Page 1 of Promised to the Forbidden Laird

CHAPTER ONE

Dun Ard, MacNicol stronghold on the western Highlands coast, 1604

Donaldina MacNicol stood at the head of Dun Ard’s great hall, the winter wind slamming against the shutters, as if the sea wished to rush in and claim what the war had restored. Before her, her brother lay beneath the banners of their house, his hands folded across his breast, his sword resting beside him. Death had altered his face, transforming it into something almost peaceful—how entirely false, how unbelievably cruel.

Lachlan MacNicol had never once been peaceful during his time on this earth. He ate too fast, laughed too loudly, commanded too sternly, and, with all the obstinacy of a Highland laird, believed that no suffering could be lessened by addressing it. He taught her to read ledgers, to understand weather by the color of the western sky, and to be wary of any man who smiled before even introducing himself.

Now, he lay there, quiet and immovable, while others whispered over his body.

Donaldina didn’t weep. Perhaps there was a moment for that, when the first rider crossed the moor with pity in his mouth and the black seal in his hand. Or when she shut herself in Lachlan’s solar and found his cloak still hanging near the hearth, smelling faintly of smoke, leather, and the rain he had never been there to shake.

However, grief, when given no leeway, soon learned another posture. Grief straightened the spine. It tightened the mouth. It taught the hands to move, to stay occupied.

And thus, her hands moved. She adjusted the fold of the plaid laid across Lachlan’s chest, and instructed old Elspeth to bring more beeswax candles from the stores. She accepted condolences with a nod, listened to hushed prayers without hearing them, and felt so completely at ease, it frightened her that she had become just another ceremonial object.

Even though the hall was overflowing with people, no one seemed to breathe. MacNicol men lined the walls, their rain-dark cloaks still damp upon their shoulders. Women stood clustered near the hearths, their faces pale in the smoky light. Beyond them, the council stood gathered, their eyes shifting back and forth, not to Lachlan, but to Donaldina.

She was well aware of what they saw: a sister, a woman, the last direct descendant of a line that ruled Dun Ard for more time than any song could recount.

Not a laird.

This piece of knowledge flowed through the hall more sharply than the draft beneath the doors.

Only Cormac Gunn seemed untouched by the uncertainty.

He stood among the councilmen with his arms folded, his face set in a show of public grief, surveying the hall as if sorrow were simply another disorder to be mastered and subdued. When two younger warriors began whispering near the western hearth, one single look from him silenced them. When an old clansman hesitantly approached Lachlan’s bier, Cormac stepped aside and directed him with a hand upon his shoulder, as though the hall already answered to him and only him.

He had always possessed a gift for making authority appear natural. Today, he wore it too carefully.

He was a hard-featured man of eight-and-thirty, lean where Lachlan had been broad, watchful where Lachlan had been open. Once, his father’s clan had bent under MacNicol authority. Now, Cormac wore his seat on the council like a blade concealed beneath velvet, obvious enough to be seen by those who knew where to look.

His gaze swept over the assembled warriors, the doors, the council before finally settling on Donaldina. He furrowed his brow, shoulders tensing. There was concern in his expression, but no comfort. None. Instead, she had this uneasy feeling like he was deciding what would become of her.

When their eyes met, he dipped his head. It was the gesture of a man offering respect, but it was also the gesture of a man reassuring himself that everything remained where he expected to find it.

She was the first to turn away, not because she feared him, but rather because she refused to grant him the satisfaction of thinking his vigilance had any power over her.

“Lady Donaldina,” the priest’s soft voice came from beside her. Father Maol stood with his hands tucked into the sleeves of his robe, his old eyes looking both grave and kind.

“It is almost time. When the horn sounds, the carrying must commence.”

She turned to face the narrow windows, the rain-slick glass shivering in the bleak light. Beyond the walls of Dun Ard, the cliff path wound toward the burial cairn above the sea. There, where the wind never ceased, and the gulls wailed like souls in dispute, Lachlan would be laid with the bones of their fathers.

“The men are ready?” she asked.

“As ready as men may be when they would rather be angry than sorrowful.”

The truth in that statement was visceral. Then, a murmur rose near the lower doors. It began as a sound of wind passing through dry grass. Donaldina raised her gaze; the great doors had been opened.

Cold was the first to enter inside the grieving walls, carrying with it the scent of rain, horse, salt, and iron. Then armed, travel-stained men in dark cloaks appeared, their presence slicing through the mourning like steel through cloth. Donaldina instantly recognized the man standing at their head, even though she had only heard about him.

Laird Roy MacIver.

He did not announce himself. He had no need, after all. The hall recognized him with the speed and hostility of a body recognizing pain.

He was tall with a strong build. His black hair was damp from the weather and loose enough to brush the collar of his cloak. A jagged scar marked the line of his jaw, pale against flesh darkened by wind and war. His eyes were the color of a simmering storm, gray and unfathomable, and they traveled once across the hall, with a soldier’s dreadful habit of recognizing danger before it had even taken shape.

Then, they finally rested on Lachlan. For the first time since his arrival, Roy MacIver’s expression altered. She saw a tightening close to the mouth and a stillness too deliberate to be natural.