Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Elspeth watched Colin disappear into the passage.
“Colin!”
He did not stop. Elspeth gathered her wrap and followed, ignoring the sharp complaint beneath the bandage at her ribs.
“Colin!”
This time, he stopped. He did not turn immediately. His head lowered, and his uninjured hand closed into a fist at his side.
“Go back tae yer chamber.”
“Our chamber,” she corrected, breathless from pursuing him.
He turned then. His face was colder than it had been in the dungeon, but Elspeth had begun to understand that Colin’s coldness was not emptiness. It was the wall raised when whatever lived behind it became too violent, too tender, or too dangerous to be witnessed.
His gaze moved over her face. “Are ye… afraid of me?”
The question was so quiet that the dripping water and distant scrape of a guard’s boot nearly swallowed it. Elspeth looked at the blood upon his knuckles.
Then she looked into his eyes. “Nay.”
His expression altered by nothing and everything.
“Ye should be.”
“Perhaps,” she conceded. “But I am presently occupied with being furious at ye.”
A faint crease appeared between his brows. “Fer what?”
“Fer walking about with an arrow wound, striking prisoners as though yer other shoulder requires equal injury, and deciding on me behalf what I ought tae fear.”
“Elspeth—”
She stepped closer and took his hand. Colin went still. The blood had begun to dry over his knuckles, dark in the small cuts across his skin. His fingers were cold.
“Come,” she urged.
He stared at her.
Elspeth tugged his hand. “Must every kindness offered tae ye first survive an interrogation?”
“Aye.”
“How exhausting.”
Nevertheless, he followed. Colin said nothing as they climbed, but his hand remained in hers, large and callused, carrying another man’s blood.
It should have repulsed her. Instead, she thought of those same hands lifting children from danger, bracing doors against flame and holding her as though the continued beating of her heart were a matter of command.
When they reached their chamber, Elspeth closed the door behind them.
“Sit,” she ordered.
Colin looked at the chair, then at her.
“I am capable of standing.”
“I am capable of striking ye with the basin. We are both discovering new talents.”
He sat.
Elspeth poured water into the bowl and dipped a cloth into it. When she knelt before him, Colin’s expression changed.
“Dinnae.”
“Dinnae what?”
“Kneel before me.”
There was something in his voice which made the simple position seem suddenly intimate.
Elspeth drew a low stool closer and sat upon it instead. “There. Yer dignity has survived.”
She took his hand again and she pressed the damp cloth to his knuckles. The water clouded pink as she dipped it into the basin. Colin watched her in silence. The blood yielded slowly.
“How is yer shoulder?” she asked.
“Fine.”
Elspeth glanced pointedly at the stiffness in his posture. “Fionn will be delighted tae learn that arrows cause only one night of inconvenience.”
“It isnae the shoulder ye mean tae ask about.”
Her hand paused.
“Nay,” she admitted. “It isnae.”
Colin looked toward the fire. She cleaned another dark line from his skin. Beneath it, his knuckles were split.
“How are ye?” she asked again.
“I told ye.”
“And I ignored the answer because it wasnae right.”
His jaw tightened. “I am fine.”
“Ye struck a half-starved man until he bled.”
“He deserved worse.”
“Perhaps. But that isnae an answer.”
Colin withdrew his hand. He rose too quickly, turning away from her. Pain caught him. Elspeth saw it in the brief tension that crossed his back, though he gave it no voice.
“I nearly beat him senseless before ye,” he spoke. “Ye saw what I am, and still ye brought me here. Ye wash blood from me hands as though kindness can alter the thing beneath them.”
Elspeth stood slowly. “What thing?”
He gave a humorless laugh. “A monster.”
The word wounded her more than it should have done.
She crossed the small distance between them. “I dinnae understand ye.”
His shoulders stiffened.
“I dinnae understand why ye think silence is preferable tae explanation, why ye insist upon suffering injuries as though pain is proof of authority, or why every gentle word appears tae offend ye personally.” She stopped before him. “But I understand enough tae ken ye are nae monster.”
“Ye understand naething.”
“Then explain it.”
His gaze met hers. Elspeth’s courage nearly failed under the pain she saw there. It was not the clean pain of his shoulder, nor the hot fury from the dungeon. It was older, buried so deeply that uncovering it was an injury in itself.
She lowered her voice. “Why are ye so angry? Is it only what the prisoner said?”
Colin looked away.
“And will ye ever finish the conversation we began before the attack?” she asked. “Or must Robert Munro invade every time ye are in danger of speaking honestly?”
His mouth tightened, but no answer came. Elspeth waited. It was perhaps the most difficult act of patience she had ever performed.
