Page 74 of The Laird's Masked Passion

A laugh sounded from somewhere behind Colin. He turned his head slightly. The laugh died at once. Elspeth felt a dangerous satisfaction.

Then Colin stepped closer, and satisfaction became much harder to maintain. He smelled of sweat, leather, sun-warmed skin, and the faint bite of steel.

It was not gentlemanly. It was not proper. It should not have appealed to her. It did.

His eyes lowered briefly to her throat, where her pulse had, quite without permission, begun behaving dramatically.

“Ye were staring,” he said.

“I certainly wasnae.”

“Nay?”

“I was assessing.”

“What?”

“Whether ye were likely tae survive yer own arrogance.”

“And?”

She looked deliberately past him toward the men. “The matter remains uncertain.”

His mouth curved further. “Ye watch me fight fer that?”

“I watch all manner of unpleasant things. Yesterday I watched a storehouse burn.”

The amusement in his face faded, and she regretted the words at once, though she meant only to deflect him. For a heartbeat, the smoke seemed to return between them.

Then Colin looked back at her. “The feast preparations?”

“That is where I was going before I was interrupted by public indecency.”

He glanced down at himself as if only just recalling the absence of his shirt. “Daes this offend ye?”

“Deeply.”

“Ye look wounded.”

“I am. In me standards.”

His eyes warmed again. “Shall I fetch me shirt tae ease them?”

“Aye,” she said quickly.

He leaned one shoulder against the stone arch, close enough that she could see a thin scar near his collarbone and a small bruise darkening along his ribs. Her fingers twitched before she caught herself.

“Ye could turn away,” he suggested with a smirk.

“I could.”

“Yet ye dinnae.”

“I am waiting fer ye tae move.”

“I am nae in yer path.”

“Ye are in me patience.”