Page 14 of Promised to the Wicked Laird

"Ye didnae ask me nae tae, either." He stopped an arm's length from her, close enough to see her breathing hadn't fully settled from the stairs, or from something else entirely. "Nandag."

"Dinnae."

"I'm nae here tae argue the Council's decision again."

"Then why are ye here?"

He had an answer ready, had turned it over three times climbing the stairs behind her, and found it still wasn't the one that mattered most when he opened his mouth. "Because ye walked out of that room before I could say the one thing I actually meant tae say."

That stopped her reaching for the door latch, at least for a moment. "And what's that."

"Yer home is in the sights of a man who took yer sister and willnae hesitate tae come back fer the rest of yer land," Fearchar said. "We dinnae have the luxury of waiting while Robert gathers men in the glens." He let that sit a moment before he went on. "I'm nae asking ye tae be glad of it. I'm asking ye nae tae refuse it outright before ye've let yerself think past this afternoon."

"Ye think I havenae thought about it."

"I think ye've thought about everything except what it might mean fer the two clans, because ye're still too busy being furious that nay one asked ye first."

Her jaw tightened, and for a moment he thought she'd turn and go inside without another word, latch the door between them and leave him standing in the corridor with his own honesty for company. She didn't.

"I never imagined this," she said instead, quieter than anything she'd said all evening. "Standing where Mòrag stood. Being the one they turn tae when the plan falls apart. I've spent me whole life being the daughter nay one built expectations around, and I liked it that way, Fearchar. I liked being the one who wasnae watched."

"Ye're being watched now."

"Aye. I noticed." Her mouth twisted, not quite a smile. "It's nae as comfortable as I'd have guessed."

"It daesnae have tae be comfortable. It only has tae be true." He shifted his weight, close enough that the torchlight caught the exact line of her jaw when she looked up at him. "I'm nae asking fer an answer taenight. I'm asking ye tae give yerself the time tae find one that's actually yers, and nae just yer faither's, or the Council's, or a piece of parchment signed before either of us kent what it would cost."

"That's kind of ye." She said it like she wasn't sure it was kindness at all, still turning the idea of him over like an unfamiliar coin. "Fer a man who argued his claim on me in front of a full Council table like I was a line of inheritance tae be settled."

"I argued the Accord because it needed arguing, and because I wasnae about tae let Malcolm hand yer sister's marriage over as proof the King's decree was satisfied when it wasnae. That's nae the same as arguing fer ye like ye're a line on a ledger."

His voice roughened slightly, the first crack in the careful patience he'd held all evening. "I ken exactly who I'm asking tae marry me, Nandag. I've kent it since a garden in Edinburgh, long before any council table entered intae it."

She looked away from him at that, down at her own hands where they'd curled into the fabric of her skirt, and he watched her take a slow breath before she looked back up, steadier this time.

"I need time tae think," she said. "Nae tae spite ye. Nae tae spite me faither. I need tae sit with the shape of me own life before I agree tae hand it tae someone else's decree, even a fair one."

"I understand that."

"Dae ye?"

"Aye. I'd want the same, in yer place." He held her gaze a moment longer before he let the harder truth surface, because she deserved that more than she deserved comfortable silence. "I'll nae pretend Robert's going tae give us the luxury of much time tae sit with it, though. A man desperate enough tae drag his own wife out a side door with a blade in his belt isnae a man who waits patiently while the rest of us take our time deciding things properly."

"Ye think he'll come back."

"I think he's already decided what he's willing tae lose tae keep what he's taken. Whatever time ye need, lass, take it. I'll nae rush ye. But dinnae mistake the quiet in this castle taenight fer peace. It's only the space before the next move, and I'd rather ye went intae whatever comes next kenning that clearly, than comfortable and unprepared."

Nandag studied him for a long moment, the torchlight flickering gold and shadow across the planes of his face.

Something in her expression eased, just slightly. Not agreement, not warmth exactly, but something closer to the look she'd worn across a fountain in a garden seven years gone, weighing a stranger who'd made her laugh.

"Then until then," she said, soft.

She didn't wait for him to answer that. She turned, lifted the latch, and slipped through the door into her chamber, the hem of her skirt catching for half a second on the frame before it cleared, and the door swung shut behind her with a quiet, final click.

Fearchar stood alone in the corridor, torchlight guttering in its bracket beside him, staring at the closed door long after there was any reason left to.

CHAPTER SIX