Page 112 of The Laird's Masked Passion

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.”