Page 45 of The Laird's Masked Passion

Colin drew his sword and stepped into the trees.

Let him begin, then.

Colin would finish it.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Colin had ridden out before noon and no one told her why. That was, perhaps, the most insulting part. She had been bought, married, stolen, installed in a castle, stared at over breakfast, and then left behind like a piece of troublesome furniture while men went off todothings.

Skye was brushing out one of Elspeth’s gowns by the window when Elspeth finally rose from the chair.

“I need paper.”

Skye looked up at once. “Fer what?”

“Tae write.”

“Tae whom?”

Elspeth gave her a flat look. “The King, naturally. I shall complain that me barbarian husband is insufficiently communicative.”

Skye’s mouth twitched. “Then ye’ll need more paper.”

Despite herself, Elspeth almost smiled. But the ache beneath her breast was too heavy for amusement. All morning, her thoughts had returned to one image, and that was her mother at the cathedral door, pale and unsteady, vanishing behind smoke, shouting, and men’s bodies.

Skye brought paper, ink, and a quill to the small table. Elspeth sat. For several breaths, she only stared at the blank page. Then, she started writing.

Tae Lady Morven Fraser,

Her hand paused. Not Mother. If her father opened it, and of course he would, if it reached him first, she would not give him the softness of that word. He had already taken enough.

She dipped the quill again.

I am alive and presently at Castle MacKenzie. I wasnae harmed during the attack at the cathedral.

That was true enough, if harm meant blood. If harm meant being torn from one’s life, sold by one’s father, and carried into a marriage one had not chosen, then the sentence was a lie large enough to shame the paper.

She continued anyway.

I saw ye near the doors before we fled. I dinnae ken whether ye were injured, and nay one here has yet been able tae tell me what became of ye after I was taken away. I ask ye, if this letter reaches ye, tae send word at once. Nae through Faither, if it can be helped. Tell me in yer own hand whether ye are safe.

Her vision blurred. Elspeth stopped writing and blinked hard, furious with herself. She would not cry over her father. She would not waste tears on the man who dressed betrayal in ivorysilk and walked her to an altar as if delivering goods already paid for. Her anger toward him was a clean thing, bright-edged and easy to hold.

But her mother complicated everything… her mother, with trembling hands, whispering terrible advice because terrible knowledge was all she had been given, her mother, looking at her as if apology had no language large enough.

Elspeth swallowed and wrote on.

I am angry with Faither beyond anything I can set sensibly upon a page. If he reads this, then let him read it. I ken what was done. I ken I wasnae told. I ken I was given as payment fer a debt I didnae make.

The quill scratched harder.

I dinnae forgive him.

There. Let him choke on it if he wished.

Skye shifted softly behind her, but did not speak.

Elspeth drew a slower breath.