Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
She slept for four hours and woke to Jane sitting on the edge of her bed with a cup of tea and a bruise along her cheekbone that had darkened overnight into something spectacular.
“Before ye say anythin’,” Jane said. “I’ve been told twice already that I look terrible and I daenae need a third opinion.”
“I wasn’t going to say that,” Isobel said. “I was going to say thank you.”
Jane looked at her. “For the bruise?”
“For everything before the bruise.” Isobel sat up, took the tea, and held it with both hands. “You tried to get up.”
“I did get up,” Jane said. “Eventually.”
“Eventually counts.”
Jane made a face that was not quite a smile, which was, Isobel had come to understand Jane’s version of being moved. “There are things happenin’ downstairs,” she said. “The Laird summoned the council before breakfast. Lady Branwen says ye daenae have to attend.”
“Lady Branwen says I don’t have to, or Lady Branwen says she would rather I didn’t.”
Jane considered this. “Both, I think.”
“Then I’m attending,” Isobel said. “Help me dress.”
* * *
The council chamber was already full when she arrived.
Every man who typically sat at that table was there.
Hamish stood at the far end where Malcolm had always stood, which Isobel noticed immediately.
Alasdair was at the head. He had not slept, or not much.
She could tell from the set of his jaw that he was exhausted.
He looked at her when she entered, and something briefly shifted in his face before his attention returned to the room.
She sat beside Lady Branwen, who was already there, already watching everything.
“Ye look dreadful,” Lady Branwen said quietly, without turning her head.
“Thank you,” Isobel said.
Alasdair rose. The room went quiet.
“First, let me clear up some unfinished business. This morning I heard word from one of me trackers. Evan McDonough has been found and put to death for his crimes against our clan.”
The men in the room thumped their fists on the tabletop while nodding their approval.
“Now that one debt has been paid, I must tell ye all about another.” He inhaled deeply before proceeding. “Ye ken what happened last night,” he said. “Or ye ken the shape of it. I’m goin’ to give ye the rest.”
He told them everything—Malcolm’s father, the double allegiance at Culloden, the bloodshed, and the baby left on a doorstep.
The exiles in the hollow. The fire in the library used as a distraction.
He spoke of how Isobel had been taken from her chamber through a passage Malcolm had been preparing for weeks.
He laid each piece flat on the table and let the room absorb it.
Nobody spoke. No one looked at anyone else.
One of the older council members, a man called Nairn who had sat at this table since Alasdair’s father’s time, had his hands clasped in front of him on the table and did not move them for the entire recounting.
Isobel watched him and thought about how many times he must have sat beside Malcolm.
“Hamish MacKenzie is the rightful heir to the MacKenzie holdin’.
His parents were murdered for the title before he was a year old.
He was raised in this castle without kennin’ what he was owed, because the men who kent were either dead or paid to be silent.
That ends today.” Alasdair looked at Hamish.
“The holdin’ is yers. The council recognizes it. The Elders will be informed this week.”
Hamish looked at him across the table.
“Thank ye.”
“Daenae thank me,” Alasdair said. “It’s yers.”
He turned back to the room.
“Now, we must discuss Thomas Graham,” he said, and Isobel sat up slightly straighter at the mention of her father.
“His name has been used as a liability against this clan, his debts cited as a weakness in this alliance. Those debts are cleared as of this mornin’.
His name is restored. Anyone who raises it as a matter of clan concern will answer to me directly.
” He looked around the table. “Is that understood?”
A murmur of assent moved around the room, the kind that happened when men were less agreeing than acknowledging they had heard.
“Good,” Alasdair said. “The weddin’ is at midday. I suggest everyone eat breakfast.”
He sat down. A beat of silence, and then the room moved.
Isobel was still looking at him when he met her gaze.
“You could have warned me,” she said quietly enough that only Lady Branwen heard.
“About which part?” he said.
“The wedding.”
Lady Branwen’s brow wrinkled. “Ye didnae ken ye were set to become the Lady of Dunalasdair today?”
Isobel shook her head gently. “I knew that Alasdair agreed to postpone for just a short time, but I did not think, after all that happened last night, he would be inclined to stick to the plan.”
“Alasdair does not stray from a plan,” Lady Branwen reminded Isobel gently. “Not when it is designed to bring him exactly what he wants.”
* * *
The hour before a wedding, Isobel had always understood from other women’s accounts, was meant to involve a great deal of stillness and solemnity. Reflection. The quiet composing of oneself.
