Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Ruaridh did not go to his chamber, although he wanted to. Instead, he went to Council.
The men were already gathering by the time he entered. Word had moved through Duart faster than any runner. A laird did not return in the dark with a MacDonald woman and expect the castle to remain ignorant until morning.
Torin stood near the hearth, with his arms crossed. He appeared cornered, rather than angry. Brodie was beside the long table, grim and silent, which was more troubling than if he had already begun shouting. The others had no such restraint.
“Is it true?” Alasdair demanded before Ruaridh had fully crossed the threshold. “Ye brought a MacDonald woman here?”
Ruaridh removed his gloves slowly. “Aye.”
The single word struck the room like a thrown torch. Voices rose at once.
“She shouldnae be within these walls!”
“After what they did?”
“Ye cannae mean tae honor such a claim.”
“The Crown has lost its wits if it thinks Duart will stomach this.”
“And what of yer faither?” another man snapped. “Have we all tae forget whose blood paid fer MacDonald treachery?”
At that, silence did not fall, but it sharpened. Ruaridh laid his gloves on the table. His father’s name had not been spoken, but it did not need to be. The dead had a way of entering rooms without doors.
He saw him for a moment as he had last seen him, not as the great laird others remembered, but as a man made strangely small by blood loss, with his hand clamped weakly around Ruaridh’s wrist, and his breath rasping like wind through broken stone.
MacDonald steel had helped make that memory. MacDonald ambition had sharpened it. The feud had taken more from Duart than songs could count. And now a MacDonald woman slept beneath his roof.
He thought of her face when she had been told her father was gone, the way she had absorbed the wound without granting any man the satisfaction of seeing her hurt.
His mouth tightened. He did not know what to feel about her.
That was the truth of it, and it sat ill with him.
He had taken her because Ewen could not be allowed to have her, because Duart couldn’t afford Ewen strengthened by Dunnyveg and because the things whispered about Ewen and women had turned Ruaridh’s blood cold in a way politics alone never could.
But none of those reasons told him what to do with Isobel herself.
She was furious, proud, a MacDonald to the bone. She looked at him as though his hands were no cleaner than the men who had placed her on that stage… perhaps they were not.
“Say something,” Brodie said at last.
Ruaridh looked around the room. The council chamber was older than several of the grudges being spoken inside it, though not by much. Firelight moved across hard faces, gray beards, scarred hands, and men who had buried sons, brothers, fathers.
“I hear ye,” he said.
That quieted some of them, though not all.
“I hear every grievance before ye speak it. I ken whose sons didnae come home. I ken what name was cursed beside me faither’s bier.” His voice remained even. “Dinnae stand in me hall and speak tae me as if I have forgotten the dead.”
No one answered.
“But Lady Isobel MacDonald didnae kill me faither.”
A mutter began near the far end of the table. “Her blood?—”
“Her blood isnae a blade.”
The words cut through the room. The man fell silent.
Ruaridh turned his gaze on each of them in turn. “She isnae her faither. She isnae every MacDonald who has taken from us, just as I am nae every MacLean her people have learned tae hate.”
“That willnae matter tae them,” Alasdair said. “They will see this as weakness.”
“They may see what they please.”
“Colin’s man said Ewen bid for her before the Crown’s witnesses, which means that he will come for her. He wants tae tie Dunnyveg blood tae Sleat with a Crown-witnessed claim.”
“Aye,” Ruaridh nodded. “Likely.”
That won him another burst of alarm.
Torin straightened. “Then we prepare fer it.”
“We dae more than prepare,” Brodie said. “We send her back before he has cause.”
Ruaridh’s eyes went to him. Brodie did not look away. Few men would have dared. That was why Ruaridh valued him.
“Send her back where?” Ruaridh asked. “Tae the faither who sold her? Tae Ewen, who already made claim before witnesses?”
Brodie’s jaw worked once.
Ruaridh leaned both hands on the table. “There is nay sending her back. That road closed the moment the claim was sealed.”
“Then we refuse the marriage,” someone said.
