Page 16 of Promised to the Wicked Laird

"Aye, it is." Mairi rose, wiping her hands on her apron, and settled onto the stool across from her. "But ye're nae asking me whether lairds can pretend. Ye're asking whether this laird is pretending, and that's a question I cannae answer fer ye, because I havenae spent seven years thinking about the shape of his face."

"I never did that."

"Ye dinnae have tae say it. Ye've spoken of him since ye sat down, and each time yer hand goes tae yer own jaw, right where he touched it when he bandaged ye, unless I'm mistaken."

Nandag's hand, which had indeed drifted to her jaw without her noticing, dropped fast into her lap. "That means naething."

"It means ye should stop asking me what kind of man he is and go find out fer yerself. Watch him when he daesnae ken ye're watching. See how he speaks tae the stable boys, tae the old women in the kitchens, tae men who cannae dae a single thing fer his claim on Strathglass. That'll tell ye more than any speech he gives in a council hall, and more than any rumor either of us has heard secondhand from someone who's never sat across a table from him."

Nandag was quiet a moment, thinking about what she said, and found she had nothing to say about it, which was starting to feel like the theme of her whole evening. "When did ye get so wise about men, Mairi Fraser? Ye've never once kept a suitor past a fortnight."

"Because I havenae found one worth keeping. Daesnae mean I cannae recognize the shape of one when I see him carrying a bleeding woman up two flights of stairs like she weighed naething at all."

Mairi reached over and tugged, gently, at a loose strand of Nandag's hair, tucking it back the way she'd done a thousand times before. "Now. Enough of Fearchar Chisholm fer one night, before ye wear a hole clean through the subject. Did ye hear Old Beitris fell asleep during the ceremony and snored right through Faither Thomas’s opening blessing?"

Nandag blinked, caught off guard by the turn, and felt something in her chest loosen for the first time since the council hall. "She did nae."

"She did. Cook says she slept straight through the vows, and when the tables were knocked over in the chaos, her first words upon waking were tae ask whether the venison was ever going tae be served."

"That woman could sleep through the end of the world."

"She very nearly did taenight." Mairi grinned, reaching for the hairbrush on the table beside them, working it gently through the tangles Nandag hadn't noticed collecting all evening. "Speaking of which. Cook's furious about the venison. Says three hours of roasting wasted on a wedding that dinnae even make it tae the toasts."

"I'll have someone send the venison tae the wounded. God kens they've earned a decent meal after today."

"There. That's the laird's daughter talking, worrying over roast venison in the middle of a war." Mairi's hands paused in her hair, and her voice gentled, just slightly. "Ye'll manage this, Nandag. Whatever shape it takes. Ye always have."

Nandag closed her eyes, let the brush move slow and steady through her hair, and said nothing at all, which felt, for once, like the truest answer she had.

Nandag told herself she'd only come up to the gallery to look for Mairi and told herself that a second time when she found the training yard instead, empty of everyone but a dozen warriors and the man leading them.

Fearchar moved among the younger men without the bark she'd expected from a laird training his own guard, no shouting, no dressing-down of the boy who'd dropped his shield twice in as many passes. He crossed to him instead, took the shield himself, and showed him the angle of his wrist, patient as any tutor, before handing it back and stepping away to let the boy try again.

"Better," Fearchar said, when the third pass held. "Again. Same angle."

The boy grinned like he'd been handed a title.

Nandag leaned her forearms on the stone rail, telling herself she was simply passing the time until Mairi appeared. She watched him move down the line, correcting a grip here, praising a footwork shift there, never once raising his voice above what the yard needed to carry across it. He fought beside his men rather than above them, took a blunted blade from Duncan Macrae and squared off against him in the center of the yard like any two soldiers settling a wager, not a laird deigning to spar with his general.

He was laughing at something Duncan said when he stripped his shirt over his head and tossed it toward the fence, and Nandag's hands went very still against the stone rail.

She had seen men without shirts before. Farmhands in summer, stable boys hauling water, her father's guard on hot training days. She told herself that quite firmly, twice, and found it did absolutely nothing to explain why her mouth had gone dry, or why her mind had gone straight past the training yard entirely and landed her back in a corridor with torchlight flickering gold across his jaw, his hand cupping her face, his mouth warm and certain against hers.

Fearchar rolled his shoulder, settling into a fighter's stance, and the scar that ran from his ribs disappeared beneath the flex of muscle as he lifted his blade to meet Duncan's first strike. Nandag's fingers curled against the stone rail, and she was aware, distantly, that she'd stopped breathing at some point and ought to start again.

He caught Duncan's blade, turned it aside, and in the half second his opponent stumbled to recover his footing, Fearchar's gaze lifted. Straight to the gallery. Straight to her.

Their eyes held for one long, unbearable beat, his mouth curving into something that wasn't quite a smile, more the promise of one, and heat crawled up Nandag's throat so fast she felt it reach her ears before her mind caught up to what her face must be doing.

"Watch yer left, Chisholm!" Duncan barked, and Fearchar's attention snapped back to the fight a half second too late to catch the blunted blade that clipped his ribs.

Nandag was already moving, skirts gathered in both fists, down the gallery stairs and into the corridor.

She didn't get far.

She was still fumbling the latch on her own chamber door, breath coming quicker than the short distance warranted, when a hand closed over hers on the wood and a second arm came up against the frame beside her head, and she found herself very suddenly not alone.

"Ye left before I could say hello," Fearchar said, close behind her, close enough that she could feel the warmth of him at her back, close enough that she hadn't heard him behind her at all until it was too late to pretend otherwise.