She spent her time sitting on her bed while Jane sewed a tear in her chemise, and Lady Branwen told her a story about her own wedding that grew more alarming toward the middle, with Lady Sarah standing in the doorway eating an apple and offering commentary on everything.
“The part with the goat,” Sarah questioned. “Was that before or after the vows?”
“During,” Lady Branwen replied without missing a beat.
“I daenae understand how durin’ is possible,” Jane said, through a mouthful of thread.
“Ye underestimate what a determined goat can accomplish,” Lady Branwen said.
“Was it a large goat?” Isobel asked.
“It was a medium goat with the energy of a large goat,” Lady Branwen said. “Which is the most dangerous variety.”
“What did the priest do?” Jane said.
“He continued,” Lady Branwen said. “He was a pragmatic man. I always respected him for it.”
Sarah had stopped eating her apple and was staring at her grandmother. “Ye have never told me this story.”
“Ye never asked,” Lady Branwen said.
“I am askin’ now,” Sarah said.
“The weddin’ is in an hour,” Lady Branwen said. “There isnae time.”
“There is time,” Sarah said.
“There isnae time,” Lady Branwen said again, and the finality in her voice closed the matter entirely, which Isobel was starting to understand was something Lady Branwen could do at will and used judiciously.
Isobel was laughing, trying not to move, because Jane was still sewing and the needle was very close to her shoulder. “Was the goat invited?” she managed.
“The goat was nae invited,” Lady Branwen said. “The goat had opinions about this and expressed them.”
“What happened to it?” Isobel said.
“It became supper,” Lady Branwen said, entirely placidly. “Which was justice, I felt.”
Sarah finished her apple and threw the core out the window with the casual accuracy of someone who had been doing it since childhood. “Alasdair’s nay worse than a goat,” she said. “Marginally.”
“You should not say such things about your brother,” Isobel giggled. “He is soon to be my husband, and I may just have to tell him everything.”
Lady Sarah snickered. “Tell him whatever ye like, Isobel. I’m nae afraid of Alasdair.”
Jane pulled the needle free and tied off the thread. “Done,” she said.
She looked at Jane’s bruised cheek, still dark from the night before, and felt the familiar pull of guilt.
“Jane,” she said.
“If ye apologize again, I’m puttin’ the needle back in,” Jane said.
“I was going to say thank you again,” Isobel said.
“Ye already said thank you,” Jane said. “Twice.”
“It bears repeating.”
Jane looked at her steadily. “Ye went into a passage in the dark in yer nightclothes and hit a man twice yer size with a rock,” she said. “I’m the one who should be sayin’ thank you. Ye gave me something worth havin’ the bruise for.”
Lady Branwen looked at Isobel with her sharp old eyes. “Are ye ready for whatever comes next?” she said.
Isobel thought about standing in her father’s hall all those weeks ago, watching the Laird of Dunalasdair arrive, entirely certain her life as she had understood it was ending.
“Aye,” she said. “I have been for a while.”
Lady Branwen made a sound that might marked her satisfaction. “Good,” she said.
There was a loud knock on the door then, and as if she had called them forth just by thinking of the home that had once been her own, Isobel’s parents hurried into the room.
She had known they were coming; Alasdair had told her that morning, briefly, right after the council meeting adjourned. But seeing her father and mother walk through the door was something she had not prepared herself for entirely.
Her mother had many opinions on various topics and voiced them all at once, which felt familiar, warm, and exactly what Isobel needed without realizing she needed it.
She held on and let herself be held, contemplating how long it had been since she had been in a room with her mother and not been managing something.
She did not need to manage anything right now. She did not need to manage anything.
Her father followed behind. He looked thinner. Older. The particular way a man looked when he had been frightened for a long time and had not quite stopped being frightened yet.
She went to him.
“Father,” she said.
He looked at her for a moment. He pressed his lips together in that way he had, the way men who had been raised not to feel things in public managed the feeling anyway. “Isobel,” he said. “You look well.”
“I am well,” she said.
“I heard what happened,” he said. “Last night.” His jaw tightened. “I heard it this mornin’. All of it.”
“I’m all right,” she said.
“You hit a man with a stone,” he said.
“He deserved it,” she said.
Her father looked at her for a long moment. Then he said, very quietly, “Our debts are cleared. Our name is restored. Alasdair announced it this morning before the whole council.”