Page 108 of Promised to the Forbidden Laird

Donaldina said nothing of the night before, nothing of the way she had clung to him in the smoke, or how her arms tightened around his waist when the roof began collapsing behind them, nothing of the journey home, when she rested against his chest and placed her hand upon his arm as though trusting him had become instinct rather than decision.

She did not speak of the hours afterward, either. She merely moved one of the reports aside before a corner of the parchment could dip into the honey.

Roy looked up. Her gaze met his. The silence between them held fire, darkness, and the sound of her calling his name through smoke. It held the memory of her fingers tightening around his hand in her chamber, long after she insisted she had recovered. It held words neither of them attempted to speak because giving them shape might make them too large to bear.

“Ye should eat,” she urged softly.

Roy glanced toward the untouched tray. “I’m nae that hungry.”

Donaldina looked at the report in his hand. “Ye have been reading that page since I passed the solar half an hour ago.”

Roy lowered his eyes to it. He had not known she passed. The realization warmed him with a quiet satisfaction he had no right to feel.

“It is a complicated report.”

A faint softness touched her mouth. It was not quite a smile. Yet it altered the room nevertheless.

Donaldina crossed to the shelves and began returning several ledgers to their places. Roy lowered his eyes to the report, though he made no further attempt to read it. He listened instead to the quiet brush of her skirts, and the slight scrape of leather bindings as she moved the books and the steady rhythm of her breathing.

There had once been tension whenever they shared a room, as though every pace between them marked disputed ground. She watched his movements for signs of authority he might attempt to claim. He measured every word so it could not be mistaken for command.

Now Donaldina passed behind his chair without hesitation.

Her hand rested briefly upon its carved back as she reached for a ledger. The touch did not reach him, yet his body noticed it as surely as if her fingers had settled upon his shoulder.

Roy became aware of how little distance remained between them. He could smell beeswax upon her skin and the faint rosemary scent of the soap used in her chamber. Beneath it lingered smoke from the lodge, caught stubbornly in her hair as it remained in his clothing.

It should have recalled only danger. Instead, it reminded him that she survived it.

Donaldina placed the ledger upon the shelf and turned. “Have Malcolm’s men found anything?”

“Tracks heading east before the ground hardened.”

She absorbed the answer without flinching, though her fingers closed around the edge of the shelf.

Roy set the report down. “I will find him.”

She nodded, knowing exactly who he was referring to. “I ken.”

There was no desperation in the words and no demand for reassurance. She spoke with quiet certainty, as though Roy’s promise had already been weighed and accepted.

Trust should not have felt so dangerous.

Cormac’s hatred was familiar. Roy understood how to meet hatred. It came armed, announced itself loudly, and expected violence in reply.

Donaldina’s faith entered without warning and discovered places he had spent years keeping defended.

She moved back toward the desk and adjusted the tray unnecessarily. Her fingers brushed close to his hand. Neither withdrew at once. Roy looked at the faint bruising still visible around her wrist. Donaldina followed his gaze and turned her hand over, concealing the marks.

“They will fade.”

“That doesnae make them forgivable.”

Her eyes lifted to his.

“No,” she agreed softly. “I suppose it doesnae.”

For a moment, the castle beyond the solar seemed to recede. There were no men calling in the courtyard, no reports waiting beneath his hands and no enemy somewhere beyond the walls. There was only Donaldina standing beside him in the pale morning, looking at him without fear.