Chapter 6 #2
Nothing followed… no name, no explanation, not even the courtesy of pretending the memory belonged to some distant, harmless affection.
Once.
The word held a whole absence.
Donaldina looked at him, but his expression closed again. Whatever person he had missed had left a wound time had not taught him to speak of. She did not ask whether it was a woman. She did not ask whether the person had died, abandoned him, or made a choice he could not forgive.
They turned back toward Dun Ard. The path seemed less narrow on the return, though darkness had gathered upon it. Roy remained nearest the cliff. Donaldina walked at his side, their shoulders occasionally brushing when the trail curved.
She always believed grief isolated the sufferer. Walking beside him beneath the darkening sky, she began to wonder whether it merely taught one wounded person to recognize another.
Morning entered her chamber in a pale and unconvincing fashion. A thin light pressed against the windows, revealing more gray cloud than day. Donaldina sat near the hearth with an untouched cup of honeyed milk cooling beside her.
Across the chamber, Mairi folded a gown that had already been folded twice.
She had been Donaldina’s companion since they were both girls, though no one looking at Mairi’s solemn expression would have guessed she had once tied Lachlan’s boots together before a council supper and allowed Donaldina to bear the blame.
This morning, she said little. That was how Donaldina knew a question was approaching.
Mairi placed the gown into the chest, then removed it.
“Ye are staring out the window,” Mairi mused.
Donaldina shrugged. “I am observing the weather.”
“For half an hour?”
“It is a complicated sky.”
Mairi looked toward the blank expanse of cloud. “Aye. Fierce complicated.”
Donaldina reached for the cup and discovered the milk had gone cold. She set it down again.
Mairi folded the gown for a third time. “Laird MacIver returned late last night.”
Donaldina’s attention shifted to her before good sense could prevent it. “He was inspecting the cliff path.”
“With ye,” Mairi supplied.
“I ken the ground.”
Donaldina stood and crossed toward the dressing table, though she had no purpose there. Roy’s torn strip of linen remained around her arm. The sight of it recalled his rough fingers against her wrist and the care with which he cleaned a wound she insisted did not exist.
“He saved ye,” Mairi said. “Twice.”
“Aye.”
“And he helped restore Dun Ard.”
“He did.”
“But… that doesnae mean ye know him.”
Donaldina’s fingers stilled.
Mairi came nearer. “Many still believe he returned because Lachlan couldnae. They believe he left yer brother tae die.”
“Belief doesnae make a thing true.”
“Nae. But gratitude doesnae make a man trustworthy either.”
There was no accusation in Mairi’s face, only concern. “He could have taken the castle by force,” Donaldina said. “He refused because MacNicol men would have died.”
“He could afford patience. The King already promised him the castle through ye.”
The words struck more sharply than Mairi intended. Donaldina moved away.
“He hasnae spoken of Dun Ard as his.”
“Nae yet.”
Donaldina frowned. “Ye sound like Cormac.”
Mairi flinched. Regret followed immediately, but Donaldina’s confusion was too raw for an apology.
Mairi lowered her voice. “I only ask ye tae remember who he is.”
“I scarcely ken who he is.”
“That is what frightens me.”
Donaldina also felt fear. She understood that Roy spoke sparingly, observed carefully, and showed respect for her—something men from her own clan withheld.
She recognized that he hid tenderness behind his practicality and sorrow behind his quietness.
She knew the memory of someone still haunted him.
However, she was unsure if these qualities made him safe.
Even more, she no longer felt sure she wanted to be free from him as she once did before he arrived at Dun Ard.
Mairi studied her face. “Yesterday ye looked at him as if ye meant tae strike him.”
“And today?”
“As if ye are considering whether striking him would require standing closer.”
Mairi’s mouth twitched. Despite herself, Donaldina felt heat climb farther into her face. “This conversation has become intolerable.”
“Aye. Ye are very pink.”
Donaldina crossed to the writing table and sat with considerably more force than necessary.
A sheet of parchment lay before her. The royal seal upon the marriage agreement seemed to exist even when the document itself was elsewhere.
It governed eight years of absence, war and expectation.
Now it waited to decide what portion of her life belonged to a man she had known for scarcely two days.
She dipped the quill.
“What are ye writing?” Mairi asked.
“A petition.”
“Tae whom?”
“The King.”
Mairi became silent. Donaldina placed the quill against the parchment. For several moments, no words came. Then she wrote formally, because formal words were the safest kind.
She addressed King James with every title owed to him.
She described Lachlan’s death, the instability within Clan MacNicol and the violence caused by Laird MacIver’s arrival under the old decree.
She claimed that the marriage could no longer serve its initial purpose, as the conditions under which the agreement was signed had changed beyond recognition. She requested release.
The quill moved steadily until she reached Roy’s name. There, the ink thickened where her hand paused.
When the petition was complete, she read it twice. Every sentence was reasonable. Each argument was defensible. She folded the parchment before doubt could demand inclusion, pressed wax beneath her seal and watched the red surface harden.
A royal messenger waited in the courtyard, preparing to ride south before the roads worsened. Donaldina summoned a servant and placed the letter in his hands.
“This must reach Edinburgh.”
The servant bowed and departed.
Mairi watched from near the hearth. “Are ye certain?”
Donaldina gazed out the window. The petition was gone, but she still felt as if the decision still lingered behind.