Page 25 of Promised to the Wicked Laird

Nandag's steps slowed, her hand tightening against his shoulder, something unguarded crossing her face before she caught it and tucked it back behind a look that was almost, but not quite, composed. "Ye werenae wrong to expect it. I didnae expect it of meself either."

"Then we're both learning something taenight."

"Aye. We are."

Neither of them spoke for the last full turn of the dance, the music winding down slowly around them, the hall's noise dimming to a hush of watching faces and held breath as the final notes lingered in the torchlit air.

Fearchar found himself in no particular hurry at all to let go of her hand when the pipes finally, reluctantly, fell silent.

The chamber the servants had prepared for them sat at the end of the east corridor, the fire already built up high enough to throw gold across the stone walls, a fresh coverlet turned back on the bed like the whole household had conspired to make certain neither of them could pretend, even for a moment, what this night was supposed to be for.

Nandag stopped just past the threshold, her hand still loose in his from the walk up, and looked at the bed.

Fearchar shut the door behind them and let the latch fall softly into place.

"Ye can breathe," he said. "I'm nae about tae fall on ye the moment the door's closed."

"I'm breathing fine."

"Yer shoulders say otherwise." He crossed to the small table by the fire, where a jug of wine and two cups had been left, and poured one without asking, setting it near the edge where she could reach it if she wanted it and ignore it if she didn't. "Sit. There's nay rush fer anything taenight."

She sat on the edge of the bed, spine straight, hands folded in her lap, watching him.

"I meant what I told ye in the corridor," Fearchar said. "Before any of this. I'll nae take anything from ye that ye havenae freely chosen tae give. Nae taenight. Nae any night, until ye're the one closing that distance yerself."

Nandag's hands, which had been gripping each other tight in her lap, loosened by a fraction. "That's an easy vow tae make. It's another thing entirely, alone in a locked room."

"Then watch me keep it." He crouched by the hearth, added a log to the fire though it hardly needed one, more to give his own hands something to do than because the room required more heat. "I've fought men who'd have called me weak fer saying such a thing plainly. I dinnae much care what they'd think of it. I care what ye think of it, and I'd rather ye trust me word."

She was quiet a moment, watching the fire catch on the fresh log, and Fearchar let the silence sit rather than fill it. It was Nandag who broke it eventually, her voice smaller than the bold defiance she'd worn through most of the day.

"There's still the matter of the letter tae the King."

"Aye. There is." He straightened, and reached for the small blade at his belt, the same one he'd carried through the courtyard fight, cleaned now and honed sharp. "The Crown will want proof the marriage is consummated. Proof enough tae satisfy anyone who might try telling His Majesty otherwise. Robert included."

Nandag's eyes tracked the blade as he turned it in his hand, and something wary crossed her face again, quicker this time. "Fearchar."

"I'm nae asking anything of ye." He held her gaze steady, let her see there was no demand hiding behind the blade in his hand. "I said I'd nae force anything from ye, ye hadnae chosen, and I meant it. There's another way tae satisfy what the letter needs."

He drew the edge across his own palm, quick and shallow, a thin line welling red before he'd even finished the motion. Nandag was on her feet before he'd lowered the blade, closing half the distance between them without seeming to notice she'd moved.

"What are ye daeing?"

"It's a scratch, lass. I've taken worse shaving." He crossed to the bed and pressed his palm flat against the sheet, once, leaving a small dark mark against the pale linen, deliberate and precise, nothing like the frantic spreading stain a deeper wound would have left. "This is what travels tae Edinburgh. Nae anything of yers. Nae anything either of us dinnae choose freely tae give."

Nandag stood very still, looking from the mark on the sheet to the shallow cut still welling faint against his palm, and something in her face shifted, the wariness giving way to something less guarded, though she didn't quite have a word ready for it either.

"Ye'd lie tae the King."

"I'd protect ye from a decision that isnae his tae make, nor mine, about what happens in this room."

He wrapped a strip of linen from the table around his palm, tying it one-handed. "The letter will say the marriage is consummated and binding, because it is binding, whether or nae we've shared a bed taenight. What happens between the two of us, and when, is nae business of any king's, however many parchments he's had signed about it."

"And if someone questions it? Malcolm, or Robert, or anyone else looking fer a crack tae work a blade intae?"

"Let them question it. They'll find nay crack, because there isnae one tae find. A bloodied sheet is a bloodied sheet. Naebody in Edinburgh will be counting the days between the wedding and the reasons behind it."

He tied off the last of the bandage and flexed his hand once, testing it. "Ye've had a day, Nandag. A wedding forced on ye by circumstance, a clan ye're only just learning tae lead, a sister still missing and a man out there who'd see ye used as leverage if he could manage it. I'll nae add meself tae that list of things being decided fer ye without yer say in it."