Page 5 of The Laird's Masked Passion

CHAPTER TWO

For several moments after Colin MacKenzie declared her his bride, Elspeth could do nothing but stare at him.

It was not that she had no words. On the contrary, she had so many that they crowded together in her throat and strangled one another. Elspeth’s whole life had been taken from its proper course and thrust, without warning, into the hands of a stranger.

Behind Colin MacKenzie stood three men who had the unmistakable air of belonging to him without serving him. They were not guards, though each looked capable of turning a church into a battlefield before the priest finished a prayer. They were his allies, men who knew what was happening, while she herself had not been granted even the courtesy of knowledge.

“There has been some mistake,” she urged.

Colin MacKenzie looked down at her. He was near enough now that she could see the faint scar at the edge of his jaw and the darker lashes that made his eyes seem colder by contrast. He possessed the sort of face a woman remembered against her will.

“I dinnae think so,” he replied calmly.

“Ye dinnae think so?” Elspeth repeated, and some wild spark of temper leapt up inside her. “How fortunate fer us all that me life has been arranged upon the strength of yer thinking.”

One of the three men behind him made the smallest sound, quickly smothered.

Colin’s gaze didn’t leave hers.

“I was told ye kent.”

There was a slight flicker of confusion in the cold depth of his eyes.

“I kent,” she snarled through clenched teeth, “that I was tae attend me cousin Rose’s wedding. I ken me maither was frightened intae silence. I ken strangers bowed as though I were being led tae me own execution. That is what I kent, Laird MacKenzie. If there is more, then it has been spared me.”

She stepped back… or tried to. His hand closed around her wrist. His grip did not bruise flesh. It merely stopped her as easily as a wall might stop rain. Elspeth looked down at his hand, then slowly back up to his face.

“Release me.”

“Nae until I understand what game yer faither is playing.” He moved closer, and to everyone watching, they were merely adjusting their positions before the priest. “What were ye told?”

“That Rose was tae marry.”

“And ye?”

“I was tae stand beside her.” Her throat tightened. “Nae in her place.”

Colin turned his head slightly, his attention cutting toward the first rows. Her father stood with his face as immovable as carved stone. Not a flicker of remorse disturbed him. If anything, he appeared impatient, as if she were delaying a matter of business by having the poor taste to possess feelings.

Beside him, her mother looked as if grief had hollowed her out. Her eyes lifted once to Elspeth’s face and instantly fell again. That single glance told Elspeth more than any confession might have done.

“When,” she asked, “was this arranged?”

He looked at her for a moment, perhaps weighing truth against convenience.

“At the Masquerade,” he revealed. “One week ago.”

“One week,” she whispered.

Those were seven mornings in which her father had looked upon her at breakfast and said nothing, and seven evenings in which her mother had sat across from her and swallowed whatever grief threatened to rise.

Elspeth almost laughed. It would have been a terrible sound.

“One week,” she whispered. “And in all that time nay one thought tae inform me?”

Colin’s jaw tightened. “Yer faither gave his word that ye had been told.”

“Me faither gives many things that dinnae belong tae him.”