Page 105 of The Laird's Masked Passion

Colin’s fingers lifted before he could stop them. He brushed it away. The softness of her skin against his knuckles nearly undid what arrows and councilmen failed to accomplish.

“Stubborn lass,” he murmured.

Elspeth did not wake. Behind him, Breac said nothing. Murdoch, mercifully, also said nothing. Colin was aware of both silences and disliked them equally.

He straightened. “Nay one wakes her.”

“Aye,” Murdoch nodded.

“If she asks where I am?—”

“We will lie,” Breac offered.

Colin turned slowly.

Breac sighed. “We will tell her ye are being sensible in another room.”

“That is also a lie.”

“It is a kinder one.”

Colin dressed with more assistance than dignity. Every movement pulled at his shoulder. By the time his belt was fastened, sweat gathered at the back of his neck and the last of the potion’s fog had been replaced by clear, punishing pain.

Skye had left food under a cloth. There was bread, cold meat, cheese, watered ale, and a bowl of broth whose steam had long since died. Colin ate standing, quickly and without appetite. The food steadied him almost at once. Strength returned not as a flood but as a hardening, a gathering of the pieces of himself that pain had scattered.

Breac watched with open disapproval. Murdoch watched as if deciding whether to knock him unconscious and ask forgiveness later.

“Dinnae,” Colin warned.

Murdoch’s mouth tightened. “I havenae spoken.”

“Ye were thinking loudly.”

Breac rubbed a hand over his face. “Christ save us from lairds who cannae die because they are too stubborn tae follow instructions.”

“I will rest after the Council.”

“Nay, ye will say that, then find six more reasons tae bleed on important furniture.”

Colin finished the ale and set the cup down. “Are the men gathered?”

Murdoch’s expression became serious at once. “Aye. Breac kept the prisoner alive. The attacker says naething useful beyond Munro’s name, and even that he spits like a curse. Scouts saw tracks tae the north ridge, then lost them in stone.”

“Dead?”

“Four of ours. Seven wounded. Among the villagers, two dead. More hurt, most nae badly.”

Colin closed his eyes for one moment.

Four of ours. Two villagers.

Six lives because Robert Munro could not wound the dead man he hated and so struck at the living son instead.

His shoulder throbbed harder, as though the body wished to remind him there were simpler pains available.

“Elspeth?” he asked, though he knew the answer and needed to hear it again.

“Fionn says she will be sore,” Breac repeated quietly. “She will also be insufferable.”