Page 20 of Promised to the Forbidden Laird

“Ye have done this often.”

“Often enough.”

His answers shortened whenever they approached the years he had been away.

Donaldina looked toward the horizon. “When we were children, Lachlan told me there were sea spirits living below these cliffs.”

Roy rose. “Did ye believe him?”

“I was six.”

“That doesnae answer the question.”

“I believed him until I was seven.”

A faint movement touched his mouth.

“He said they stole children who wandered too close tae the edge,” she continued. “Then he would dare me tae stand nearer it.”

“That seems contradictory.”

“He possessed the protective instincts of a brother and the judgment of a boy.”

They continued walking. Memories surfaced more readily after she allowed the first one. She recounted to Roy how Lachlan had hidden honey cakes in the old watchtower and blamed the mice when they vanished, and how he taught her to ride a patient gray mare, almost coming to blows with the stable master when she fell.

Roy listened. He did not offer polite laughter where none was required, nor hurry her through the silences. He merely remained beside her, his steps matching hers.

“Our mother died when I was nine,” Donaldina said at last. “Our faither followed two winters later.”

Roy looked toward her.

“Lachlan was scarcely a man. Yet from then onward he was expected tae be laird, brother and faither before he had properly learned tae be any one of them.”

“He managed.”

“Aye.” Her throat tightened. “Nae always well. But always entirely.”

The fading light blurred the distant islands into shadows.

Donaldina drew her cloak closer. “Every happy memory I possess includes him somewhere. Even those in which he wasnae meant tae be present. He was always entering rooms without knocking, spoiling surprises or correcting stories that werenae about him.”

Roy’s gaze remained upon the path.

She forced the next words past the ache in her chest. “I… dinnae ken how tae remember happiness without remembering that it is gone.”

The confession remained between them, too exposed to be withdrawn. Roy stopped walking. Donaldina expected consolation and feared it.

“Ye neednae learn tonight,” he said instead.

Her eyes burned. She turned toward the sea before he could see.

For a time, they stood without speaking while the wind moved around them. The silence did not demand that she master herself. It permitted grief to exist without becoming spectacle.

When they resumed walking, the first stars appeared through breaks in the clouds. She glanced at him. He seemed made for the dimness: broad shoulders beneath the dark cloak, the scar upon his jaw pale in the failing light, and his expression cautious even when no one stood near enough to threaten him.

“What of your family?”

His pace did not change. “Me father died when I was young.”