Page 113 of The Laird's Masked Passion
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.
