Page 92 of The Laird's Masked Passion
He released him. The man stumbled back.
Colin looked at all three. “If I ever hear it again, I will kill ye meself and consider the day improved by the labor.”
No one mistook him. No one laughed.
The councilmen bowed, stiff and pale. One murmured apology. Another stared at the grass as if salvation might be found among the roots.
Colin left them there. As he crossed the meadow, sound returned slowly behind him, like people remembering they had permission to breathe. The feast resumed in fragments: a laugh here, a cup set down there, the fiddle finding courage again.
Elspeth stood near the singers with Breac, though her attention was not on the song. It was on Colin. She had obviously seen enough to know he had done something, and now, her expression altered from suspicion to a strange, searching stillness.
He stopped before her.
“What did ye dae?” she asked.
“Council business.”
“I dislike when ye answer without answering.”
“I ken.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Did it concern me?”
He held her gaze. “Aye.”
The wind stirred the ribbons at her sleeve. The cheering from her victory still seemed to linger about her, bright and unbelieving. There was a flush in her cheeks from triumph.
His wife.
His impossible, sharp-tongued, brave little storm of a wife.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Why did ye let me win?”
Colin’s mouth tightened, and she could see a stillness in his eyes. The laird was withdrawing behind the wall before the husband could betray himself.
“I didnae.”
She gave him a look. “Please dinnae insult me immediately after flattering me. It confuses the household order.”
His mouth almost moved. “Ye threw well.”
“I did. And ye threw worse than ye are able.”
“Perhaps ye overestimate me.”
“I have seen ye throw a dagger from horseback at a moving man.”
“That was different.”
“Yes. The man was trying tae kill ye, and yet ye seemed less troubled than ye were by a painted board.”
He glanced toward the target, then back at her. “Ye won. Take the victory.”
“I am taking it. I am merely inspecting it first for tampering.”
His gaze held hers for a long moment. Around them the feast continued in uneven bursts of sound. A fiddle was scraping into a lively tune, men were laughing near the ale casks, and children were shrieking as they pursued one another through the grass. Smoke moved low from the cooking fires, fragrant with meat and rosemary. Somewhere, honey had spilled upon a table and drawn bees to circle drunkenly in the sun.
