Margaret stilled. “Domhnall?”
“Aye,” Eleonor said. “Yer future husband.” There was no bitterness in the word, only care. “I dinnae want ye sneaking about when men are dying in passes and knives move in the dark. If he is what ye say he is, he should ken I’m safe and he should make sure ye are safe, too.”
Margaret exhaled slowly. “I dinnae want secrets between him and I.”
“Then dinnae keep them,” Eleonor said, squeezing her hands once more. “Ye have me blessing. Tell himeverything.”
Emotion rose in them both, and although they wanted to stay there for hours more, they both knew that the clock was ticking. Margaret pulled her sister into one last embrace, pressing her cheek to Eleonor’s hair.
“I love ye,” she whispered.
“I love ye, too,” Eleonor replied. “And I’m nae lost anymore. Remember that.”
They parted reluctantly, exchanging one final look, meant to last longer than words. Then Eleonor stepped back, drawing her hood up once more.
“Go,” she murmured. “Before the light changes.”
Margaret watched until her sister vanished into the trees, until the forest closed gently behind her as though she had never been there at all.
At that exact moment, a deep vice from behind her spoke.
“Ye should have been more careful if ye wanted tae stay hidden fer yer rendezvous.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Domhnall had seeneverything.
Not the leaving, for that had been handled too well, too quietly, but the absence. He had felt it the moment he had woken and the castle had not sat quite right around him. A guard was out of position. A corridor was too still. And Annabel not where she ought to have been.
When he knocked on Margaret’s door without a response, he knew that she was gone.
He did not shout. He did not summon the Council or raise alarm. He followed the thread the way he always did, by noticing what had changed and what had not. A servant stair was used when it should not have been and a door was eased open and shut with care.
It was all clever, but not clever enough, for he had caught up with them just as they were mounting their horses. He followedclosely behind. When he reached the clearing, he did not step into it. He stopped at the edge of the trees and waited.
Then he saw her.
Margaret was standing alone at first, cloaked and alert, watching the road with a tension Domhnall recognized too well. She was waiting for someone.
The sound of a branch snapping carried softly through the clearing. Domhnall’s hand went instinctively to his blade. A hooded figure emerged from the trees. Domhnall’s vision narrowed.
The figure was slight and cloaked against recognition. Margaret turned at once and then she moved forward, straight into the other’s arms.
Domhnall went utterly still. His first thought was immediate and merciless.
A lover.
She was meeting him in the dark while his walls tightened and men died on the borders.
He watched her clutch the figure tightly. He watched her press her face into the stranger’s shoulder as though she had been starving for the contact. He saw the way her body softened, the way relief broke across her features even from this distance.
Something inside him went cold. He did not step forward, nor did he call out. He stayed where he was, half-shadowed, letting the truth, as he understood it, settle like iron in his gut.
Then, upon hearing him call out to her, she turned. She looked startled, but she didn’t look guilty. Her gaze cut through the clearing with startling precision, landing on him as though she had felt his presence before she saw it.
“What are ye daein’ here?” Margaret asked.
The question struck harder than accusation ever could. Domhnall stepped out from the trees. The clearing seemed to draw tight around them as he moved into the open. Before he could speak, another figure emerged from the shadows to his right.
