Domhnall did not answer at once. He did not question it. There was no reason to. Authority, once invoked, would hold. It always had.
“Aye,” he agreed, and turned from the table.
The plan would proceed. Everything was in place.
And when the moment came, it would end.
The morning appointed for the meeting arrived with a composure most at odds with its purpose.
Margaret stood within the stables, where the quiet industry of the castle carried on as though no greater matter pressed upon it than the ordering of tack and the feeding of horses. A groom passed her with a respectful inclination. Another adjusted a bridle with habitual care. All was ordinary and yet, to her, nothing could be so.
She had dressed without ornament, choosing neither richness nor neglect, but that modest propriety which might pass without remark. It was necessary that she appear exactly as her father would expect her to be: obedient, unguarded and alone.
Her gloves lay in her hands. She was not unaware that she lingered.
“Ye should nae delay, now or when ye get there.”
She turned at the sound of Domhnall’s voice. He stood a few paces within the doorway, with the morning light falling behind him so that his figure appeared at once distinct and shadowed. There was no ease in his expression, nor any trace of the gentler humor she had come, of late, to recognize in him. He was composed, but it was the composure of a man fixed upon purpose.
“I am nae delaying,” she said, though she could not deny that her breath came a little more carefully than usual. “Only ensuring I have forgotten naething.”
He crossed the space between them with that same measured certainty she had observed in him in all things.
“Ye ken what is required,” he said.
“I dae.”
“And ye willnae deviate from it.”
“I willnae.”
There was nothing uncertain in her answer. And yet, she remained where she stood. His gaze rested upon her, searching not for weakness, but for assurance. She felt it keenly, though she did not shrink from it.
“Be careful,” he whispered.
The words were quietly spoken, but not lightly meant. Margaret inclined her head.
“I shall.”
It was enough, and yet, it was not. For a fleeting instant, she had thought hoped that he might say more, that he might give voice to what had passed between them in silence, in gesture, in every moment that had drawn them nearer to one another.
He did not.
And though she would not have named it disappointment, she felt something like it, before it was mastered and set aside. This was not the moment for such expectations. When this was done, when all that threatened them had been brought to its end, then perhaps…
She did not allow herself to finish the thought.
He stepped back. There was nothing further to be said.
Margaret drew on her gloves, one and then the other, and turned to her horse. She mounted without assistance, her movements as steady as they had ever been, and set her course without looking behind her. She did not need to, because he would follow immediately, as arranged.
The road stretched long before her, pale beneath the clear light of morning. She rode at a measured pace, neither hurried nor hesitant, allowing the illusion of compliance to remain unbroken.
The ruins came into view gradually, their outline dark against the edge of the sea. Even at a distance, they held something forbidding in their aspect, stone worn low by time, walls broken and incomplete, and the ground about them uneven and exposed.
It was not a place for meeting, but it was precisely the place her father would choose.
She saw him before she reached the structure. He was standing near the remains of a wall, his figure as composed as though he had been there always, awaiting her with the certainty of one accustomed to being obeyed.
