Page 15 of The Laird's Masked Passion
“I did it because infection is unpleasant, and I have had enough unpleasantness fer one day.”
The fire cracked between them. Its small light trembled over his face, catching the severe line of his jaw and the blood she had not quite managed to wash from beneath one fingernail. He sat toostill, as if the woods, the danger, and her fury were all things he could outwait.
Elspeth hated his stillness. It made her feel the disorder of herself more keenly.
She folded the stained cloth in her lap. “When?”
His gaze sharpened. “When what?”
“When did ye buy me?”
The words fell into the little camp with a vulgar weight.
Buy.
It was such an ugly word, a market word, a word for cattle, grain, land, swords, not daughters, not for women standing unsuspecting in ivory silk while their mothers wept.
Colin’s expression changed by almost nothing, and yet she saw that he understood.
“A week ago.”
Elspeth stared at him.
“At the Masquerade?” she asked, though she already knew.
“Aye.”
“But there were nay women there this time.”
“Nay.”
“Because of what happened last year,” she spoke slowly. “Because men made a contest of a bride and nearly turned ceremony intae bloodshed.”
His jaw tightened. “The Crown thought it…cleaner.”
“Cleaner,” she repeated.
The word nearly made her laugh. She looked down at her hands, at the half-moons of dirt beneath nails that had been clean that morning. “How tidy of them tae keep the women absent while men arranged what should become of them. This way, there arenae tears or refusals.”
“Elspeth—”
“Dinnae say me name as if it belongs tae ye.”
Silence struck harder than any reply.
She lifted her eyes. “Why me?”
For the first time, Colin looked away. The answer came before he spoke. It came in the heaviness of his mouth and way his wounded hand closed once and opened again.
“Yer faither owed the Crown a blood debt.”
The fire gave a soft, hungry snap.
“A man died under Fraser protection. There were accusations, witnesses. The matter could have cost him lands, perhaps more.”
“So he offered me.”
Colin did not soften it. “Aye.”
