Page 42 of The Laird's Masked Passion

Colin’s likeness.

Colin’s wound, though she did not yet know how or why.

When she looked back at her husband, his face had become the same kind of portrait: handsome, distant, and impossible to touch.

Elspeth tightened her fingers lightly around his arm. He did not look at her. And by the time they entered the hall, the man who laughed in the dark over her strip of linen was gone entirely.

Colin had never cared for portraits. Dead men looked better in frames than they had in life. Paint softened cruelty, gave dignity to pride, and permitted a monster to hang upon a wall in velvet and be called ancestor.

He sat with Elspeth at breakfast with a rudeness sharp enough that even Murdoch looked at him twice, which was saying something, for Murdoch considered civility a decorative weakness. Colin ate little, spoke less, and returned to his study before the hall emptied.

Now, he was standing before the narrow window with a report in his hand and saw none of the words upon it.

Ye look exactly like him.

Elspeth didn’t know where she had struck. That was the worst of it. Had she meant to wound him, he might have admired the accuracy. But she had spoken with curiosity, nothing more. She glanced between him and the painted devil upon the wall and found the resemblance plain.

So had everyone else, all his life. He had his father’s eyes, his father’s jaw, and his father’s temper. It was something folk whispered when Colin was not meant to hear, as if blood were a chain and a son only a ghost waiting to repeat the sins of the man before him.

At that moment, a knock came. He did not answer. The door opened anyway, which meant it was either Breac, who knew better and cared little, or Murdoch, who knew better and cared less.

Breac entered.

Colin turned from the window. “What?”

Breac’s expression told him before his mouth did.

All private anger vanished. Colin set the crumpled paper down with careful control. “Speak.”

“One of the border guards is dead.”

The room seemed to narrow around the words.

“Who?”

“Alasdair Macrae.”

Colin’s jaw tightened. Alasdair was young and newlywed, with a wife who looked at him as though the sun rose upon his command. Even worse, they had a child due before winter.

“How?”

“Throat cut. Found near the eastern ridge by the birch line.”

“Raid?”

“Nay cattle taken. Nay goods touched.”

Colin’s gaze sharpened. “Then it wasnae theft.”

“Nay.”

Colin moved, reaching for his sword where it leaned against the wall. “Who found him?”

“Fergus and Tam.”

“Send word tae Alasdair’s wife before rumor reaches her.”

Breac nodded once. “Aye.”