Page 69 of Promised to the Forbidden Laird

“Read it,” she urged.

The man broke the outer fastening and unfolded the parchment.

“His Majesty acknowledges the petition of Lady Donaldina MacNicol concerning the Highland Marriage Accord, sealed before the royal council in the year of Our Lord fifteen hundred and ninety-eight.”

The formal language continued, heavy with titles, obligations and the Crown’s conviction that time altered nothing it had once commanded. Roy listened only for the decision. It came without softness.

“The Crown finds nae lawful cause by which the agreement may be dissolved. The death of Laird Lachlan MacNicol doesnae invalidate the consent previously granted by the ruling house of MacNicol, nor does the delay caused by royal service release either party from the obligations accepted before the council.”

The words seemed to change the air within the hall. Several councilors exhaled in satisfaction. Others shifted uneasily. Somewhere near the rear, a man whispered a prayer.

Donaldina did not move. Roy looked at her profile. Her chin remained lifted, but all color had left her face.

The messenger lowered the first document. “There is another matter.”

The clerk stepped forward and placed the wooden case upon the table. He opened it carefully, revealing a second parchment protected beneath oiled cloth.

“This is a certified copy of the original marriage agreement,” the messenger revealed. “Requested from the royal archive after Lady Donaldina questioned whether the changed circumstances at Dun Ard altered her family’s consent.”

He lifted the parchment and turned it so the gathered council could see the seals fixed along its lower edge. Roy recognized his father’s mark beside his own. The MacIver seal had been pressed into the wax before Roy left for war, when he was younger, angrier, and convinced that a marriage ordered by a king could have no greater difficulty than a campaign ordered by one.

Beside it rested another seal, a ship upon a field of waves.

MacNicol.

Donaldina stared at it.

The messenger indicated the mark with one gloved finger.

“The agreement bears the seal and witnessed signature of Laird Lachlan MacNicol. His consent was confirmed before three members of the royal council. Nae protest or reservation was entered.”

Silence followed. Roy felt Donaldina sway without moving. Her brother’s seal changed nothing in law. The King had already made that plain.

It changed everything in grief. Until that moment, some part of her must have believed Lachlan merely yielded beneath royal pressure or intended to undo the agreement once the war ended. Now his own mark lay before her, dark against the faded wax, evidence that he had accepted the alliance and intended his sister to leave Dun Ard for Black Craig.

Donaldina reached for the parchment. The messenger placed it carefully in her hands. Her fingertips passed over the MacNicol seal. Roy watched grief enter her face with the quiet force of water finding a crack in stone. She did not weep. Donaldina rarely allowed sorrow such visible liberty.

“He signed it,” she whispered.

The words were scarcely louder than the rain against the shutters.

“Aye,” the messenger replied. “Willingly, according tae the witnesses.”

Donaldina lowered her gaze to Lachlan’s name. Roy wanted to say something: that Lachlan had spoken of the accord during the war without regret, that he believed the union might end the coastal bloodshed which had consumed men from both clans for generations, that he had described Donaldina as possessing enough will to prevent any husband from imagining marriage made him her master.

None of it belonged before the council.

Malcolm Beaton broke the silence. “Then the matter is settled.”

The old councilor placed both hands upon the table and looked around the hall.

“The accord stands. Our late laird accepted it. The King commands it. With Cormac gathering allies and the lesser clans watching for weakness, delay serves nae one.”

Finlay nodded. “The marriage should take place at once.”

Agreement rose around them.

“A ceremony within the week.”