Page 29 of The Laird's Masked Passion

“Double the watches at the western pass,” he ordered. “Send riders tae the lower road and the ford. Nay man travels alone. Nay stranger enters the outer gate without being searched. I want names of every servant newly hired in the last year and every trader expected before market day.”

Breac nodded. “It will be done.”

“Murdoch, send word tae the villages, but dae it quietly.”

Murdoch pushed away from the wall. “And Munro?”

Colin looked toward the shuttered window, where the last of the day had gone black. Munro had reached into a church on Colin’s wedding day. He had sent blades among women, priests, Crown witnesses, and men who came unprepared for slaughter. He had made Elspeth’s first hours as wife into a flight through blood and rain.

Colin closed his wounded hand. The bandage held.

“We gather proof,” he told them. “Then we decide whether Robert Munro reaches judgment by Crown road or Highland steel.”

A fierce approval moved through the room. Colin did not share it. His anger was colder than theirs and far more patient.

“Until then,” he added, “me wife is guarded as ye would guard me own blood.”

Breac looked up. Murdoch’s mouth shifted almost imperceptibly. Colin saw it and let the silence sharpen.

“Did I invite comment?” he asked.

“Nay,” Murdoch shook his head.

“Good.”

The meeting bent quickly after that toward practical matters: riders, food stores, gate rotations, messages, scouts. Colin answered each in turn, but part of him remained elsewhere, up the stairs, where Elspeth Fraser had been taken into a chamber that was now his by law and hers by misfortune.

When at last the Council began to disperse, Breac lingered.

“She has spirit,” he commented carefully.

Colin looked at him.

Breac did not retreat. “The lady. She looked ready tae bite the stone walls if they stared too long.”

Despite himself, Colin remembered blood on his lip and her furious eyes at the altar.

“She has already tried biting,” he mused, more to himself.

Murdoch, halfway to the door, paused. “And lived?”

Colin’s mouth almost moved. “So far.”

For one brief moment, something like grim amusement passed among the three men. Then it was gone, replaced by the weight of the night ahead.

Breac’s voice softened. “Munro will expect a frightened bride tae weaken ye.”

Colin looked down at the bandage again, at the knot Elspeth had tied too tightly, whether from anger or care he could not yet tell.

“He may find,” Colin added, “that me bride daesnae frighten easily.”

And for the first time since entering the chamber, the thought did not feel like a problem.

It felt like a warning.

Elspeth had just begun to believe hot water might restore her faith in living when the chamber door opened. The sound made her freeze.

For one blessed hour, the world had been reduced to steam, lavender soap, and the copper tub set before the fire. Skye had gone to fetch fresh linen. The castle beyond the door quieted into distant voices and footfalls. Elspeth sank beneath the water until it covered her shoulders, letting heat loosen the ache of saddle, fear, and humiliation from her limbs.