Page 147 of The Laird's Masked Passion

“And a bedmate.”

“Aye.”

The word struck harder because he did not soften it. Elspeth folded her arms tightly, not from anger but because she suddenly needed to hold herself together.

“I understand perfectly.”

“Dae ye?” His voice sharpened at last. “Ye think I spoke of some pretty convenience placed in me chamber. I spoke of limits. I had reason.”

“Ye always have reason. Duty. Danger. Robert. The Crown. Yer clan. Every wall ye build is named for something respectable.”

Elspeth’s heart was beating painfully against her ribs. She had come to him already hurt, already raw from the refusal concerning her mother. Now every uncertainty she had tried to dismiss seemed to gather within the room.

He desired her. That was no longer in doubt. But desire was easy. Desire had hands, mouths, heat, and a bed in which questions could be forgotten. Love required answers.

“Is that what I am?” she asked more quietly. “A limit ye failed tae keep?”

Colin said nothing. Her eyes burned. She caught his arm. His whole body went rigid beneath her hand.

“What am I tae ye?”

“Me wife.”

“A title.”

“Me responsibility.”

“A duty.”

“Someone under me protection.”

“A prisoner can say the same.”

His eyes blazed. “Ye are nae me prisoner.”

Elspeth felt humiliation creep beneath her anger. Perhaps she had mistaken everything: his tenderness at the loch, his hand beneath the dinner table, the way he watched her as though looking away required effort. Perhaps Margaret had been wrong. Perhaps a cold man was simply cold.

Elspeth stepped back. “I have made a fool of meself.”

Colin’s expression shifted. “Nay.”

“I thought…” Her voice failed.

She despised it for failing. Colin moved toward her, but she lifted one hand.

“Dinnae touch me because ye pity me.”

“I dinnae pity ye.”

“Then what?”

He stopped. The answer seemed to torment him more than silence tormented her. Elspeth swallowed against the ache in her throat.

“I love ye.”

The confession left her without grace, preparation, or hope of retreat. Colin went utterly still. There was no pleasure in his face, no triumph, only shock. That wounded her most of all.

“I love ye,” she repeated, because if one was determined to be humiliated, thoroughness was its own form of dignity. “And I hate that ye can still make me feel foolish for it.”