“Me faither killed me maither.”
The words entered the room without warning. Elspeth stopped breathing.
Colin stood with his face turned toward the fire. The flames outlined the hard angle of his profile but offered no warmth to it.
“She gave him one living son,” he continued. “Me. There were other babes after, but none lived long enough tae be named before the clan.”
“Oh, Colin.”
“He blamed her.”
His voice remained even. That was worse than if it had broken.
“He wanted more sons. More heirs. Men like him always want proof that the world will continue wearing their name after death.” His uninjured hand rested against the mantel. “When she couldnae give him another, he treated her as though grief were disobedience.”
Elspeth remembered Morven’s trembling hands. She remembered advice whispered in terror and the pain swallowed beneath Thomas Fraser’s eye.
“What did he dae?”
Colin’s fingers curled against the stone.
“He neglected her when she was ill. Denied the healer until it was too late. When she begged tae be taken from the castle, he struck her.” His throat moved. “He said if she died, it would be because she had chosen weakness.”
Elspeth felt tears sting her eyes. “Did ye… see it happen?”
“Aye.” The single word held a boy’s helplessness inside a man’s voice. “I was twelve.”
Elspeth crossed the last step between them. She wanted to touch him, but fear made her hesitate. He seemed held together by so severe an effort that tenderness might undo him.
Colin looked at her at last. “He could be charming when it suited him. Generous before witnesses. Men praised his strength and called his temper the burden of command.” Bitterness sharpened his mouth. “When he died, they began finding him in me.”
“Who did?”
“Everyone.”
His gaze fell from hers.
“They said I had his eyes, his stillness, his temper. Whenever I ordered punishment, someone saw him. Whenever I grew angry, someone waited fer me tae become cruel. At first, I hated them fer it.”
“And then?”
“Then I began tae wonder whether they were right.”
Elspeth understood then why he held himself so tightly, why every affection became danger, why every impulse was chained before it could move.
He did not fear that he lacked feeling. He feared what feeling might permit him to become.
“Colin…” She placed her hand against his chest.
His heart struck hard beneath her palm.
“Ye are cold sometimes,” she told him. “Unreasonable often. Commanding always. And there are mornings when I believe the entire castle conspires tae keep sharp objects from me.”
Something almost human moved across his face.
“But cruel?” she continued. “Nay.”
“Ye saw me below.”
“I saw a man lose control because someone threatened tae murder his wife and destroy his people.”
“That daesnae excuse it.”
“Nay,” she agreed. “But neither daes it make ye yer faither.”
His eyes searched hers with an intensity that made her throat tighten.
“Yer faither hurt those weaker than himself because he enjoyed power over them,” she whispered. “Ye spend every hour using yer power tae stand between danger and everyone who belongs tae ye. They are nae the same.”
“Ye cannae ken that.”
“I ken ye carried me from a church while men tried tae kill ye. I ken ye took a blade across yer hand and an arrow through yer shoulder because danger came near me. I ken ye wouldnae touch me when I feared ye, even though every law and every man around us would have called it yer right.”
Colin’s breathing changed beneath her hand.
“Elspeth.”
“I ken ye,” she said softly. “Perhaps nae entirely, but enough.”
His hand rose to her face. He touched her cheek with such care that the tenderness of it hurt.
“Ye shouldnae be kind tae me.”
“Then it is fortunate I rarely dae as I should.”
His thumb moved beneath her eye, catching the tear she had not felt fall. She leaned into his palm. The motion seemed to undo something in him.
Colin bent his forehead to hers. For several breaths, neither spoke. The fire whispered behind them. His breath warmed her lips, and Elspeth felt the frailty of the moment, the way one careless word might return them both to armor.
“Ye told me once,” she whispered, “that when ye took me, I would ask ye.”
Every muscle in his body stilled. “Elspeth…”
“Ye said I… would want it.”
His eyes darkened, but he did not move closer. “Ye are hurt.”
“So are ye.”
“That isnae an argument in favor.”
Despite everything, her mouth curved. “I did warn ye that I had prepared several.”
His hand slid from her cheek to the back of her neck.
“Tell me what ye are asking.”
Heat rose through her, but she held his gaze.
“I am asking ye tae make me yer wife in the way that matters.”
She placed her hand over his heart again.
“I am asking because… I want ye.”
He gazed into her eyes for a long moment and then he kissed her.
There was no coldness in him then. His mouth claimed hers with a hunger sharpened by fear, relief, and everything he had denied.
Yet even in that hunger, he was careful.
One arm circled her waist above the wound, drawing her against him without pressing the injured place.