Page 120 of Promised to the Forbidden Laird

“And now?”

She looked toward the two banners moving softly together.

“Now it is being prepared for both of us.”

The words entered him quietly. Roy had taken forts, defended strongholds and returned to halls that bore his name. None of them had ever felt offered to him.

Donaldina stood beside him with chalk upon one hand and dust upon the hem of her gown, speaking as though there were a place for him here that required no conquest. Roy reached out and brushed a pale streak of dust from her sleeve.

Donaldina glanced down. “Was it offensive?”

“Deeply.”

She smiled.

Around them, Dun Ard continued preparing, not for surrender, and not for victory, but for the life they had chosen to build between two banners.

The banner appeared upon the northern road three days before the wedding. Roy watched it approach from the gatehouse: dark blue wool marked by a pale stag, unfamiliar enough among the gathered MacIver and MacNicol colors to draw men toward the battlements. Six riders followed beneath it, armed openly but carrying no lances lowered for battle.

That meant it was not an attack, but something intended to look more reasonable.

The gates opened at Roy’s order. Hooves struck the courtyard stones, scattering rainwater from the shallow grooves. Servants stopped beneath the covered passages. Warriors shifted nearer their swords without touching them.

At the head of the riders sat Alasdair MacAulay, second son of a minor chief whose lands bordered the northern grazing routes. Roy met him once before the war and remembered a young man too eager to repeat his father’s opinions. Time had given him a beard, a finer cloak and the same borrowed certainty.

Alasdair dismounted beneath his clan’s banner. “I come tae speak before the council.”

Roy descended the gatehouse stair. Donaldina reached the courtyard from the opposite passage, her green wool moving around her ankles and the MacNicol brooch bright at her shoulder.

The envoy’s attention went first to Roy. That was deliberate.

Donaldina noticed it as well. Roy saw the slight lift of her chin.

“The council is gathered,” she said. “Ye may speak there.”

Alasdair bowed, though not deeply enough to disguise the insult of having overlooked her.

They entered the great hall beneath a silence already turning watchful. The preparations for the wedding remained everywhere. There was winter greenery wound around the pillars, fresh rushes covered the floor, filling the air with the clean scent of grass beneath peat smoke, and the two clan banners hung above the high table at equal height.

Alasdair looked at them before taking his place before the council. Roy remained beside Donaldina rather than ahead of her.

“What matter brings armed men tae Dun Ard?” he asked.

“The men are me escort.”

“Six swords for a council question.”

“These are uncertain times.”

A murmur moved along the table. Alasdair drew a folded document from beneath his cloak but did not offer it forward.

“Several northern clans have concerns regarding the proposed marriage between Laird MacIver and Lady Donaldina.”

“Then they may send their concerns beneath their own seals,” Roy replied.

“They will. When they are assured those concerns may be spoken without punishment.”

There it was, the appearance of caution and the suggestion of oppression before Roy had even issued a single threat. Cormac had chosen his messenger well.