Page 156 of The Laird's Masked Passion

Robert turned more fully toward him, dragging Elspeth with him.

“Yer faither stole everything from me!”

“And so ye became him.”

Robert’s face twisted. The knife lifted from Elspeth’s ribs for one moment. One moment was enough. Colin saw another movement near the trees, then another.

Archers.

Friends.

Witnesses.

Ready.

Elspeth saw something change in his expression. Her fingers tightened against the rope binding her wrists. She was frightened, but she held herself still.

She trusted that Colin had not come alone.

And Colin prayed she would continue trusting him for only a few breaths more.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Robert’s knife remained pressed beneath Elspeth’s ribs. She could feel its point through the cloth of her gown, cold and exact against the place where her earlier wound had barely begun to heal. Each breath threatened to drive it deeper.

Across the ruined chapel, Colin stood utterly still. His sword remained at his side. His hands were empty. Only his eyes betrayed him. They held hers with such fierce attention that the men surrounding them seemed not to exist.

Elspeth understood the command in his gaze.

Wait.

Trust me.

She tried.

Robert’s arm tightened around her waist. “Ye still dinnae understand, dae ye?” he asked Colin. “Ye believe this is about land, pride, some quarrel between lairds.”

Colin’s expression did not change. “Then explain it.”

Elspeth heard the purpose beneath the words. He wanted Robert speaking. He wanted his attention divided. He wanted time for whatever plan moved unseen among the trees.

Robert smiled as though Colin had begged. “Yer maither was meant tae be mine.”

Something altered in Colin’s face. Elspeth felt it more than she saw it.

Robert continued, his voice roughening around an old wound he had polished into hatred. “I loved her before yer faither ever laid eyes upon her. She laughed with me. Rode with me. She promised she would wait.”

The knife shifted as his hand trembled. Elspeth held herself motionless.

“Then Alastair MacKenzie wanted her,” Robert snarled. “And what a MacKenzie wanted, he took.”

Colin’s jaw tightened. “Did she choose him?” he asked.

Robert’s face twisted. “He had land, a name, men who frightened her family intae agreement.”

“That wasnae what I asked.”

“She was stolen from me!”