Page 56 of The Laird's Masked Passion
Mostly.
By the time she reached the garden door, her mouth still tingled, her pulse had not settled, and her mind was crowded with questions she refused to ask. She slipped inside with burning cheeks and one terrible certainty. Colin MacKenzie had won more than the wager.
And she had no notion how to win it back.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Elspeth found the stillroom by accident while attempting to find anywhere that was not the garden. A maid stood inside, counting bundles of dried herbs.
The young woman looked up. “Me lady.”
Elspeth straightened. “I… I’m sorry. I was lost.”
The maid smiled. “It is quite all right tae be walking with nay destination in mind.”
Elspeth smiled back, then stepped farther inside. “Did ye ken the guard who was killed…”
The maid’s hands stilled over the herbs.
“Alasdair Macrae,” she said.
“Aye.” Elspeth touched the edge of the table. “Will there be a funeral?”
The young woman’s expression softened, though only slightly. “There will. The laird ordered it before he rode out this morning. Full honors.”
“Oh.” The word left Elspeth before she could make it more intelligent.
She looked down at the table, at the neat rows of bundled lavender and thyme.
Full honors.
Colin had ordered that at once. Not later, not after vengeance, not after all the more important matters men so often placed before grief… at once.
“And his family?” she asked. “His wife?”
“Taken care of.”
Elspeth looked up.
The maid nodded. “Coin from the laird’s own purse. Food sent already. Firewood is tae follow. Morag went herself tae tell the widow, so she wouldnae hear it from a careless tongue. The bairn will be provided for when it comes.”
The bairn.
Elspeth felt something tighten painfully beneath her ribs. That morning, Colin had been cold in the corridor. He had been rude at breakfast. He looked at her as if she had placed her hand upon some hidden wound and pressed. Then, he had returned from the border full of anger sharp enough to cut anyone nearby.
Yet beneath it all, before even seeing the murdered man’s blood himself, he thought of a widow, a child not yet born, a funeral, firewood, and the cruelty of careless tongues.
It was very inconvenient. A cruel man was easy to hate. A man who frightened her, then confused her, kissed her senseless ingardens, and then quietly cared for the family of a dead guard was becoming much harder to arrange into any useful category.
“Me lady?” The maid’s voice came, sounding uncertain. “Are ye well?”
Elspeth realized she had been silent too long.
“Aye.” She turned. “Dae ye ken where the laird is?”
“The study, I believe.”
“Thank ye.”