“And have the Crown declare Duart in defiance?” Ruaridh demanded. “Have Ewen claim insult and injury both? Have every enemy from here tae Sleat say MacLean of Duart cannae hold what he has lawfully taken?”
The word taken tasted foul. He saw, again, Isobel’s eyes when he had led her from the stage.
“The match is a leash,” Alasdair spoke bitterly. “That is what they mean it tae be.”
“Aye,” Ruaridh agreed. “And leashes can be turned around the hand that holds them.”
Several men looked at him more sharply. He did not explain further. Half-formed plans were dangerous in rooms thick with anger.
“But make nay mistake,” he continued. “Whatever the Crown intended, whatever her faither intended, whatever Ewen intended, Lady Isobel is under me roof now.”
“Our roof,” one man muttered.
Ruaridh’s gaze moved to him, cold and immediate. “Mine.”
The correction landed hard. He did not raise his voice. He did not need to.
“She will be treated with respect here,” he ordered. “By every man, woman, servant, guard, and child within these walls.”
“Respect?” Alasdair spat. “Fer a MacDonald?”
“Fer a woman who was dragged tae auction by her own blood and handed over before strangers.” Ruaridh’s voice darkened. “Aye. Respect.”
Ruaridh felt their resistance still. It lived in their shoulders and their unwilling eyes. He understood it too well to mistake silence for agreement.
Could he ask respect for her when he did not yet know whether he could look at her without seeing all the history between them? Could he himself demand that others separate woman from clan when he had spent years teaching himself never to forget the cost of MacDonald ambition?
He did not know. But he knew this: Isobel would not be made to pay for dead men’s sins before she had even learned the shape of the halls.
“If any here cannae hold his tongue before her,” Ruaridh told them, “they will avoid her. If any cannae offer courtesy, they will offer silence. If any thinks tae test how far me protection reaches, they will learn it reaches further than their courage.”
Torin gave the smallest nod. Brodie watched Ruaridh with hard eyes, then looked down at the table. It was not surrender, exactly, but it was acceptance enough for tonight.
“What now?” Torin asked.
Ruaridh straightened. “The wedding will be tomorrow.”
The room erupted again.
“Tomorrow?”
“Ye cannae be serious!”
“That is madness.”
“That is necessity,” Ruaridh corrected. “The longer she remains unwed, the more hands will reach for this. Ewen will challenge. The Crown will send riders with new instructions. Her father may pretend regret if he sees advantage in it. Every hour leaves room for argument.”
“And ye think binding yerself tae her ends argument?”
“Aye.” He cut that off before pity or counsel could take shape. “This is done. Send fer Father Calum at first light. Have the hall prepared with only the witnesses required. Nay feast beyond what dignity demands.”
Ruaridh gathered his gloves from the table.
“Brodie, choose men ye trust for the hall tomorrow. Alasdair, send word tae the priest and keep the reason quiet until he arrives. If I hear gossip has gone beyond these walls before dawn, I will know which tongue wagged first.”
Alasdair looked offended. “I am nae a kitchen maid.”
“Nay,” Ruaridh said. “A kitchen maid has better sense.”
A few men glanced down to hide brief, unwilling amusement.
The tension loosened by the smallest measure, enough that blood would not spill in his council chamber.
As he left it and made his way through the cold passages toward the room where Isobel had been taken, he could not shake the thought of her sitting alone in enemy stone, furious enough to stay upright and wounded enough to break if no one was watching.
By tomorrow, he would give her another chain. And all he could tell himself was that this one might keep worse hands from closing around her throat.
By evening, Duart had learned to whisper. The hush moved ahead of Isobel as she entered the dining hall with Sorcha at her side. First he saw her, then the brooch, MacDonald silver, set openly at her shoulder.
For one moment, the hall seemed to hold its breath. Torin’s gaze flicked to Ruaridh. Brodie’s mouth hardened. Half the household watched the brooch as if it had been a drawn blade.
Isobel walked on. She knew exactly what she had done. She knew every eye had found it. That was why she wore it.
A challenge.
Or perhaps not only that. Perhaps it was a reminder to herself. He understood that more than he wished to.
