Page 28 of Promised to the Forbidden Laird

“Ye are blushing.”

She nearly choked. “I am not.”

“Aye.”

“I have been drinking spiced ale.”

“Ye have scarcely touched it.”

She set the cup down with dignity. “Dae ye study every woman’s face with such attention?”

“Nae.”

The answer was immediate. Donaldina’s breath hesitated. Roy seemed to realize what he had admitted. His gaze dropped briefly toward the table.

For once, he had no dry remark to rescue himself. The silence between them shifted. Roy sat close enough that his knee nearly touched hers beneath the table. His hand rested beside his plate, broad and scarred, the same hand that had cleaned the blood from her arm with astonishing care. She looked away first.

Across the hall, three men sat at the end of a lower table. Donaldina recognized them as clansmen who surrendered only after Cormac fled through the gates. One served beneath Cormac during the years Lachlan was away. Another argued in council that the King’s accord should be abandoned.

Their heads were bent together. Their voices were too low to carry, but their eyes moved repeatedly toward the dais. Donaldina felt Roy’s attention shift beside her.

“Cormac’s men,” he said quietly.

“Formerly, one hopes.”

“Hope is useful.”

“And guards are better?”

“Aye.”

The whispering ceased, though resentment remained visible in the set of their shoulders. They expected Roy and Donaldina to sit together like opponents forced into temporary courtesy. Perhaps the entire clan expected it.

Hostility was simple. It allowed every man to choose a side. Ease was more dangerous.

Donaldina looked around the hall and realized how many people were subtly watching. MacNicol pride permitted few people to stare without pretending some other purpose. Yet, glances came from beneath lowered lashes and over lifted cups.

The feast was not merely a meal. It was a performance of whatever future they might have.

Across the hall, the whispering began again. This time, Donaldina understood what Cormac’s remaining supporters had seen. It was not affection, but rather the absence of hatred.

And in a castle held together by politics, grief and an unwanted marriage accord, that absence might be more threatening than either of them understood.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The battlements were quieter than the hall. Below, the sea moved in darkness, striking the cliffs with a steady violence softened by distance. Wind slipped between the stones and carried away the last traces of music from the feast.

Roy walked with Hamish beside him. They had crossed battlefields together since youth, slept beneath the same leaking tents and trusted one another with the sort of silence that required no explanation. Unfortunately, Hamish never considered silence binding.

“Ye have faced cavalry charges with less hesitation,” he remarked.

Roy kept his gaze upon the western hills. “Than what?”

“Speaking tae Lady Donaldina.”

“I spoke tae her throughout the feast.”

“Aye. As though each sentence might conceal a blade.”