Page 124 of The Laird's Masked Passion
She pushed the gown from her shoulders. Understanding arrived with disbelief.
“Ye cannae be serious.”
Her petticoats followed. “I remember a certain barbarian claiming cold water improves the blood.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“I wasnae a woman hunted by Robert Munro.”
“Nay. Ye were merely a naked nuisance.”
Her shift fell upon the grass. For one disastrous instant, Colin forgot Robert Munro, Thomas Fraser, the northern passage, and every sensible warning formed by the human mind, because he was looking at Elspeth standing bare beneath the grey sky, her hair lifting in the wind and the healing cut at her ribs pale against her skin.
Then she ran into the loch and the splash broke his paralysis. She surfaced with a gasp sharp enough to frighten birds from the reeds.
“God above!” she breathed. “Ye neglected tae mention that it feels like death.”
He smirked. “I told ye it was freezing.”
“I assumed ye were boasting.”
Colin stripped with considerably less ceremony than she had shown. Her eyes widened as he entered the water.
“What are ye daeing?”
“Preventing me wife from drowning through stubbornness.”
“I can swim just fine.”
“Aye. And I can see ye shivering from here.”
He reached her before she could retreat farther. Elspeth attempted an offended expression, though her teeth had begun to chatter. Colin caught her around the waist. The water was bitterly cold, but her body against his seemed impossibly warm.
“Yer faither daesnae understand ye,” he whispered.
Her defiance faltered.
“He daesnae understand that courage isnae disobedience. He daesnae understand what it costs ye tae remain kind after being raised beneath his hand.”
“Colin…”
“He had a daughter any man with sense would have guarded as treasure, and he treated ye as debt.”
Her eyes shone.
“Ye are troublesome,” he continued. “Reckless. Incapable of obedience and dangerously fond of arguments ye havenae prepared properly.”
“I prepare them very well.”
“But ye are also the finest woman I have ever kent.”
Elspeth stared at him. The grief in her face softened into something that threatened every defense he still possessed.
“Ye cannae say such things while we are naked in a loch,” she whispered.
“Why?”