Sorcha guided her toward the table, but Isobel did not look away from him as she approached, as though daring him to order it removed. Ruaridh leaned back in his chair and said nothing.
Surprise crossed her face. It was brief and nearly hidden, but he saw it. He saw too the quick tightening of her fingers near the brooch, as if she had expected to defend it and found herself suddenly deprived of the battle.
God knew there would be enough battles. He would not take that piece of her tonight.
“Lady Isobel,” he greeted as she reached the table.
“Laird MacLean,” she returned, cool enough to frost the wine.
He gestured to the place at his right. “Sit.”
Her eyes narrowed. “A command already? We have scarcely begun supper.”
“If ye require encouragement, I can phrase it more sweetly.”
“I doubt ye have much practice.”
Brodie choked softly into his cup. Ruaridh looked at him, and Brodie became very interested in the table.
Isobel sat with Sorcha close behind her.
She did not remove the brooch. She did not lower her gaze.
She looked down the length of the table at the gathered MacLeans as if every one of them might dislike her, but none of them would be permitted to frighten her.
Food was brought out, and conversation returned in cautious pieces. Ruaridh watched Isobel refuse the best cut placed before her and choose instead the smaller portion beside it.
He lifted a brow. “Dinnae trust MacLean meat?”
“I trust meat well enough. It has the virtue of being dead before it comes near me.”
A few heads turned.
Ruaridh’s mouth twitched despite himself. “A rare compliment from ye, I suspect.”
“I give compliments when they are earned.”
“And what earns them?”
“Good sense, decency. Also, silence.”
“Then I have failed already.”
“Spectacularly.”
This time Torin did laugh, though he covered it too late with a cough.
Ruaridh cut into his food. “Ye are brave, insulting a man at his own table.”
“I was sold this morning, dragged across half the west, and delivered tae a castle full of people who look at me as if I brought plague beneath me skirts.” She took a measured sip of watered wine. “I find I have little patience left for caution.”
The table quieted again. Ruaridh looked at her more closely. Many would have answered fear with noise. Isobel chose precision. She set her words like arrows, and every one landed where she meant it to.
“A dangerous habit,” he pointed out.
“Truth?” She lifted an eyebrow.
“Spending all yer arrows before ye ken the field.”
Her eyes sharpened. “And dae ye think I have?”
“Nay,” he mused. “I think ye are counting the distance.”
For a moment, he thought he could see interest, though she would have hated him for naming it.
“And ye?” she asked. “Dae ye always speak in warnings, or only when trying tae make supper unbearable?”
“I was trying tae make it… educational.”
“Fer whom?”
He looked down the table, at the men still pretending not to listen. “Everyone, it seems.”
A faint flush touched her cheeks, but she did not retreat. “Then allow me tae offer a lesson in return. If ye bring a MacDonald woman into a MacLean hall and expect her tae hide what she is, ye are a greater fool than I thought.”
Ruaridh’s gaze dropped briefly to the brooch, then returned to her face. It struck him then how beautiful she was, and also, how infuriatingly stubborn. He should have let the matter rest.
Instead, he spoke. “A woman stripped of choice should be allowed tae keep her name.”
The words left the table still. Isobel stared at him as if he had spoken in a language she did not trust herself to understand. Ruaridh turned back to his plate before the moment could grow softer than either of them wanted.
“Dinnae look so surprised,” he said. “It might ruin yer reputation.”
Her eyes flashed at once. “I assure ye, there is nay danger of that.”
“Good.”
“Excellent.”
They ate in brittle silence for a moment.
Then she added. “Though I will admit, MacLean bread is less offensive than expected.”
Ruaridh glanced at her. “Careful. That was nearly praise.”
“It was an observation. Dinnae grow vain.”
Too late, he felt amusement rise in his chest.
Across the table, Brodie and Torin exchanged a look Ruaridh did not care for at all. He ignored them.
Isobel MacDonald was proud, furious, and far too quick with her tongue. She was also clever… very clever.
And as she sat in his hall with his enemy’s name pinned openly to her shoulder, Ruaridh found himself thinking that Duart had not yet understood what had entered its walls.