His jaw tightened, and his muscle jumped. “So this was allyerdaein’,” he hissed. “This humiliation, this…ambush.”
“Ye arranged tae sell her,” Margaret reminded him, “when ye kent she was in love.”
“Love?” His whisper sharpened into a venomous tone. “Ye have destroyed us.”
Margaret felt her pulse hammer, but she did not step back. “She is free, but most importantly, she is safe. And if that costs ye an alliance ye were too eager tae strike, then I will bear that gladly.”
At that moment, his hand rose and for one terrible heartbeat, Margaret was a child again, measuring her breath and tone, knowing exactly how far he might go.
The corridor seemed to narrow. The air thickened, heavy with incense and stone dust and the faint metallic tang of fear she had learned to recognize long before she had learned its name. Her pulse thundered in her ears.
She did not raise her hands. She did not flinch. She had learned that, too.
His fingers trembled, suspended inches from her face, the violence in him barely contained by the presence of witnesses beyond the archway. His whisper shook with it.
“Ye ungrateful?—”
The space between them vanished as Domhnall stepped in. It all happened in an instant. One moment her father loomed before her, and the next, there was a solid wall of breadth and heat and authority between them. Domhnall’s body blocked her fully, his shoulder angled just enough to shield her from view. Margaret felt the abrupt change like a door slamming shut against a storm.
“That will be enough.”
Domhnall’s voice was without doubt. He did not touch Laird Drummond, nor did he raise his hands, but the warning was unmistakable. It made her father freeze.
Margaret’s breath left her in a shaky rush she had not realized she was holding. The scent of Domhnall Campbell––leather, wool, something clean and cold like sea air––cut through thepanic with startling clarity. She became acutely aware of how close he stood.
Her father recovered first, while his expression was twisting with outrage. “This is between me daughter and me.”
“She is tae be me wife,” Domhnall replied. “And this will be between ye and the Crown if ye take another step.”
Margaret stared at Domhnall’s back, at the rigid line of his shoulders. No man had ever placed himself between her and her father before. The realization struck deeper than fear, deeper even than relief. It felt like something breaking open.
Her father’s gaze flicked to her over Domhnall’s shoulder. There was hatred there now, unmasked and untempered. But she could also see shock at his finding that the power he had always wielded so effortlessly no longer answered him.
“This changes naething,” her father snarled. “Ye cannae hide behind him forever.”
Margaret found her voice, and it was steadier than she expected. “I am nae hiding.”
The words had scarcely left her mouth when a presence cut into the edge of the gathering. Margaret felt it before she saw him, the way one feels a storm break direction without yet hearing thunder.
“What in God’s name is happening here?”
Kenneth MacGregor emerged from the watching courtiers, his presence sharp as a blade drawn too quickly. His dark eyes moved from Margaret to Domhnall, then back again, narrowing as he took in the arrangement of bodies, the guards’ careful positioning, and the absence of masks.
“She has been claimed,” her father said quickly, turning on him. “But nae by design, nae by mine.”
Kenneth’s head snapped toward him. “Explain.”
Her father’s voice sharpened, and now, there was urgency bleeding through his restraint. “I was deceived. Margaret took her sister’s place without me knowledge. The Masquerade was entered under false pretenses.”
Margaret felt the familiar sting of being reduced to a possession rather than a person, but she held her ground.
Kenneth swallowed before he spoke. “Ye told me that the younger daughter would be offered.”
He was just like her father, treating her and her sister as pawns in a power game of chess, where not even their names mattered, only the roles they played.
“That was the intent,” her father snapped. “The Crown forced the claim through the moment Campbell spoke. I had nay warning.”
Kenneth’s attention shifted slowly yet dangerously to Domhnall. “So this isyerdaein’.”
