Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Donaldina left the infirmary before Roy could put on his shirt. She told herself it was because he required rest, because there were duties waiting beyond the door and no sensible woman lingered beside a half-dressed man after tending his wounds.
The explanations followed her down the corridor. None survived the courtyard.
Cold air struck her face as she stepped outside. The wind came hard from the sea, carrying salt, wet stone and the faint smoke of peat fires from the village below. Donaldina drew her cloak tighter and crossed beneath the western arch before anyone could stop her with questions.
She needed quiet. More precisely, she needed a place where Roy MacIver’s hand had never rested upon her waist.
The memory returned despite the effort to dismiss it: his skin beneath her fingers, the uneven ridges of old wounds, the heat of him in the cold infirmary and the way his gaze lowered when their faces drew close.
Donaldina quickened her pace. The bee garden lay beyond the west side of Dun Ard, sheltered between a low stone wall and the slope descending toward the cliffs.
Lachlan had given her the neglected patch when she was fourteen, after she announced that the castle garden was poorly arranged and its keeper lacked imagination.
He laughed for so long that she threatened never to improve it.
Then he had brought her the first hive. The memory softened something in her chest and hurt it at once.
She opened the narrow wooden gate. The garden rested beneath a pale sky, damp from the night’s rain.
Rosemary and thyme grew between the stones.
Late flowers bent beneath droplets of water, their colors subdued by the gray morning.
Beyond the wall, the sea stretched dark and restless, broken by white crests where the wind struck hardest.
The hives stood near the sheltered end of the garden. Two were old, their wood silvered by salt and weather. A third had been repaired after the storm. Donaldina ran her hand along its edge as she passed, feeling the rough grain beneath her palm.
The bees moved lazily around the entrances, disturbed by the cold but not silenced.
Their low hum settled through the garden.
Donaldina had always loved that sound. It contained no accusation and no expectation.
Bees required patience, attention and a respect for boundaries.
They did not mistake protection for possession.
They gave warning before they struck. Men, she had learned, were less considerate.
She set her basket near the hives and knelt beside the small clay smoker.
Dry grass, pine needles, and a piece of old linen waited inside.
Her hands were not entirely steady when she struck the flint.
The spark caught. Smoke curled upward, thin and blue-gray, carrying the warm scent of pine and scorched grass.
She lifted the smoker and gently pressed the bellows.
The bees quieted as the smoke drifted across the hive entrance.
“There,” she murmured. “At least some creatures possess sense.”
She loosened the lid of the first hive and lifted it carefully. Warmth rose from within, fragrant with wax, wood and honey. Bees crawled over the frames in dark, shifting clusters. Donaldina moved slowly, breathing evenly as she guided a little more smoke across them.
The familiar work drew her thoughts into order.
Lift. Wait. Observe.
She removed the first frame. Golden comb filled most of it, sealed beneath pale wax. Honey glimmered where one small section had broken open, thick and bright as amber in the weak morning light.
Donaldina smiled despite herself. She brushed several bees aside with a soft feather and examined the comb.
The hive was healthy. Better than healthy, considering the storm and the cold.
It pleased her that something at Dun Ard continued to flourish without concern for kings, accords, or men who believed themselves entitled to determine the shape of her future.
She placed the frame across the open basket and reached for another. Her hand tightened upon the wooden frame. A bee crawled across the back of her glove. She waited until it moved to the edge before gently turning her wrist.
She could still feel Roy’s hand there, not upon the glove, but beneath it, warm against her waist while she stood between his knees.
Donaldina took a slow breath as the sea crashed beneath the garden wall, spraying high against the rocks. The wind lifted her loose hair strands and carried smoke toward the cliff.
She returned the frame to the hive and picked up another, heavier one. The honey in the lower half of the comb was fresh and dark gold, filling it completely. She tilted the comb to the light, observing the gleaming surface amid the bees.
The beauty of it steadied her. Honey required time. No creature could be ordered to make it more quickly. No decree could command blossoms to open or force the hive to trust the hand that approached it.
Perhaps people were no different. Perhaps trust had to be gathered in small measures: a wound tended, a choice respected, a laugh shared in a rain-damp yard. That thought was far more dangerous than memory.
Donaldina reached for the small knife in her basket and carefully cut away a section of full comb. Glimmering honey gathered along the blade. The scent deepened around her, sweet enough to soften even the salt upon the wind.
She placed the comb in a covered bowl. A bee landed upon her sleeve. Another moved near her wrist. Donaldina remained still, allowing them to investigate before they lifted away again.
