Page 11 of Promised to the Wicked Laird

"Someone has tae."

She didn't answer that, only watched him from the bed, her hand pressed flat over the linen at her calf as if she meant to hold his warmth there a while longer. Fearchar found himself standing in the middle of her chamber with no earthly reason to stay and no particular wish to leave.

A hard knock cracked against the door.

"Laird Chisholm." Duncan's voice, clipped, urgent through the wood. "The Council's summonin’ ye. They're deciding what's to be done about the Accord, and Malcolm's already talking louder than he should be allowed tae."

Fearchar's jaw went tight. He glanced back at Nandag, who had gone very still on the bed, her eyes narrowing on the door like she already knew exactly what was being decided about her without her in the room to say a word of it.

"They cannae," she said. "Nae without me."

Fearchar didn't answer that. He was already moving for the door.

He reached the hall where the Council was and took the seat across from Laird Alasdair without being offered one, planted his boots wide, and let the old man's Council get a good look at him before anyone said a word.

The hall still smelled of spilled wine and the copper tang of a fight nobody had cleaned up after. Servants had righted the High Table but left the rest of the wreckage where it lay, benches on their sides, a torn length of wedding cloth still draped over the hearth stones. Malcolm stood near the fire with his arms crossed, dark beard freshly combed as if that alone might restore some order to the room.

"Ye'll fergive us," Malcolm said, "if we're nae eager tae hand ye a seat at this table after what ye've done tae it."

"I didnae break yer table, Malcolm. Yer nephew did that, dragging his wife across it by the wrist."

A councilman near the end, grey-haired and heavyset, made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh but wasn't nothing either. Malcolm's jaw tightened.

Laird Alasdair raised a hand from where he sat wrapped in furs despite the fire, his knuckles pale where they gripped the arm of his chair. "Enough. Both of ye." His voice came thin, but it carried. "State yer claim plainly, Chisholm, and we'll hear it plainly."

"The claim isnae mine tae make plain. The King already did that." Fearchar reached inside his tunic, drew out the folded parchment he'd carried through a courtyard fight without a single tear in it, and set it on the table between them, red seals up. "The Highland Marriage Accord, signed at Edinburgh in the year of our Lord fifteen ninety-seven, by five lairds including meself, binding each of us tae marry intae the rival clan named against ours. Chisholm tae Farquharson. I never renounced it. The Crown never voided it. It stands."

"It stood," Malcolm said, "until yer clan vanished into a seven-year war and left the rest of us tae manage without ye. Robert married Mòrag Farquharson in good faith, before God and this hall, nae an hour past. Ye're seven years too late tae make a claim on anything."

"I made me claim the moment I signed that parchment. A war daesnae undae a signature."

"A war undaes a great many things." Malcolm's voice dropped, and he looked around the table as he said it. "The Accord bound ye tae Clan Farquharson, tae the eldest daughter, Morag. Robert has now married her. The alliance the King wanted is made. Ye've come four years late tae a wedding that already happened."

A murmur went round the table at that, low and considering, and Fearchar watched two of the older councilmen exchange a look he didn't care for.

"Ye're half right," Fearchar said. "The Accord names Mòrag because she was the eldest daughter, and the inheritance of yer clan's lands flows directly through her line. That's exactly why yer nephew's marriage daesnae settle it."

Malcolm's eyes narrowed. "Explain yerself."

"The Crown sealed this decree to bind our clans through the primary heir. Robert isnae a Chisholm, and his stolen vows with Mòrag are void under royal law. With Mòrag's standing stripped by a broken union, the birthright—and the obligation of the Accord—passes immediately to the next eldest daughter. Tae Nandag."

Fearchar stepped closer to the table, resting a heavy hand on the hilt of his broadsword.

"Robert's trick settled naething. It merely shifted the King's mandate, the inheritance, and the bride tae the girl upstairs."

"Ye're twisting words to suit yerself."

"I'm reading the words as written." Fearchar tapped the parchment once, flat-palmed, and let it sit there. "Ye ken how tae read, Malcolm. Read it."

The old grey-haired councilman leaned forward and pulled the parchment toward himself without waiting for permission from either man, unfolding it with careful fingers, moving his lips slightly as he worked through the Latin at the top before dropping to the plainer Scots below.

"It says what he says it says," the old man announced to the table at large. "Clan Chisholm tae marry intae Clan Farquharson. Nay daughter named."

"Then it's open tae interpretation," Malcolm said, sharper now.

"It's open tae exactly one interpretation, and that's mine, because I'm the only Chisholm in this room, and the last time I checked, it takes two clans tae make an alliance, nae one clan and a bridegroom who happened tae be standing nearby."

That got a real laugh out of someone down the table, quickly swallowed. Malcolm's face went a shade darker.