Page 69

Fergus smirked triumphantly, assuming he had forced the warlord into a corner.

Caelan turned his body slightly, looking down at Mabel where she sat frozen in her chair. The fierce, burning intensity in his gray eyes was undisguised. He was no longer hiding behind his duty. He was no longer pushing her away to save her from his darkness.

“Miss Mabel will marry,” Caelan declared loudly to the entire hall.

Several of the assembled lairds and clan elders nodded in immediate approval, muttering their agreement. They assumed he had finally yielded to political reality and was prepared to accept Fergus’s wealthy suit. It was the only logical outcome.

Caelan turned his head, locking his blazing gray eyes directly onto Fergus Comyn’s smug face.

Then Caelan spoke again.

“She will marry me.”

For several agonizing heartbeats, no one in the Great Hall moved. The silence was so absolute that the crackle of the hearth fire sounded like thunder.

Mabel stared at him in complete disbelief. Her breath hitched painfully in her throat. She gripped the edges of her wooden chair, her mind reeling. He had just claimed her. In front of her enemies, in front of his elders, the man who had sworn he would never marry her had just publicly declared she belonged to him.

Duncan and Rowan exchanged stunned, wide-eyed glances near the high table. Rowan’s jaw actually dropped open, shocked by the sudden, reckless explosion of Caelan’s rigid control.

Even Fergus Comyn, who had fully expected anger, who had planned to provoke a violent outburst to ruin Caelan’s reputation, was left momentarily speechless. The smug smile slid off his handsome face, replaced by a look of profound, genuine shock.

Caelan’s expression remained unreadable as he turned his back on Fergus, addressing the silent hall with absolute authority.

“There is nay alliance that could better protect Clan MacAllister than one forged directly with Clan MacCarron,” Caelan declared, his voice ringing with absolute certainty. “I alone possess both the military strength and the personal obligation to fulfill the promise I made to William Crawford. As long as she is under me protection, no other man will lay claim on her.”

The room went quiet. Fergus wanted her lands. Caelan, God help him, wanted her.

Fergus Comyn slowly recovered his composure. He stood up a fraction of an inch straighter though his hands were trembling slightly with poorly concealed rage. He had miscalculated terribly. He had expected duty to triumph over desire. Instead, the Black Laird had chosen the woman.

A faint, cold smile touched Fergus’s lips.

“I see,” Fergus said quietly, his voice cutting through the silence. “Then perhaps I have me answer after all.”

Fergus reached up, adjusting his crimson tartan with stiff, jerky movements. He looked at Caelan, his gray eyes shining with toxic venom.

“I had expected the famous Black Laird to possess greater control over his temper,” Fergus remarked smoothly, masking his fury behind a thin veil of civility. He took a slow step backward. “But I will offer ye a word of warning, Caelan. Decisions made in anger rarely bring peace.”

“Me decisions are final,” Caelan growled, standing his ground. “The feast is over, Comyn. See yerself out.”

Fergus did not argue. He knew when a battle was lost. He turned toward Mabel, offering one final, polite bow that felt like a threat.

“I bid ye farewell, Miss Mabel,” Fergus said softly. “May yer new alliance bring ye exactly what ye deserve.”

He turned on his heel, gathering his small escort with a sharp jerk of his head, and strode purposefully out of the Great Hall. The wooden doors slammed shut behind him, sealing the remaining silence inside the fortress.

The moment Fergus Comyn departed, an oppressive, suffocating quiet settled over the room.

Mabel remained frozen in her chair. She was shocked by Caelan’s sudden declaration, but the shock quickly gave way to a hot, stinging wave of humiliation. He had not asked her. He had not pulled her aside to discuss her future. He had simply stood in the middle of a crowded hall, provoked by a rival laird, and announced their marriage as a tactical solution to a political problem. She had been spoken about as though she were a prize to be claimed in a territorial dispute.

A hot tear pricked the corner of her eye. She refused to let it fall.

Before Caelan could turn back to her, before the clan elders could begin to voice their stunned questions, Mabel stood up quickly. Her chair scraped loudly against the stone.

She did not look at Caelan. She did not look at anyone. She gathered the skirts of her dark green gown in her fists and walked swiftly toward the side entrance of the hall, desperate to escape the room before she shattered.

“Mabel,” Caelan called out, taking a step toward her.

She ignored him. She slipped through the narrow archway, disappearing into the dark, freezing corridors of Blackthorn Keep, leaving the Black Laird to face the consequences of his reckless declaration alone.