Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
They rode back to Inveraray with the afternoon sun slanting low across the courtyard stones.
Domhnall knew something was wrong the moment he laid eyes on Cameron, who was standing near the wall, rigid in a way that had nothing to do with discipline.
He didn’t move to greet them the moment he saw them.
That alone told Domhnall more than words ever could.
The guards peeled away as they entered, slipping back into their posts with quiet efficiency.
Domhnall swung down from his horse and turned at once to Margaret, setting his hands at her waist to help her dismount.
He was careful. In fact, he was far more careful than he had any right to be and did not release her until she was steady on the stones.
She glanced past him and saw Cameron. Her expression sharpened instantly.
“What is it?” she asked.
Domhnall straightened, already moving toward Cameron. “Go inside,” he said to her. “See the healer. I’ll take care of this.”
She caught his arm.
“Domhnall,” she said, low and intent. “Tell me.”
He met her gaze and saw it all there: the readiness to argue, to press, to refuse to be managed. He braced himself for it.
“Go inside, Margaret,” he repeated more firmly. “Please.”
For a heartbeat, he expected resistance. Instead, she searched his face, then nodded once.
“All right.” Her answer took him by surprise.
And before he could say anything more, she turned and hurried toward the doors, already calling for Annabel as she crossed the threshold.
Domhnall watched her go, caught off guard by the ease of her compliance. It unsettled him more than her defiance ever had.
Cameron waited until the doors closed behind her before speaking. “Reports just came in from the outer patrols.”
Domhnall turned back at once. “Speak.”
“Signs of intrusion,” Cameron revealed. “Disturbed ground along the northwestern ridge. Cut markings on trees. They were deliberate, nae hunters. And…” He paused, rubbing his jaw. “Three guards found dead near the outer pass.”
The words struck like a blow. Domhnall’s vision narrowed. For a moment, the courtyard seemed too small to contain the fury that surged through him. His hands clenched at his sides, and his knuckles whitened as he forced himself to remain still.
“Take me there,” Domhnall demanded.
Cameron’s eyes flicked up. “Now?”
“Now.”
Within minutes they were riding again. A small party followed. They were men Domhnall trusted not to speak loosely, not to flinch when the ground told its story. The ride itself was swift and silent.
They dismounted at the edge of the pass where the trees pressed close and the land narrowed. Domhnall moved ahead at once, feeling his boots sinking slightly into disturbed earth. He did not need to be told where to look.
The footprints appeared too evenly spaced to be hurried. There was a bent fern, not trampled, as though someone had passed through with care. The bark of an oak bore a shallow cut, which looked both deliberate and angled. Domhnall was certain it was a mark not meant to be seen by chance.
“Knife work,” Cameron murmured. “Signaling.”
“Aye,” Domhnall said. “And restraint.”
They found the bodies farther in. Three men lay where they had fallen. They had not been dragged. Their throats were cut cleanly. Domhnall could see no defensive wounds beyond a single raised arm, and one of the men was still clenching a broken blade in one hand.
Domhnall crouched, examining the angle of the cut and the lack of struggle. “They were taken from behind, quietly.”
“Nay looting,” Cameron added. “Nay trophies.”
“Because this was nae about gain,” Domhnall replied. “It was a message.”
He straightened slowly, surveying the surrounding ground. The attackers had come in small numbers, four, perhaps five. They had moved with discipline, withdrawing the moment the work was done. There was no lingering and no pursuit invited.
A test.
“They wanted tae see how quickly we’d notice,” Cameron said. “How we’d respond.”
Domhnall did not need proof to know who had done this. Kenneth MacGregor’s hand lay over the ground like a shadow. This was not bandit work. Neither was it a feud flaring hot and loud. This was escalation done quietly, with intent sharpened by insult.
And yet, no banners lay trampled in the mud. No witness had seen a face. No blade bore a mark that could be named before the Crown. There was utter absence of anything solid, which was precisely the point.
