Page 4 of Promised to the Wicked Laird

She forced her feet to move, stepping through the side door into the suffocating heat of the Great Hall. The room was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with nobility, guards, and royal scribes. Torchlight flickered against the tapestries, throwing long, jagged shadows across the high walls.

"There ye are!" her father whispered, accompanying her toward the elevated dais. "The King is taking his seat."

Nandag allowed herself to be dragged into line, her gaze sweeping blindly across the crowded hall. Her heart was hammering against her ribs, her mind still trapped out on the stone wall above the valley.

At the center table, King James sat beneath the royal crest, a heavy silver quill in his thin hand. Surrounding him were five Highland lairds, each stepping forward in turn to press their iron seals into red wax laid out on broad parchment contracts.

Nandag shifted on her feet, leaning around a tall guard to see the men binding their families to the Crown.

A young man stepped forward to take the quill. He was broad-chested, his shoulders square beneath a dark travel cloak, his golden hair catching the torchlight as he inclined his head toward the King.

Nandag’s breath hitched in her throat.

The young man from the fountain took the quill, dipped it into the inkwell, and signed his name with a single, sharp stroke of his wrist. He did not look up at the gallery. He did not look at the crowds. He pressed his seal into the wax, stepped back, and adjusted the heavy plaid draped over his shoulder. The broad red and green tartan of Clan Chisholm.

CHAPTER TWO

Castle Strathglass, Clan Farquharson, 1604

The heavy scent of roasted venison, spilled ale, and melting tallow filled the great hall of Castle Strathglass, thick enough to coat the back of the throat.

Nandag stood half a step behind her sister, her fingers steadily tightening the silver-threaded laces of Mòrag’s velvet bodice. Mòrag’s hands were calm, resting over her stomach, her chest rising and falling in smooth, untroubled rhythm.

"Ye're pinching," Mòrag murmured softly, not looking back.

Nandag loosened her grip on the laces, smoothed the cream ribbon trailing down Mòrag’s back, and glanced toward the High Table.

Her father, Laird Alasdair, sat slouched in his high-backed oak chair, a heavy fur mantle wrapped tight around his narrow, stooped shoulders. His face was gray as winter moss, his breath coming in thin, rattling wheezes that made his chest heave beneath his embroidered tunic.

Beside him stood his distant cousin Malcolm, dark-bearded and sharp-eyed, leaning down every few moments to whisper into the old laird’s ear while pointing toward the front of the dais.

"He shouldnae be out of bed," Nandag said, her voice barely carrying over the low hum of the gathered crowd. "The draft from the north windows is cutting right through the hall."

"He insisted," Mòrag replied gently, patting Nandag’s wrist. "He wants to see the succession settled before the winter sets in. It brings him peace, Nandag."

Nandag’s eyes drifted from her father to the man standing at the center of the dais.

Robert Cameron stood with his boots set wide, his dark hair slicked back with oil, wearing a freshly tailored tunic of fine green wool. He was smiling—a polite, measured curve of the lips—as he acknowledged the nods of the senior councilmen lining the hearth. But his gaze kept slipping past the priest, past the altar rail, fixing instead on the carved arms of the laird's High Seat.

He didn't look at Mòrag. He hadn't looked at her since the piper finished the entry march.

"He's already counting the cattle," Nandag muttered, tugging a stray leaf off the hem of Mòrag’s wedding plaid.

Mòrag tilted her head back, her hazel eyes warm and amused. "Robert is practical. The clan needs a strong hand, and Faither cannae hold a sword anymore. Ye judge him too harshly."

"I judge what I see." Nandag looked up as Malcolm stepped forward, raising his hands to silence the murmuring crowd. "He looks at Faither's chair the way a hound looks at a plate of meat."

"Nandag," Mòrag cautioned, though her tone remained gentle. "Seven years have passed. Laird Chisholm is dead in some western bog. The King's accord died with him. We must move forward."

Nandag swallowed. Her fingers found the smooth silver brooch pinned at her collar and stayed there, turning it slowly against the wool.

Seven years.

Seven years since a golden-haired stranger had kissed her in a palace garden and signed away his life to a decree. She hadn't known his name until it was too late to matter. Seven years of telling herself that that warrior belonged to no one, that he'd said so himself, only to learn a fortnight later that Clan Chisholm's young laird, who had signed the Accord, would have been bound to marry into her family under its terms. To marry Mòrag.

She had never told her sister that part. She had never told anyone.

Nandag's thumb pressed hard enough into the brooch pin that it should have hurt. It didn't, not the way it should have.