Page 144 of The Laird's Masked Passion

“It willnae.”

“Ye cannae promise that.”

Colin’s patience tightened, though not with her. It tightened around every danger he could not kill because it had no single throat.

“I can promise that I willnae ride ye across open country while Robert waits for weakness.”

“Colin, she is me maither.”

“And ye are me wife.” The words emerged harder than he intended.

Elspeth recoiled by only a fraction, but Colin saw it.

“So that ends the matter?”

“Fer now.”

“Because ye command it?”

“Because I willnae risk yer life.”

“That isnae the same as hearing me.” He could hear the pain in her voice.

“I hear ye.”

“Nay.” Her voice became quiet. “Ye hear danger. Ye hear Robert, the Crown, roads, guards, and all the ways the world might take something from ye. But ye dinnae hearme.”

Colin looked at her. He heard her too well. He heard the daughter beneath the lady, the woman who had watched her mother disappear behind a cathedral crowd and still carried the guilt of surviving.Thatwas precisely why he could not permit the journey.

“If I say aye because ye are grieving,” he said, “and men take ye upon the road, will it comfort ye that I listened? Will it be of help tae yer maither?”

Her face paled. The question had been cruel. Truth often was, but that did not excuse the man who chose its sharpest edge.

Colin stepped toward her. “I’m sorry.”

Elspeth looked away.

“I ken ye are right,” she whispered.

The admission should have eased him. It did not.

“I hate that ye are right.”

“So dae I.”

Her eyes returned to his. “Dae ye?”

“Aye.”

“Ye dinnae look as though ye hate anything. Ye look as though ye have issued another order and expect the world tae arrange itself around it.”

Colin’s jaw tightened. “Would ye prefer I looked frightened?”

The words silenced them both. Elspeth’s anger softened, but the hurt remained. Colin wished she would argue again. Her sharpness he understood. Sadness left him unarmed.

“We will go,” he told her. “When Robert is contained and the roads are secure, I will take ye tae yer maither meself.”

“And if that comes too late?”