“Burn naething,” he ordered. “Leave the ground as it is. I want the passes watched, nae warned.”
Cameron nodded. “And the men?”
“We bring them home,” Domhnall said quietly. “With honor.”
They returned to Inveraray before dusk. The men were riding hard and without a word. Domhnall said little, but his mind moved relentlessly, mapping what could be done and, more damningly, what could not.
Without proof, there could be no sanctioned retaliation. He could issue no declaration that would bring allies to heel or justify blood in daylight. To strike now would be to give MacGregor exactly what he wanted: a provocation that could be turned against him.
So Domhnall did what he had always done best. He prepared.
Orders went out quietly that night. Patrols doubled, then staggered, then doubled again, but never in the same pattern twice.
Routes were changed. Fires were moved. Guards were rotated through unfamiliar posts so no man could be tracked by habit alone.
Messengers were sent to loyal lairds with careful wording: remain alert, report irregularities, dinnae engage unless forced.
Inveraray drew inward, bristling without announcing it.
Inside the castle, Domhnall convened captains rather than the Council, strategy rather than politics. Steel was sharpened. Signals were reviewed. Old plans pulled from shelves that had not been opened in years.
All the while, a single name burned at the back of his mind: MacGregor. He had struck just close enough to be felt. It was a reminder that the marriage had not ended the game. It had only changed its terms.
As night fell, Domhnall stood alone at the window overlooking the loch, the water dark and unreadable beneath the moon. He could not name the threat aloud. He could not answer it openly.
But he could be ready.
The following morning, Domhnall was sitting at his writing table with reports spread before him, though he had read each one twice already. Ink dried where his pen had paused and not moved on. Outside the narrow window, the loch lay smooth and indifferent, reflecting a sky that gave nothing away.
Every path led back to the same place. MacGregor attacked without proof. Men were dead without banners. A castle was tightened like a fist around what it protected.
He rubbed a hand over his face and forced his attention back to the parchment.
He had to take care of supplies, rotations and messages waiting to be sent at first light.
It was enough to occupy any laird’s mind, yet his thoughts kept straying where he did not want them to go.
And that was to the woodland, to trembling fingers pressed to his skin, to a bluebell tucked among herbs.
At that moment, a knock sounded at the door.
He looked up sharply. “Enter.”
The door opened, and Margaret stepped inside.
She paused just within the threshold, as though gauging his temper before committing herself. She looked tired, there was no disguising that. But her eyes were bright with purpose rather than worry.
“Me laird,” she said. “I thought ye would wish tae ken about the healer.”
He stood at once. “The healer?”
She nodded. “The fever has broken. He’s awake, lucid, and already complaining about the taste of his broth.”
He had a desire to smile, but his body refused the urge.
“At last some good news,” he said quietly.
“Aye,” she agreed. “At last.”
He gestured for her to enter, closing the distance between them without quite meaning to. “Ye did this,” he told her. “Yer work.”
“I helped,” she replied. “He’ll recover on his own strength now.”
Domhnall inclined his head, a deeper acknowledgment than words alone. “Ye have me thanks for this victory.”
Margaret smiled at him. “Let us hope it is nae the last.”
She did not look away when she said it. If anything, she seemed on the verge of adding something more. He noticed that her lips were parted, and she appeared as though she were bracing herself to speak plainly.
But then, another knock at the door cracked through the moment like a blade on stone. His shoulders tightened at once, while irritation flashed in his eyes. He did not bother to soften his voice.
“Enter.”
The door opened quickly. A messenger stepped inside. He had travel-dust still clinging to his boots. He crossed the room and bowed, extending a sealed letter without preamble.
“Fer ye, me laird. It just arrived.”
Domhnall took it at once. He waited just a moment for the messenger to bow and hastily clear the room. Then, Domhnall glanced down at the envelope in his hand. He knew the seal before his fingers even closed around it.
It was the Drummond crest, pressed deeply. The wax was unbroken.
