“Nay,” Domhnall agreed. “But yeareleverage.”
The word struck her like a blow.
Her chin lifted. “Ye speak as though I am a thing tae be guarded, nae a person with will.”
“Ye are both, Margaret,” he told her. “And until ye understand that, ye will continue tae place yerself in danger.”
She took a step toward him, her fury clear and uncontained now. “Ye think this is protection? This is imprisonment.”
“I have nae confined ye tea yer chambers.”
“Ye have confined me taepermission,” she retorted. “That is merely a prettier cage.”
Domhnall’s jaw tightened. He had expected resistance. He had not expected how deeply it would test his restraint. Yet, she did not step back from him. That, more than the words, struck hardest.
“Why?” she demanded unexpectedly. “Why are ye so afraid?”
The question landed cleanly. There was no accusation in it.
Domhnall drew a slow breath through his nose. He had faced men across battlefields without flinching. He had watched tidesturn red beneath his ships and he had stood before the Crown and refused what others would have bent to accept. Yet this quiet, relentless demand to be answered unsettled him far more than open challenge.
“I am nae afraid,” he retorted.
She shook her head once. “Ye are,” she replied. “And ye are clever enough tae ken it. So tell me why.”
The garden seemed to still around them. Even the loch lay quiet, its dark surface reflecting nothing but broken torchlight. Domhnall looked at her, but this time he didn’t see a responsibility, nor a liability. He did not even his future wife, but a woman who refused to be managed without understanding the terms.
“Ye think this pleases me?” he asked quietly. “That I enjoy telling ye where ye may walk?”
“I think that ye are accustomed tae command. And that men often confuse habit with necessity.”
The truth of it struck close enough to sting. He turned away from her then, because the words he needed were not ones he was used to speaking while being watched.
“This is nae a whim,” he tried to assure her. “Nor a test of obedience.”
She waited. He could feel it behind him. Her stillness and her attention were enshrouding him on all sides. She would not let this pass.
“Seven years ago,” he continued after a sigh, “I was already laird. Powerful but already cautious.”
He paused, feeling his hand closing briefly at his side.
“Me wife was called Fiona. She was nae foolish, nor weak. She knew the risks of me name as well as any man in me hall.” His voice remained steady, but something beneath it tightened. “MacGregor had reason tae hate me house long before that night. Old blood… older grievances.”
Margaret did not speak.
“He did nae declare feud,” Domhnall went on. “He sent men in the dark… quiet men. Men who kent how tae kill without waking the household.”
He turned back to her then.
“I was nae there,” he revealed, feeling a stone pressing on his chest. “I returned tae a house already burning.”
The words settled between them. Now, there was no taking them back.
“Fiona. She was dead before dawn,” he continued. “And every lesson I learned that night was written in blood.”
She still didn’t say anything, but her eyes were not so angry any longer.
“I hunted him,” Domhnall said. “I broke his men. I ended the rebellion. But I didnae undae what was taken.”
