Epilogue
Three months later…
Three months after Ewen MacDonald’s death, the Crown remembered that it possessed a conscience, or at least, Ruaridh thought, a clerk.
The letter arrived on a mild morning when Duart looked almost determined to pretend it had never known fear.
Sunlight lay across the sea in long bright paths, and the wind that came over the cliffs carried the scents of salt, drying heather, and peat smoke from the village below.
The castle itself had settled into a quieter rhythm since the last of Ewen’s men had either been buried, questioned, or sent under guard to men who possessed the authority.
Ruaridh stood by the table with the Crown’s letter in his hand and read it for the second time. Colin, who had arrived with Niall two days earlier and had since made himself comfortable in every chair not expressly denied him, watched with open curiosity.
“Well? Daes the Crown beg forgiveness upon its knees, or has it expressed regret in such a manner that nay one need be inconvenienced by sincerity?”
Niall looked up from his cup. “If they had knees enough fer every delayed apology, they would never rise.”
Ruaridh lowered the parchment. “They express sorrow.”
Colin winced. “Ah. Sorrow. Very inexpensive.”
“Delay is acknowledged,” Ruaridh said. “Ewen’s actions are condemned. The danger tae me household is named. There is regret that intervention didnae come in time.”
Ruaridh saw again the empty bed, the strip of Isobel’s shawl caught on rough wood and Ewen’s blade against her throat.
“Three months,” Brodie muttered from near the hearth. “They required three months tae be sorry.”
Torin, standing beside the door, said nothing, but his face had gone hard. Then, Isobel came into the room. The air altered for Ruaridh at once, as it always did when she entered. He hated himself a little for the weakness of it, and loved her too much to wish it cured.
She wore a gown of soft green wool, her hair was braided loosely over one shoulder, and her MacDonald brooch was pinned where all could see it.
Once, that brooch had declared defiance.
Now it seemed only truth. She came to Duart as a MacDonald, and remained there as his wife, his equal, his heart’s peace and greatest unrest.
Her gaze went first to his face, not the letter.
“What is it?” she asked.
“The Crown,” he explained.
A little stillness passed through her. He handed her the parchment.
Isobel read in silence. The sunlight touched the side of her face, softening the line of her cheek.
No mark remained from Ewen’s blow. The cut at her throat had faded into nothing.
Yet Ruaridh remembered both with such clarity that his hand curled at his side.
When she finished, she folded the letter along its crease.
“They are sorry they were late,” she echoed.
“Aye.”
“And nae sorry enough tae say they should never have made such a thing possible.”
The room went quiet. Ruaridh crossed to her. He did not touch her at once, not before the others, not while she stood so still and proud.
Her mouth tightened faintly, then eased. “Still, it is something.”
Colin looked at her with unusual seriousness. “A gracious answer, Lady Isobel.”
She gave him a dry glance. “Dinnae mistake me. I am only deciding whether tae be gracious before or after I correct their grammar.”
Niall laughed into his cup.
Ruaridh felt the corner of his mouth move despite himself. “Their grammar offended ye?”
“Their grammar, their cowardice, and their excessive fondness for the word regret.”
“An ambitious list,” Colin mused.
The room breathed again, but Torin stepped forward with a second letter. “There is another.”
Ruaridh took it. The seal was from Sleat. Isobel saw it at once. Her fingers tightened around the Crown’s apology.
Ruaridh’s gaze found hers. “Nae Ewen’s seal.”
“I ken,” she said quietly.
But knowing did not banish memory.
He broke the seal. The new laird of Sleat wrote plainly, which Ruaridh preferred at once.
Alasdair MacDonald disavowed Ewen’s private violence, acknowledged that no claim remained upon Lady Isobel MacLean, and offered terms of peace between their houses.
There would be no retaliation for Ewen’s death if Duart did not pursue revenge beyond those already responsible.
Old grievances were not forgiven, but neither would new blood be spilled for the pride of a dead man.
Ruaridh read it through once, then passed it to Isobel.
She took it slowly. Her expression was guarded as she read, but not afraid.
Three months ago, a seal from Sleat would have brought the room to dread.
Now, she read it standing in sunlight, with him beside her and his friends around her, as a woman no longer waiting to be taken.
“Will ye accept?” she asked quietly.
Ruaridh looked at the letter again. “With conditions. He will keep peace if we dae. If any man loyal tae Ewen crosses intae me lands with weapon or threat, the agreement ends.”
“That is fair,” Niall nodded.
“It is wary,” Colin corrected. “Which, fer Ruaridh, is almost joy.”
Brodie grunted. “Peace from Sleat is useful if he means it.”
“And if he daesnae?” Isobel asked.
Ruaridh looked at her. “Then he will regret writing in so steady a hand.”
For a moment, her eyes warmed with approval, and he felt it more strongly than any praise.
They continued to speak of the reply, of messengers, seals, witnesses.
