Page 38 of Promised to the Forbidden Laird

The lesson had served him through winter marches, broken ribs, infected cuts, and one memorable arrow wound whose surgeon possessed more enthusiasm than skill. A man could continue through most injuries if he refused to grant the body authority over the mind.

The wound beneath his ribs was merely an old argument resumed. He felt it pull while lifting the end of a timber into place along Dun Ard’s outer wall. The damaged section had taken the worst of the storm three nights before. Since dawn, Roy had worked beside the masons and clansmen, hauling beams, testing mortar and inspecting every repair before permitting the men to move to the next.

He shifted the timber higher upon his shoulder. Pain sliced through his side. It came sharp enough to steal half a breath, bright and sudden beneath the lower ribs.

Hamish, holding the opposite end, looked at him. Roy knew that look. He had seen it across battlefields, campfires and several occasions upon which Hamish had been correct in a manner no friend ought to find satisfying.

“Dinnae,” Roy warned.

“I said naething.”

“Yer face is unusually eloquent.”

Hamish adjusted his grip. “Me face was considering whether tae fetch help before ye drop this upon a clansman.”

“I am nae dropping it.”

The man beneath them glanced upward with understandable concern.

Roy carried the timber the remaining distance and lowered it into place against the stone supports. The instant the weight left his shoulder, the pain eased into a deeper throb.

The outer stones were still slick from the night’s rain. Water gathered in shallow seams beneath his boots, darkening the leather. Below, men carried fresh mortar from the courtyard while two MacNicol guards secured the new supports with iron pins.

Roy paused near the broken parapet and pressed one hand against the new masonry. The repair held firm beneath his palm. The MacNicol masons worked well, though several regarded his presence with suspicion when he first joined them. By midday, suspicion had worn down beneath shared labor. Men found it harder to call a laird an invader while he stood ankle-deep in mud beside them.

Roy bent to inspect the lower brace. The motion pulled at his ribs again. This time, heat spread beneath his shirt.

He straightened carefully. A blade had left the scar during the final winter of the war, when frozen ground made every fall feel like striking iron. The wound had closed badly, opened twice and ached whenever cold rain settled into his bones. Roy had long since ceased to think of it as an injury. It was merely one more portion of his body that objected to being used.

He placed his hand against his side. When he withdrew it, blood marked the leather of his glove.

Roy continued walking. The pain sharpened with each step, though he kept his pace even. Weakness drew attention. Attention invited concern, and concern became interference. He had survived too many years by relying upon his own endurance to surrender the habit merely because a wound had opened upon a quiet morning.

He descended from the wall into the training yard. Men moved around him with timber, ropes and baskets of stone. Hammers struck in uneven rhythm from the scaffolding. Roy reached for a coil of rope.

A hand closed around it first. He lifted his gaze only to find Donaldina standing on the opposite side. She was wearing a dark green cloak fastened at her throat, the hood fallen back from hair braided loosely over one shoulder.

“Release it,” he said.

Donaldina’s gaze moved slowly down his chest. Roy knew the exact moment she saw the blood.

“Ye are bleeding.”

“It is an old wound.”

Blood spread through the linen shirt beneath his tunic, darkening the fabric along his left side. Roy resisted the impulse to cover it with his hand. The gesture would only confirm that the pain was greater than he wished her to know.

Donaldina released the rope. For one hopeful instant, he believed she meant to let the matter rest. Then she stepped around the coil and came directly toward him.

“How long?”

“It opened a moment ago.”

Hamish made a sound behind him.

Donaldina looked past Roy. “How long?”

Hamish’s loyalty survived almost three heartbeats. “Since the wall.”