Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Donaldina discovered that freedom, when unexpectedly given, could be almost as unsettling as captivity.
All afternoon, the King’s decree remained upon the table in her solar, folded beneath Lachlan’s seal.
It ceased to resemble a command and became instead a question, which was considerably more troublesome.
A command might be opposed. A question required an answer, and she had spent the hours since the council meeting finding fault with every answer that presented itself.
Roy could have insisted upon the marriage. The council expected it. The King permitted it. Even Lachlan, from beyond the reach of explanation, had placed his name beneath the agreement. Yet, Roy refused.
When evening settled over Dun Ard, Donaldina abandoned the hopeless occupation of reading the same line in an account book for the seventh time. She drew a wool cloak around her shoulders and left the solar before Mairi could observe her departure and make something intolerably perceptive of it.
The castle gardens rested beneath a thin autumn mist. Rain lingered upon the clipped hedges and gathered along the stone paths, where the last light from the western sky shone weakly in every hollow.
The air smelled of wet earth, rosemary and distant salt.
Beyond the walls, the sea moved in darkness, its voice softened by distance but never silenced.
Donaldina wandered without a specific destination and soon found Roy by the lower garden wall.
He ambled slowly under the bare branches of an ancient apple tree, with his hands behind his back and his head tilted down slightly.
Despite the chilly dampness, he wore no cloak.
The wind lifted his dark hair, brushing it against the scar on his jaw.
His appearance was more of a man trying to outrun lingering thoughts—thoughts that seemed to have longer legs than his—than a laird surveying his stronghold.
Donaldina stopped. Roy sensed her before she spoke. His head lifted, and his gaze found her through the mist.
“Lady Donaldina.”
The formality irritated her, though she could not reasonably accuse him of using her proper name.
“Laird MacIver.”
His mouth altered very slightly. “Have ye come tae inspect the gardens?”
“I might ask the same of ye.”
“I was walking.”
“So I observed.”
He waited. Roy had an infuriating habit of allowing silence to expose the foolishness of other people’s remarks while preserving his own dignity entirely.
Donaldina approached him. The wet gravel shifted beneath her shoes. Roy’s attention moved briefly to the path, as though prepared to catch her should the earth commit some treachery. That quiet vigilance once offended her. Now, it warmed some unguarded place within her before she could forbid it.
“I wished tae ask ye something,” she revealed.
He lifted an amused eyebrow. “That sounds dangerous.”
“Ye survived the bees.”
“Barely.”
Donaldina nearly smiled. She looked beyond him toward the garden wall, where rainwater gleamed upon the stones.
“Why did ye refuse them?”
Roy’s expression sobered. “The council?”
“The marriage.”
“I didnae refuse the marriage,” he corrected her.
“Ye refused tae claim it.”
His jaw tightened. Donaldina stepped closer.
“Ye could insist upon the decree. Nae one within Dun Ard could lawfully prevent ye. The King has denied me petition, Lachlan’s seal is upon the agreement, and the council would gladly have us before Father Maol as soon as tomorrow.”
The mist had begun to settle upon Roy’s hair. Tiny drops caught the fading light along the dark strands. Donaldina had the absurd desire to brush them away. She folded her hands beneath her cloak instead.
“Ye said ye would wait as long as required,” she continued. “Even if I never choose ye.”
He finally spoke then. “Aye.”
“Why?”
Roy looked toward the sea. His profile became severe in the gray light, all scar, shadow and discipline.
“Because something still holds ye back.”
Donaldina’s breath caught. He spoke without accusation. That made the truth more difficult to deny.
“And ye believe freedom will alter that?”
“I believe force willnae.”
“The marriage might secure both clans,” she reminded him. “It would weaken Cormac’s claims and satisfy the Crown. Ye are willing tae risk all of that merely because I hesitate?”
Roy turned toward her fully. “I am willing tae risk a great deal rather than place vows in yer mouth and call them consent.”
His voice was quiet, yet it carried the controlled force she had heard when he gave orders in battle or stood between her and danger. Donaldina felt it pass through her.
“Most men wouldnae trouble themselves with the distinction.”
“I am nae most men.”