When he lifted his eyes, he found Margaret watching the letter with the same instant recognition. Of course she had seen it. She had grown up with that seal. It was as familiar to her as her own name.
For a fleeting moment, Domhnall considered dismissing her. Habit urged it. Caution demanded privacy.
Then he saw her expression, and he recognized that quiet readiness that told him she already understood what this was. And that whatever lay inside concerned her as much as it did him.
Domhnall broke the seal. The wax cracked cleanly, pressed by a hand that had taken time to compose itself before striking. He unfolded the parchment and began to read aloud.
“Tae Domhnall Campbell, Laird of Argyll,” he read aloud, the formal cadence unmistakable. “It has come tae me attention that the union contracted at Falkland was entered under false pretenses, the identity of the bride having been deliberately misrepresented.”
Margaret did not flinch. He could feel her attention sharpen beside him.
“Me daughter, Margaret Drummond, was deceived intae this marriage through circumstances engineered without me consent, knowledge, or lawful negotiation.”
Domhnall’s hand clenched around the parchment.
“Such deception renders the union morally suspect and legally contestable. I therefore demand her immediate release from this marriage and her return tae me custody, so that proper remedy may be pursued without further scandal.”
The word custody tasted like rot.
“Should this demand be ignored, I will have nay choice but tae petition the Crown tae examine the validity of the claim and the conduct of all parties involved.”
He reached the end and folded the letter with deliberate care, as though keeping it from tearing required effort. Margaret was the first to move. She stepped closer to the writing table and laid her fingertips lightly on the folded letter, not touching it so much as acknowledging its presence.
“He has never accepted anything he didnae arrange himself,” she said. “This only confirms it.”
Domhnall nodded once. “Aye. Men like him will always frame it as concern, as law, as morality.” His mouth tightened. “Never as control.”
“He will insist I was deceived,” she went on, measured and clear-eyed. “That I was misled, overwhelmed, taken advantage of in the confusion of Falkland.”
“And the Crown will listen,” Domhnall nodded, “because Drummond has allies who enjoy the sound of their own outrage.”
She looked up at him then. “So now I am a question.”
“Ye are a pressure point,” he replied. “Which is worse.”
The words were blunt, but not unkind. He would not insult her by pretending otherwise.
Margaret folded her hands before her, drawing herself inward. “If he challenges the marriage publicly, every step I take inside these walls will be examined.”
“Aye,” Domhnall said. “And every man will begin tae wonder whether ye are a temporary solution.”
Her gaze sharpened. “Am I?”
The question struck harder than Drummond’s letter. Domhnall did not answer at once. He looked at her, unable not to see the way she had already woven herself into the lives and survival of his people.
“Nay,” he said finally. “Ye are me wife in the eyes that matter, and those are me own.”
“That will nae stop the whispers,” she said quietly.
“Nay,” he agreed. “It will deepen them.”
The truth of it settled between them. Already the castle would be reacting. Servants would be exchanging glances, guards would be listening more closely, and stewards would be recalculating where loyalty might be safest.
A contested lady was not merely a personal matter. She was political weather.
“He will press fer me return,” Margaret told him. “Perhaps nae immediately. But he will want a meeting and negotiation.”
Domhnall’s jaw tightened. “He will get neither.”
She studied him. “Ye cannae simply refuse him forever.”
“I can and I will, until the Crown tells me otherwise.”
“And if the Crown daes?” she asked.
His gaze did not waver. “Then we fight with words instead of steel.”
Margaret exhaled slowly. “I hate that this endangers yer house.”
“It endangers it only because others choose tae make it so,” Domhnall replied. “Ye have done naething wrong.”
Her lips pressed together. “That has never stopped him before.”
“I will make it clear,” he said, “that challenging this marriage is the same as challenging me rule.”
The words were not a threat. They were a fact.
And in the quiet that followed, both of them understood that the castle had just become a battleground, one where no swords would be drawn first, but where every look and every word would matter.