Page 8 of Promised to the Forbidden Laird

“This isnae ended,” he called as his men closed around him. “The King hasnae won. Ye havenae won. Dun Ard will never be yers.”

“Me concern at present,” Roy replied, “is that ye cease speaking.”

Cormac’s smile vanished. He mounted with an awkward haste that did little to restore his dignity. The others followed. Hooves struck the wet ground, throwing mud and fragments of stone across the path as they turned toward the ridge.

Cormac looked back once. The mist gathered around horse and rider, blurring his shape without softening the malice in his face.

“She will never belong tae ye!”

Roy’s hand tightened on his sword.

Donaldina spoke from behind him, her voice hoarse but perfectly distinct. “I belong tae myself!”

Cormac heard her. That, more than Roy’s threat, drove him into the mist. The riders disappeared beyond the bend, the sound of their flight fading beneath the crash of the sea. Roy remained still until even his soldier’s ear could no longer separate the hoofbeats from the storm.

Every instinct trained into him urged pursuit. A fleeing enemy was at his weakest. Cormac’s men were few, their retreat disordered, and the mist concealed Roy as readily as it concealed them. Five minutes might have ended the danger before it acquired more followers, stronger walls or a more convincing lie.

Then he felt the tremor passing through Donaldina’s arm, and he lowered his sword. There would be another opportunity to deal with Cormac Gunn.

There would not be another Donaldina MacNicol if he allowed pride to carry him away while she stood bleeding beside a cliff.

He turned. She released his wrist at once and stepped back from him, nearly putting her heel upon the slick outer stone.

Roy caught her elbow. “Careful.”

“I am perfectly capable of standing.”

“So I observed.”

Her eyes narrowed. Even pale with cold and shock, she possessed enough spirit to resent assistance. Roy found this reassuring. A woman truly overcome would not have looked at him as though deciding which portion of his character required correction first.

He guided her toward the inner wall of rock before releasing her. She lifted her chin, rain loosened dark strands from her hair, clinging to her temples and throat. A faint red mark lay beneath her jaw where Cormac’s blade had touched her. Roy looked at it too long.

Something cold settled beneath his ribs. “Are ye hurt?”

“No.”

He looked down at her torn sleeve.

“No,” she repeated, more firmly.

“Then ye have taken tae bleeding for ornament.”

Her gaze followed his. A shallow cut ran along the inside of her forearm. Delicate red lines, thinned by the rain, traced a path to her wrist, disappearing into the glove marks and Cormac's bruises.

For the first time, uncertainty crossed her face. “It is scarcely a wound.”

“That is fortunate. It means ye may survive having it tended.”

“I require no tending.”

Roy sheathed his sword. The sound of steel sliding home seemed to ease something in the men behind them. He ignored their cautious approach and took the flask from his belt.

“Give me yer arm.”

Donaldina stared at him. He had discovered long ago that silence defeated most arguments more efficiently than eloquence. It did not really defeat hers, it merely caused her to recognize that she would be obliged to continue the argument alone.

With an expression of great displeasure, she held out her arm. The gesture was so regal that Roy might have thought she offered him a royal document rather than an injury she had denied possessing.