“Nae,” she whispered. “Ye arenae.”
Something shifted in his eyes. Donaldina ought to have retreated. Instead, she moved another step nearer. They stood close enough now that she could see the faint exhaustion beneath his eyes. He had not slept well since the war. Perhaps he had not slept well long before it ended.
Roy lowered his voice. “I have seen what becomes of promises made by those who already dream of escape. I willnae force ye intae vows only tae watch ye leave afterward.”
The words were offered without explanation, but Donaldina felt the wound beneath them.
It was not merely fear of insult or failed alliance.
Something older lived there, some departure he had witnessed, some trust broken beyond repair.
She remembered the cliff path and the question she asked him beneath the darkening sky.
Had he ever loved someone enough to miss them every day? Once.
Roy still carried that answer within him. She could see it now in the stillness of his body and the care with which he refused to look directly at her. Donaldina’s heart ached with a tenderness so sudden that it frightened her more than desire.
She stepped into the narrow space between them. “What if I wouldnae leave?”
Roy looked at her. For the first time since she had known him, he appeared entirely unguarded.
Surprise opened his expression before hope entered it, cautious, disbelieving and so deeply felt that Donaldina’s breath faltered.
His hands remained at his sides, but his body inclined toward hers as though some hidden cord had drawn him forward.
“Donaldina,” he whispered.
Her name had never sounded so intimate. The wind lifted the edge of her cloak. Roy reached out and caught the wool near her shoulder. His fingers remained there, scarcely touching her, yet she felt the warmth of them through every layer.
Donaldina lifted her face. His gaze lowered to her mouth. The garden contracted around them. The sea, the castle and the King’s troublesome decree all withdrew until nothing remained but Roy’s breath mingling with hers and the unbearable distance of inches.
He leaned toward her, but footsteps echoed on the gravel beyond the hedge. Donaldina and Roy quickly separated with such apparent guilt that an observer might have believed they had done something much worse than just almost kissing.
Two servants passed along the adjoining path, carrying a lantern between them. Their voices faded toward the kitchens without either appearing to notice the pair concealed beyond the hedge.
Donaldina stared at the wet stones.
Roy cleared his throat. “The path is slippery.”
“Aye.”
It was a silly observation. She was grateful for it.
“I should return inside,” she said.
“Aye.”
However, neither moved. At last, Donaldina gathered what remained of her dignity and walked toward the castle. She reached the arch when Roy called softly behind her.
“Donaldina.”
She turned. There was restraint in his face once more, but it no longer concealed everything.
“Meet me in the apiary garden tomorrow,” he urged. “After the morning meal.”
Donaldina’s heart performed a movement for which she possessed no sensible name.
“I will.”
The morning arrived clear and cold. Sunlight lay pale upon the apiary garden, catching upon the rosemary leaves and turning every drop of rain into glass. The hives stood along the sheltered wall, their weathered wood silver-gray beneath the autumn sky. Beside them stood a new hive.
Donaldina stopped inside the gate. It had been built from thick pine, with fitted joints, a sloping roof and a raised base to protect it from the wet earth.
The fresh timber glowed warmly among the older hives.
Someone had carved a small thistle into the front board, not perfectly, but with enough care that its uneven petals seemed more precious than ornament made by a master.
Roy was standing beside it. Donaldina crossed the garden slowly and laid her palm against the smooth wood. It smelled of pine resin and new shavings. Beneath the other lids, the bees hummed in their winter-slow fashion, filling the silence with a gentle living sound.
“Ye did this,” she whispered.
“I didnae build it,” he corrected her.
“But ye ordered it.”
Roy looked at the hive as though it were a matter of military supply. “The old one was broken in the storm.”
“I had meant tae repair it,” she retorted.
“The boards were split.”
“I might still have repaired it.”
“Aye,” he conceded. “Poorly.”
Donaldina looked at him. His mouth twitched. She ran her fingers over the carved thistle.
“Why?”
“It deserved replacing.”
“The hive?”
His gaze settled upon her. “Anything precious that survives a storm deserves care afterward.”
Emotion tightened unexpectedly in her throat.
“Thank ye,” she said.
Roy inclined his head, but Donaldina saw that the words affected him.
