Page 59 of Promised to the Forbidden Laird

The carpenter would have replaced the storm-damaged wood with whatever boards lay nearest his hand. He would not have changed the angle of the roof or raised the base. He would not have considered the direction of the sea wind unless someone told him to do so, someone who inspected walls for weakness and remembered every detail once he had seen it.

Donaldina crouched beside the hive. Near the lower corner, the wood had been sanded until not even the smallest splinter remained. She passed her thumb over it and smiled.

Roy noticed that she sometimes worked without gloves. The realization sent warmth quietly through her.

He entered the garden only once. He stood rigid among the bees, holding the smoker with greater caution than he held a sword, while pretending not to be unsettled by either the insects or her laughter. Yet, he noticed the damaged hives, and he remembered.

Donaldina looked toward Dun Ard. The castle rose above the garden in dark layers of stone, its windows catching the last thin light. Somewhere within, Roy would be reading reports, arguing with Hamish or attempting some labor expressly forbidden by the stitches in his side.

He did not come to tell her what he had done. He did not wait in the garden to receive her gratitude.

Cormac announced every supposed kindness loudly enough for the hall to witness it. He offered protection as though generosity placed a debt around her throat.

Roy gave differently, in the form of a strip of linen torn from his shirt, a dagger beside her bed, a question asked across Lachlan’s ledgers, followed by patience enough to hear the answer… and now, a hive built in secret.

Donaldina rested her hand upon the fresh timber. Something precious had been damaged, and Roy did not try to replace its history. He did not order the old hives removed because they leaned or bore the marks of storms. He simply placed something stronger beside them.

Her throat tightened unexpectedly. Lachlan helped her build the first hive when she was fourteen. Neither of them understood the work. The joints were uneven, the roof badly fitted, and Lachlan struck his thumb with the mallet so often that Donaldina threatened to finish it alone. They kept it because it was theirs.

Roy could not have known that entire memory, but perhaps he understood enough. He understood that repairing a beloved thing did not require erasing what had come before.

Donaldina lowered her eyes. The bees hummed around her, quiet and industrious. One landed upon the new roof, crawled across the clean wood, and lifted again into the air.

She imagined Roy standing in the carpenter’s shed, issuing instructions with the same grave attention he gave to fortifications. She imagined him warning Ewan not to speak his name, as though secrecy could disguise the care contained in every measured piece of timber.

The image drew a soft laugh from her.

“Foolish man,” she murmured.

She was uncertain whether she meant him or herself.

Donaldina rose and lifted the lid. Inside, the frames stood ready, precisely spaced and smooth beneath her fingers. A small curl of wood remained in one corner. She removed it and held it in her palm.

The new hive would endure the salt air. It would stand through storms that might split the older ones. In spring, it would fill with warmth, honey and the steady life of the colony.

Donaldina closed the lid carefully. She should thank him. The proper thing would be to find Roy and acknowledge the gift plainly. Yet something in her wished to preserve the quietness of it, to let him believe his secret remained safe while she carried the knowledge close.

Perhaps gratitude did not always require speech. Perhaps she could answer him in the same language.

Donaldina picked up her basket and began examining the damaged hive, though the smile remained upon her lips. Behind her, the fresh timber caught the final light of evening.

Roy repaired something precious to her without asking to be thanked, praised or even known. That made the gift feel less like an obligation.

It felt like tenderness.

The council gathered before noon beneath a sky the color of old iron.

Wind pressed against the shutters of Lachlan’s solar, stirring the candle flames upon the long table. Donaldina stood at the head of it, with Roy beside her.

When she entered, he had been bent over the map of MacNicol lands, one hand braced against the table and the other resting near the southern ridge where Cormac’s family once held territory. Donaldina took her customary place near Lachlan’s empty chair.

Roy did not move into it. Instead, he stepped aside so that now, they were standing together before the council.

She noticed Roy’s fresh shirt concealed the bandage beneath his ribs, though the stiffness in his movements betrayed that he had already ignored at least half her instructions. She would address that later.

“Three riders were seen south of the abandoned watchtower,” Hamish reported. “They disappeared before the patrol reached the ridge.”

“Cormac’s men?” asked Finlay MacNicol, one of the oldest councilors.