Page 88 of The Laird's Masked Passion

Because Colin did not smile at her as a man flirting idly might. He did not offer easy compliments or graceful nonsense. He moved with restrained force, each touch brief but exact, each glance too quiet to be innocent. And she, who had spent the morning wounded by his distance, now found herself breathless beneath his attention.

The last figure required him to draw her close before releasing her in a turn. His hand came to her back. Her palm landed against his chest. For one suspended beat, the dance vanished.

His heart struck beneath her hand. Elspeth’s eyes lifted to his. There, in that single betrayal of flesh, she found something no avoidance could hide. Whatever he had been fleeing since the study, it had not been indifference.

The music ended in a bright scrape of strings and a roar of approval. Colin did not release her at once. His hand remained at her back, his thumb pressing once, almost unconsciously, against the thin fabric of her gown. The touch was more intimate than a kiss before an audience would have been.

Elspeth ought to have stepped away. She ought to have made some clever remark, sharp enough to cut them both free from the moment. Instead, she stood there, breathing quickly, with her hand still against his chest and the whole clan applauding around them.

Colin bent his head just enough that only she could hear.

“Ye may pretend nae tae care, lass,” he murmured. “But dinnae pretend ye dinnaefeelme.”

Her breath caught. Then he stepped back, bowed with infuriating courtesy, and left her standing in the golden meadow, flushed, furious, and trembling with the knowledge that she had indeed felt him.

And worse… she wanted him to know it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Colin discovered, over the course of one afternoon, that there were several kinds of torture a man might endure without bleeding. There was the old kind, naturally. The kind done with ropes, hunger, questions, and men who believed cruelty was made lawful by purpose. Colin knew that kind well enough.

Then there was the newer kind. It wore a green gown, laughed at children, accepted honeyed berries from old women, and pretended with impressive dedication that he did not exist.

Elspeth had avoided him for most of the feast with the skill of a spy and the dignity of a queen. If he moved toward the singers, she found a sudden interest in the baking table. If he stood near the games, she drifted to the women plaiting ribbons into little girls’ hair. If he approached too closely, she turned some unsuspecting clansman into a shield by asking him a question so sharp and clever that the poor man forgot his own name while answering.

It ought to have amused him. Itdidamuse him and that was the problem.

Colin stood at the edge of the meadow with a cup of ale untouched in his hand and watched his wife attempt not to watch him. She was seated beneath a rowan tree with three children at her feet, each competing for her notice. One held a carved horse. Another had a crust of bread in both hands and an expression of grave importance. The smallest girl, who had followed Elspeth for half the afternoon, had fallen asleep against her skirts.

Elspeth looked down at the child, and something in her face softened.

Colin’s grip tightened on the cup.

He had seen her angry, frightened, proud, curious, fierce, embarrassed, and undone beneath his mouth in the moonlit hush of his study. But this softness struck him with a different danger. It did not stir only desire. This was the terrible impulse to go to her simply because she was there, to sit beside her and place his hand over the sleeping child’s head and imagine, with an idiocy unworthy of him, a future that contained such quiet things.

Then Elspeth rose. She brushed grass from her skirts, gave the sleeping child carefully to an older, waiting girl, and walked toward him with a directness that made conversation die before she reached him.

Colin watched her come. He knew that walk. It meant trouble had dressed itself in silk and found purpose.

She stopped before him. “Laird MacKenzie.”

The formality was a blade held by the tip.

“Lady MacKenzie.”

Her eyes narrowed at the title, which satisfied him more than it should have. “I find this feast lacks proper entertainment.”

Behind him, Breac cleared his throat. Colin looked past her toward the wrestling, dancing, singing, racing children, quarrelling bakers, and knife-throwing men.

“What would improve it?”

She lifted her chin toward the target. “A contest.”

“Ye wish tae throw daggers.”

“I wish tae throw them better than ye.”

Several people nearby heard. The words spread at once, quick as flame in dry straw. Heads turned. Men laughed. Women clapped. Someone shouted approval from the tables.