Page 76 of Promised to the Forbidden Laird

“I am sorry,” she whispered. “I judged ye by another man’s lie because anger was easier than grief.”

Roy’s hold tightened. “I should have told ye.”

“Aye,” she said tearfully. “Ye should have.”

A faint sound moved through his chest, not quite laughter, but near enough to it that Donaldina clung more tightly.

For so long, Lachlan’s death stood between them like a locked door. Now it opened not upon blame, but upon two people who had loved the same man and suffered his absence differently.

The bees hummed around them. Sunlight warmed the new pine hive beneath the carved thistle, while beyond the garden wall the sea continued its endless struggle against the cliffs.

Donaldina did not know what answer she would give the King, the council or even Roy. But held within his arms, with the last of Cormac’s falsehood dissolving between them, she knew one thing with perfect certainty.

She was no longer searching for a reason to leave.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Roy discovered that ruling beside Donaldina was considerably easier than understanding her.

For four days, the solar became the center of preparations for the harvest festival. Petitions arrived from merchants, farmers, musicians, and men who believed that owning three barrels of ale entitled them to a position of exceptional prominence in the market square. The long table disappeared beneath parchment.

Donaldina was sitting at one end with the village petitions arranged before her. Roy occupied the other with lists of guards, horses, wagons and stores. Between them stood two cups of neglected ale, a plate of bread neither remembered to eat, and a candle which burned down so often that servants replaced it without waiting to be asked.

“Gregor Beaton requests the stall beside the fountain,” Donaldina announced.

Roy did not look up from the patrol list. “Nae.”

She paused. “Ye havenae heard his reason.”

“He sells livestock.”

“Goats.”

“A goat remains livestock.”

“He argues that the fountain will provide water for them.”

“It will also provide goats for everyone wishing tae drink.”

Donaldina’s lips twitched. “An inconvenience.”

“A siege.”

She marked the petition with her quill. “The eastern edge of the square, then.”

“Near the hitching posts.”

Her hand moved without hesitation. They had begun dividing the work on the first morning, though Roy could not recall either of them proposing it. Donaldina understood the people of Dun Ard and the neighboring villages with an instinct no ledger could teach. She knew which disputes concealed old grudges, which complaints were sincere and which men exaggerated hardship because they enjoyed the sound of their own suffering.

Roy understood roads, supplies and danger. She assigned trading spaces. He calculated how many guards were required to keep those traders from robbing or striking one another. She approved musicians and food sellers. He ensured the ale carts could enter the square without blocking the northern road.

Neither asked permission of the other. Neither seemed to require it.

When Donaldina promised the widow Mòr Campbell a place near the center of the market, Roy added her stall to the night watch without comment. When Roy ordered another patrol along the wooded road, Donaldina reduced the number of wagons expected to travel after sunset.

Their decisions met in the space between them and became something whole.

On the third afternoon, two farmers entered the solar arguing over the same patch of ground.