Page 51 of Promised to the Forbidden Laird

Cormac moved nearer the fire. Heat touched his wet clothing but did nothing to ease the chill lodged beneath his ribs.

Alasdair studied him. “Ye promised us proof that the King’s accord threatens more than yer place upon the MacNicol council.”

“Me place?” Cormac repeated. “Ye believe this concerns a council seat?”

“I believe men name ambition duty when they require help fulfilling it.”

Cormac smiled faintly. Alasdair was not a fool. That made him harder to convince but more worth the effort once persuaded. He reached beneath his cloak and unfurled a folded map. The worn parchment showed the creases and outlined the western clans' territories. Cormac then laid it out on a fallen stone slab.

“Look.”

Neither man moved at first. Then Tormod stepped nearer. Cormac placed one finger upon Dun Ard and another upon Black Craig.

“The MacNicols hold the western fisheries, the deep inlet and half the trade passing along this coast. The MacIvers control the northern roads and the strongest armed force between here and the inland passes.”

“We ken our neighbors,” Alasdair frowned.

“Then ye ken what their union means.”

“A marriage.”

“A Crown alliance,” Cormac corrected. “One written in Edinburgh and enforced by a king who would see every Highland chief reduced tae a keeper of royal land.”

Rainwater struck the stones outside with a soft, persistent tapping.

Cormac moved his finger along the coast.

“MacIver marries Donaldina, and these territories cease standing apart. Dun Ard’s ships feed Black Craig’s soldiers. MacIver steel guards MacNicol trade. Their councils become one voice before the Crown.”

Tormod frowned at the map.

“Two lairds cannae sit in one chair.”

“Lachlan is dead. Donaldina holds the blood of Dun Ard, but MacIver holds the royal decree. Once they are wed, he will claim authority through her.”

“She may resist him,” Alasdair said.

Cormac’s hand tightened upon the parchment.

“She doesnae understand what he intends.”

He sensed the bitterness in his voice and suppressed it. Donaldina often confused defiance with wisdom. Even as a girl, she challenged men trying to guide her, smiling when Lachlan encouraged her insolence. She rejected Cormac’s advice and refused his protection, now sitting beside a stranger while MacIver’s clan insight into sensitive records was revealed to outsiders.

Cormac’s men had watched the solar. They reported that Roy and Donaldina remained there until evening, bent together over maps as though Dun Ard already belonged to them both. The thought made something vicious move within him.

“Whether she resists now is of little importance,” he said. “Marriage will bind her. A child will bind the clans. Within a generation, nae man will remember where MacNicol land ended, and MacIver land began.”

Alasdair looked toward the fire. “And the King gains a single loyal power along the coast.”

“Aye.”

Cormac tapped the smaller holdings marked between the two strongholds.

“Where does that leave the MacSorleys? The MacAulays? The Gunns? Old clans permitted tae retain their names so long as they bow, pay and remain grateful for whatever scraps the greater houses allow them?”

Tormod’s jaw hardened. His family’s losses remained the fresher wound. Cormac had chosen him for that exact reason.

“MacIver took the northern pasture from us,” Tormod growled. “Me father died petitioning tae have it returned.”