He shifted his attention toward the hives, where a few bees moved lazily through the cold sunlight.
She might have allowed the moment to remain gentle.
She might have spoken of honey stores, winter coverings, or the carpenter’s questionable thistle.
Instead, she asked the question that had stood between them since his arrival. “Why would ye never tell me what happened tae Lachlan?”
Roy became still. The warmth left the garden without the sun altering at all. Donaldina kept her hand upon the new hive.
“The messenger’s report says ye didnae abandon him. It says the retreat was ordered by the Crown. But every time I asked ye, ye gave me scarcely more than silence.”
His gaze moved toward the sea beyond the low wall. “Because reports make war appear orderly.”
“And it wasnae?”
A bitter breath escaped him. “Nae.”
He stood with his shoulders rigid and his hands at his sides, as though he had returned to some field where movement itself might summon death.
“We fought together from the beginning,” he said. “Lachlan commanded the left company. I held the center. When the Crown ordered retreat, the lines had already broken. Smoke covered the slope. Men couldnae hear the horns, and those who did heard different commands.”
Donaldina’s fingers tightened against the wood.
“Lachlan came tae me before we withdrew. He had blood upon his face, though none of it was his. He laughed because me horse had thrown a shoe and said I would have tae learn tae run like an honest man.”
A sound escaped her, half sob and half laugh. That was Lachlan. Even amid blood and ruin, he would have found time to insult another man’s horsemanship.
Roy closed his eyes briefly. “The Crown cavalry moved too soon. They cut between our companies. Lachlan was driven north with the MacNicol men. I was forced west toward the river.”
“Ye lost sight of him.”
“Aye.” The word seemed torn from him. “I turned back when darkness came. Hamish came with me. We searched the slope, the woods and the ground near the old chapel. We found MacNicol colors among the dead.” His voice roughened. “We found men I kent. We didnae find Lachlan alive.”
Donaldina’s eyes burned. Roy looked at her then.
“I searched until the Crown patrols threatened tae arrest us for desertion. I returned the following morning and searched again. I sent men for three days after the army moved south.”
“Cormac said ye left him.”
“Cormac wasnae there.”
The simple truth struck harder than any accusation. Cormac had shaped her grief, reiterating the story until suspicion turned into certainty. She was too wounded to doubt anything that acknowledged her anger, so she accepted it as truth.
Roy’s face held no triumph. He did not demand that she acknowledge how cruelly she misjudged him.
“I should have brought Lachlan home,” he spoke in a voice that was down to a whisper.
“Ye couldnae.”
“I survived.” The words contained an entire battlefield. Roy looked down at his scarred hands. “Better men didnae. Men with wives, children, brothers waiting for them. I have asked every day why I walked from that field when they didnae.”
Donaldina’s tears spilled at last. “Roy.”
“I never abandoned him, Donaldina.” His voice broke upon the final word, though his expression remained rigid. “Whatever else ye believe of me, believe that.”
Donaldina crossed the space between them. She did not consider the act before placing her arms around him. Thought would only have delayed what her heart already understood.
Roy stood unmoving for one startled breath, then his arms closed around her.
He held her with a strength that did not imprison, with one hand settled between her shoulders, and the other at the back of her head, drawing her against the warmth of his chest. Donaldina pressed her face into his coat and breathed leather, pine smoke and the cold salt of the morning.
“I am sorry,” she whispered. “I judged ye by another man’s lie because anger was easier than grief.”
Roy’s hold tightened. “I should have told ye.”
“Aye,” she said tearfully. “Ye should have.”
A faint sound moved through his chest, not quite laughter, but near enough to it that Donaldina clung more tightly.
For so long, Lachlan’s death stood between them like a locked door. Now it opened not upon blame, but upon two people who had loved the same man and suffered his absence differently.
The bees hummed around them. Sunlight warmed the new pine hive beneath the carved thistle, while beyond the garden wall the sea continued its endless struggle against the cliffs.
Donaldina did not know what answer she would give the King, the council or even Roy. But held within his arms, with the last of Cormac’s falsehood dissolving between them, she knew one thing with perfect certainty.
She was no longer searching for a reason to leave.