She had never feared them. Fear made the body sudden. It turned every movement into threat. The bees sensed it quickly, just as people did.
Donaldina wondered whether Roy had known she was afraid in the infirmary, not afraid of his strength, but afraid of wanting the gentleness beneath it.
She leaned closer to inspect the corner of the hive. Bees clustered thickly over the frame, their wings catching small fragments of light. She moved the smoker aside and reached carefully between them.
Then, the wooden gate creaked behind her, and she froze.
She had been so occupied with the hive and with thoughts she had no intention of sharing that she had not heard footsteps on the path. A shadow fell across the open frame.
Then Roy’s voice came from behind her, low and roughened by the morning air.
“Ye’ll be stung if ye remain so close.”
Roy intended only to inspect the western grounds. That was what he told himself when he saw Donaldina beyond the low garden wall and stopped upon the path.
She stood beside an open hive with her sleeves drawn close at the wrists, surrounded by bees.
Dozens moved through the pale air around her.
They settled upon the wooden frames, crawled over the edge of the hive and circled her head in slow, dark patterns.
Smoke drifted between them, carrying the scent of pine, wax and something richly sweet.
Donaldina appeared entirely unconcerned. Roy was not.
“Ye’ll be stung if ye remain so close.”
She looked over her shoulder. Her smile came slowly, as though she had expected him.
“The bees only attack those who fear them.”
Roy glanced at the swarm. “Then they will find me an excellent enemy.”
Her smile deepened. He entered through the gate with more caution than he had crossed several battlefields. The low hum seemed to thicken around him. A bee passed near his ear, and every muscle in his shoulders tightened before discipline forced them still again.
Donaldina noticed. “Ye mustnae strike at them.”
“I hadnae planned tae begin a war.”
“Yer face suggests otherwise.”
She held out the clay smoker, and Roy regarded it suspiciously. “What am I tae dae with that?”
“Hold it.”
“I gathered as much.”
“Gently press the bellows when I tell ye. Direct the smoke across the frame, nae into me face.”
Roy took it from her. Their fingers touched around the handle. The contact was brief, yet his body remembered her hands upon his scars with an immediacy that made the garden suddenly too warm. Donaldina turned toward the hive before he could read whether she felt it too.
“Now,” she instructed.
Roy pressed the bellows. A thin curl of smoke drifted over the bees, and they moved more slowly at once. “There,” she urged. “Ye see? They are calm.”
He frowned. “They are considering their strategy.”
Donaldina laughed softly. The sound moved through him more dangerously than the bees. She lifted one of the wooden frames from the hive. Honeycomb filled it in neat golden chambers, shining where sunlight found the wax.
“Come closer.”
Donaldina glanced at him, completely still. “Laird MacIver, have ye lost yer courage?”
“I have faced swords more comfortably than this hive.”
Her laughter came again, warmer this time. Roy stepped beside her. The bees crawled across the frame within inches of his hands. He held the smoker precisely as she instructed, though he suspected she took far too much pleasure in his caution.
Donaldina guided his free hand toward the wooden edge. “Hold it here.”
Her fingers settled over his. Roy looked down at them. Her hand looked small against his, yet steady. The touch carried no fear. It rarely did when she chose it herself.
Together, they lifted the frame. Honey glowed between them, amber and warm despite the cold sea wind.
Roy watched Donaldina more than the comb.
She belonged here differently than she did in the hall.
There was no guarded dignity in her expression, no grief sharpened into command.
Among the bees, she seemed entirely herself: patient, certain and quietly pleased by the living order around her.
He wondered how many parts of her he had not yet seen.
Donaldina replaced the frame and took the smoker from him. “Ye survived.”
“Barely.”
“A heroic achievement.”
She reached into the basket and uncovered a small bowl of fresh comb. With a wooden spoon, she gathered a little honey from its broken edge. Then she held it toward him.
“Try it.”
Roy accepted the spoon without looking away from her. The honey was warm from the hive, thick and bright upon his tongue. It tasted of summer flowers, heather and something softer he could not name.
Donaldina watched him expectantly. “Well?”
Roy lowered the spoon. “Dangerous.”
“The honey?”
His gaze remained upon hers. “Nae.”
The smile faded from her mouth, though not from her eyes. For one long moment, neither moved. Then a bee circled between them, breaking the stillness. Donaldina turned back toward the hive, and Roy stepped away before curiosity became something more difficult to conceal.