colin pushed away from the door at last. For one wild second, she thought he meant to approach the tub, and her breath caught before she could stop it.
His eyes flicked to her mouth, then away. He turned his back.
“There,” he said.
Elspeth stared at the broad dark line of him.
“Ye are still in the room.”
“And ye are still in the tub.”
“I cannae get out while ye are here.”
“I am nae looking.”
“That isnae the only requirement of modesty.”
“Ye have three minutes.”
“Three—”
“There is an official dinner tonight,” he announced. “The clan will expect tae see ye.”
The words cut through her outrage.
Elspeth went still. “The clan?”
“Aye. I will introduce ye as me wife.”
The water, once comforting, suddenly felt too shallow.
“Yer wife,” she repeated.
His back remained to her. “As befits the lady of Wester Ross.”
There it was again, that title she had not chosen, placed upon her like another gown made by other hands. She was Lady of Wester Ross, wife, bride, payment. She had been all these things before she had been permitted to decide whether she wished even to sit down.
“I am nae ready.”
“Nay one will expect ye tae be.”
“Yet they will stare.”
“Aye.”
“They will judge.”
“Aye.”
“They will wonder what sort of woman lets herself be bought.”
Colin turned then, not fully, only enough that his profile cut hard against the firelight.
“Nay,” he disagreed.
The quiet force of it stopped her.
“If any man or woman in me hall speaks of ye that way, they will answer tae me.”
Elspeth’s throat tightened, which angered her because she did not want his protection to matter.
“I can answer fer meself.”
“I ken.”
The simplicity of that reply unsettled her more than any argument. For a moment, steam drifted between them. The fire cracked. Water cooled slowly around her, and every inch of her skin seemed awake beneath it.
Then Colin faced the door again. “Skye will return shortly. Wear something fit fer the hall.”
“I shall wear armor.”
“Wise.”
“And carry a slipper.”
“Terrifying.”
Despite herself, her mouth nearly betrayed her. She pressed it flat.
“Colin.”
He paused with his hand on the latch.
“Next time ye enter without knocking, I shall aim fer something more precious than yer head.”
He stilled. Then he opened the door.
“I will consider meself warned.”
He left, and the chamber seemed at once larger and far too empty. Elspeth remained in the bath, with her heart beating much too quickly, her cheeks still hot, and her hands still crossed over herself though no one now stood watching.
The slipper lay by the door. The soap had died nobly near the wall. And Elspeth, who had survived men with swords, a forced wedding, and a night in the woods, discovered that her greatest danger might yet be a husband who knew when to laugh, when to leave, and when not to touch her at all.