Isobel stood beside him as if she had always belonged there, occasionally asking a question sharp enough to make Torin reconsider a phrase or Brodie to mutter agreement.
Ruaridh found himself watching the others watch her. There was no suspicion in their faces now. His men listened when she spoke. He was proud of that… more than proud.
The door opened before he could decide what to do with the feeling, and a young servant entered with yet another folded paper.
“Me laird,” the lad said, bowing. “The rider said this was tae be delivered with the Crown letter.”
Colin sighed. “If it is another apology, I insist upon wine first.”
Ruaridh took the letter and broke the seal. His eyes moved down the page, then stopped.
Niall noticed. “What is it?”
Ruaridh read the line again, though there was no mistaking it.
“A summons.”
The room changed more quickly this time.
“Fer whom?” Colin asked.
Ruaridh lifted his gaze. “Ye.”
Colin blinked. “Me?”
“And Niall.”
Niall set his cup down slowly. “Tae what?”
Ruaridh handed him the page. “The next Masquerade.”
The word settled over them like cold mist. Isobel did not move. Ruaridh felt her stillness beside him and wanted, with a fierceness that nearly startled him, to take the letter back and burn it.
Colin took the letter from Niall and skimmed through it. “It says Masquerade, nae auction.”
“Aye,” Niall nodded. “As if the name repairs the thing.”
Isobel drew a slow breath. “Perhaps they have changed it after what happened.”
Ruaridh looked at her. “Dae ye believe that?”
“Nay,” she said. “But I believe shame sometimes teaches men tae alter the appearance of their sins.”
Colin’s mouth twisted. “Comforting.”
“It wasnae meant tae comfort ye.”
“Then it succeeds admirably.”
Despite the heaviness, Niall almost smiled. Ruaridh took the summons and read more carefully. It spoke of attendance required, selection not assured, revised procedures, greater oversight and no claim to be sealed without inquiry and witnessed consent.
Consent.
The word looked strange there, as though it had wandered by accident into a Crown document and might be escorted out at any moment. He showed it to Isobel. Her eyes lingered on the line.
“Well,” she scoffed. “That is new.”
“Words are easy,” Brodie commented.
“Aye,” she agreed. “But once written, they can be held against the man who wrote them.”
Ruaridh looked at her, and again felt that deep, steady pride. She had been treated as powerless and had learned precisely where power might be seized.
Colin was unusually quiet. “So we go.”
Niall looked grim. “It seems we dae.”
Ruaridh folded the summons. “Ye will go prepared. Nae as men attending entertainment, but as men entering a room built tae make cruelty look civil.”
Colin’s eyes shifted to Isobel. “And what counsel would Lady Isobel give?”
The jest was absent from his voice.
Isobel met his gaze. “Look first at the women.”
No one spoke.
“Nae at the alliances,” she continued. “Nae at which laird stands near which door, nor which family might profit from what match. Look at the women. Whether they are frightened, whether they ken why they are there, whether they are being listened tae. If the Crown now speaks of consent, make them prove they understand the word.”
Niall inclined his head. “I will.”
Colin did the same, more gently than Ruaridh had ever seen him. “So will I.”
Some of the tension left Isobel’s face. Ruaridh’s hand found hers beneath the edge of the table.
He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles.
He did it without thought, without caring that the room saw.
Once, such softness before others would have seemed a dangerous exposure.
Now he knew better. The danger had never been in loving her openly.
The danger had been in a world that mistook love for weakness.
Niall looked away with tact.
Colin did not. “There is hope fer the Masquerade yet,” he declared. “If it gave that creature a heart, perhaps it may give me a wife.”
“It didnae give me a heart,” Ruaridh corrected. “It gave me Isobel.”
For once, Colin had no immediate answer. Isobel’s hand tightened in his. The moment might have grown too tender had Brodie not spoken.
“Any woman who takes Colin deserves warning.”
“I am still in the room,” Colin scoffed playfully.
“Aye. That is why I said it clearly.”
Even Isobel laughed then, and the sound entered the room like sunlight.
Ruaridh watched her, smiling despite himself.
Three months ago, she had ridden home in his arms at dawn, bruised, shaken, and alive only by courage and blade.
Now she stood in his solar, laughing with his friends, advising them on how to face the very institution that had tried to reduce her to a bargain.
She was not untouched by what had happened. He would never insult her by thinking that. But she was not owned by it either. That was the miracle.
“Now,” Colin spoke again, “about this wife I am apparently tae find. Daes the Crown provide a list, or must I charm the room by instinct?”
Niall groaned.
Isobel looked at Colin with perfect composure. “If instinct is all ye have, I advise silence.”
Ruaridh laughed. And because the sound came easily, because Isobel smiled when she heard it, because no shadow entered the room to steal it away, the morning felt, at last, like peace.
But there’s more…
Peace has finally come to the Isles, but the Masquerade is far from over.