Page 42 of Promised to the Forbidden Laird

It was one word that held winters, graves, and every name he refused to speak.

Donaldina’s fingers remained against his side. She did not ask again. She finished the final stitch and reached for the clean bandage. To wrap it properly, she moved closer, passing the linen around his back and beneath his arm.

Roy lifted his hand to take one end. Their fingers touched. Neither withdrew. Donaldina stood between his knees once more, close enough to feel his breath against her cheek.

She drew the linen around him. Her arms encircled his body, though only for the practical purpose of passing the bandage from one hand to the other. The explanation formed too quickly in her thoughts, as if some part of her understood that the gesture no longer felt practical at all.

Roy’s hand came to rest lightly at her waist. She tied the bandage at his side, but her fingers remained upon the knot after it was secure. Without his tunic, without a sword or command between them, he seemed less like the warrior who entered her brother’s hall and more like a man who survived too much without permitting anyone to witness the cost.

Her face drifted closer to his. The space narrowed until one breath might have closed it entirely. Roy’s thumb pressed faintly against her waist. Donaldina’s hand rested upon his bare shoulder, directly over an old scar.

She wanted to feel his warmth beneath her hands. She wanted to ask the names of every scar and hear the answers he had given no one else. She wanted to bend the final distance and discover whether his mouth would be as restrained as every other part of him.

Roy’s gaze lowered. Donaldina’s breath hitched. Suddenly, fear—this time not of him, but of herself—shattered the stillness as she stepped back. Her hand moved away from his shoulder, and his from her waist. Cold air rushed in instantly between them.

Donaldina turned toward the table and began arranging the unused linen with unnecessary care.

“The wound must remain dry,” she offered. “And ye willnae lift anything heavier than a cup for several days.”

Behind her, Roy was silent. She could feel his gaze between her shoulder blades. She kept her face turned away until she trusted it again.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Donaldina left the infirmary before Roy could put on his shirt. She told herself it was because he required rest, because there were duties waiting beyond the door and no sensible woman lingered beside a half-dressed man after tending his wounds.

The explanations followed her down the corridor. None survived the courtyard.

Cold air struck her face as she stepped outside. The wind came hard from the sea, carrying salt, wet stone and the faint smoke of peat fires from the village below. Donaldina drew her cloak tighter and crossed beneath the western arch before anyone could stop her with questions.

She needed quiet. More precisely, she needed a place where Roy MacIver’s hand had never rested upon her waist.

The memory returned despite the effort to dismiss it: his skin beneath her fingers, the uneven ridges of old wounds, the heat of him in the cold infirmary and the way his gaze lowered when their faces drew close.

Donaldina quickened her pace. The bee garden lay beyond the west side of Dun Ard, sheltered between a low stone wall and the slope descending toward the cliffs. Lachlan had given her the neglected patch when she was fourteen, after she announced that the castle garden was poorly arranged and its keeper lacked imagination. He laughed for so long that she threatened never to improve it.

Then he had brought her the first hive. The memory softened something in her chest and hurt it at once.

She opened the narrow wooden gate. The garden rested beneath a pale sky, damp from the night’s rain. Rosemary and thyme grew between the stones. Late flowers bent beneath droplets of water, their colors subdued by the gray morning. Beyond the wall, the sea stretched dark and restless, broken by white crests where the wind struck hardest.

The hives stood near the sheltered end of the garden. Two were old, their wood silvered by salt and weather. A third had been repaired after the storm. Donaldina ran her hand along its edge as she passed, feeling the rough grain beneath her palm.

The bees moved lazily around the entrances, disturbed by the cold but not silenced. Their low hum settled through the garden. Donaldina had always loved that sound. It contained no accusation and no expectation. Bees required patience, attention and a respect for boundaries. They did not mistake protection for possession. They gave warning before they struck. Men, she had learned, were less considerate.

She set her basket near the hives and knelt beside the small clay smoker. Dry grass, pine needles, and a piece of old linen waited inside. Her hands were not entirely steady when she struck the flint. The spark caught. Smoke curled upward, thin and blue-gray, carrying the warm scent of pine and scorched grass. She lifted the smoker and gently pressed the bellows.

The bees quieted as the smoke drifted across the hive entrance.

“There,” she murmured. “At least some creatures possess sense.”

She loosened the lid of the first hive and lifted it carefully. Warmth rose from within, fragrant with wax, wood and honey. Bees crawled over the frames in dark, shifting clusters. Donaldina moved slowly, breathing evenly as she guided a little more smoke across them.

The familiar work drew her thoughts into order.

Lift. Wait. Observe.

She removed the first frame. Golden comb filled most of it, sealed beneath pale wax. Honey glimmered where one small section had broken open, thick and bright as amber in the weak morning light.

Donaldina smiled despite herself. She brushed several bees aside with a soft feather and examined the comb. The hive was healthy. Better than healthy, considering the storm and the cold. It pleased her that something at Dun Ard continued to flourish without concern for kings, accords, or men who believed themselves entitled to determine the shape of her future.