Page 4 of The Laird's Masked Passion

Her father did not.

“Faither,” she repeated more loudly.

A whisper moved through the church. The man at the altar turned his head. His eyes found her. Elspeth had the absurd impression of being touched as a blade touches the space before it cuts. His gaze travelled over her face, her veil, her gown, and returned to her eyes with a cold curiosity that made her both wish to retreat and refuse to do so.

Her father brought her to a stop directly before the priest… directly beside the groom. Then he released her arm. For one second, Elspeth did not understand the absence of his grip. She looked down at her arm as if it might explain the matter, thenback at him. Then, her father stepped away among the family witnesses, his face as cold and blank as carved stone.

Elspeth was standing alone at the altar in a bridal gown.

Understanding did not come gently. It did not enter by degrees, like dawn. It struck.

“Nay,” she whispered.

The priest, a nervous man with thin lips and damp eyes, glanced at her father, then at the Crown men, then at the groom. Elspeth turned to him because he seemed like the weakest point in the nightmare, and therefore the most likely to yield.

“I beg yer pardon,” she urged with all the composure she could gather while her heart was beating like a fist against her ribs. “There has been a mistake. I am nae meant tae stand here.”

The priest swallowed.

“This place is for the bride,” Elspeth continued. “Me cousin Rose is tae be married today. I am Lady Elspeth Fraser. I am only?—”

“Lady Elspeth Fraser?”

The voice came from beside her so singularly controlled that it seemed to travel beneath the skin rather than through the air.

Elspeth turned. The groom was looking at her and his eyes were the color of peat water under storm cloud. They betrayed nothing.

“Aye,” she replied, though the word had to be forced past a dry throat. “I am Elspeth Fraser.”

His gaze sharpened. “Daughter of Thomas Fraser?”

A tremor went through her, so fine she hoped no one saw it. “Aye.”

“And Lady Morven Fraser?”

At her mother’s name, Elspeth’s eyes flew sideways. Her mother was standing near her father, with her face lowered, and with one hand pressed to her mouth. She was weeping now, silently, as she seemed to do all things under her husband’s eye.

Elspeth looked back at the man.

“And who are ye?” she demanded.

A murmur stirred the first rows. Someone inhaled sharply, as though ignorance itself had offended the company.

The man inclined his head, not in a bow, but in acknowledgement of a fact. “Colin MacKenzie.”

The name moved through Elspeth like cold water.

MacKenzie.

The Black Lord of the Passes, some called him. She had heard stories, as any woman with ears and a family fond of caution must hear stories. He was the laird of Wester Ross, a man whom enemies did not provoke twice, because few survived the first attempt.

“I dinnae ken what business has brought ye tae Rose’s wedding, Laird MacKenzie, because there must be a mistake?—”

“There isnae mistake,” he announced. “I am Colin MacKenzie, laird of Wester Ross. And ye, Lady Elspeth Fraser, are me bride.”

Elspeth could not breathe. Behind her, the cathedral doors groaned as the wind pressed against them.

Colin’s gaze held hers without mercy. “Ye belong tae me.”