Page 57 of Hold Fast

“M’lady,” David gently said, “I dinnae think that you —”

“David, if you try to stop me from hearing what’s going on in there, I’ll scream so loudly that the laird will come running. And what do you think he’ll do?”

David crossed his arms over his chest and glared down at her.

“Please,” she begged, looking back and forth between the two men. “This concerns me. I cannae stay upstairs and wait.”

David and Kenneth exchanged a long-suffering look before David lifted his hands in surrender.

“Verra well, m’lady. But if the laird discovers you, I willnae take a crumb of the blame.”

Una nodded, pressing her ear to the door, fully expecting to hear Malcolm Cameron’s sneer on the other side.

When she heard her father’s gravelly voice instead, she gasped.

“That isnae Laird Cameron,” she whispered, eyes wide.

“Of course it isnae Laird Cameron,” Kenneth scoffed, looking at her as if she’d suddenly grown a second head.

“But you said—”

Ewan’s bellowed from the other side of the door.

The worn wood was cold against her cheek, but she didn’t care. Her father? Why on earth had her father come? And alone? It made no sense. Either way, from the sound of it, Fergus had not come as an emissary of peace.

Una imagined Ewan and her father facing off like bulls. She smiled as she heard Ewan tell her father that he deserved her far more than the clan of her birth. She bit her bottom lip to contain her wide grin and pressed closer against the door. But the rest was unintelligible when Kenneth began scuffing his feet back and forth across the floor.

“Shhht. I cannae hear what they’re saying with you shifting about!” she hissed at him. Kenneth made a mocking face and took an even more mocking bow, rolling his eyes as he returned upright. Una stuck her tongue out at him before crouching lower. There was a small notch in the door and, if she knelt, she could press her ear to it and perhaps hear better.

“Unless you handfast her.”

Una’s stomach plummeted, and her eyes went wide with horror.

“He cannae handfast me!” she whispered, to no one in particular.

Kenneth suddenly took great interest in the cleanliness of his nails, and David wiped his dirk with the hem of his plaid, the two of them looking anywhere but at her.

“Nay, nay, nay, nay. He cannae. He cannae do this to me again.”

Una pressed her ear so hard into the notch in the wood that she could nearly feel the grain of the ancient door imprinting in the softness of her cheek.

“M’laird, if you dinnae mean to handfast her—”

“I mean to marry her.”

Her fingers slapped over her mouth as she gasped. She felt her breath coming in sharp bursts, the air not moving into her lungs the way it ought. No matter how hard she tried, Una couldn’t drag in enough. She pulled herself to stand on shaky legs just in time to hear Ewan declare that he would send for the priest come morning.

Ignoring the protests of Kenneth and David, Una flung wide the door to the Great Hall and stormed through it.

“You will do nae such thing, Ewan MacDonald!”

Una felt her limbs shaking from her fury as she strode quickly across the rushes to where her father and Ewan stood.

“You didnae think I would like a say in whether or not I’ll be marrying you? Which I willnae do!”

Ewan’s shocked expression hardened as he crossed his arms. She stood as tall as she could and crossed her own, glaring back at him.

“You willnae marry me?”