Page 15

Caelan looked up. His gray eyes locked onto Mabel across the crowded hall.

He did not smile. He gave a single, sharp nod toward the empty wooden chair positioned directly to his right.

Mabel forced her legs to move. She kept her spine rigid, her chin lifted high, ignoring the heavy, assessing stares of the men as she walked the length of the hall. She felt their eyes tracking her every step, stripping away her humanity until she was nothing but a deed to a piece of land.

She took her seat next to Caelan. He did not look at her again.

“Quiet!” Duncan barked, his voice cutting through the noise like a heavy axe.

The hall slowly fell silent, the men turning their attention to the Black Laird.

“Ye all ken why we are here,” Caelan began, his voice a low, carrying rumble that demanded silence. “William Crawford. is dead. His walls are breached. His men are scattered. The enemy clans are already testing the borders, looking for weaknesses.”

“They will find plenty,” Elder Hugh spoke up from down the table. He was a deeply weathered man with a face like cracked leather, one of MacCarron’s oldest advisors. “Clan MacAllister has nay standing army left. They rely on the crops in the western valley which will burn before the snow falls if they daenae have swords to protect them.”

“We can send fifty men to hold the valley,” Rowan suggested, leaning his hands on the table.

“Fifty men is a delay, nae a solution, lad,” Hugh retorted sharply. “The MacAllister lands require strong leadership. They require a laird to unite the surviving farmers and build a new guard.”

“They have a leader,” Mabel said.

Her voice was quiet, but it carried perfectly in the tense room.

Every single head turned toward her. Dozens of hardened Highlanders stared at the petite, golden-haired woman sitting beside their warlord.

Caelan’s jaw clenched, but he did not stop her.

“I am the rightful heiress of Clan MacAllister,” Mabel stated, forcing herself to maintain eye contact with Elder Hugh. “Me father’s people will follow me.”

Hugh offered a small, patronizing smile. “With all due respect, Miss Mabel, ye are a lass of one-and-twenty. Ye have nae commanded men in battle. Ye have nae negotiated trade across hostile borders. Yer people may love ye, but they willnae survive long enough to follow ye.”

“Hugh is right,” another laird interjected from the opposite side of the table. “A clan without a sword at its head is already dead. We all fought beside William. We owe him our lives. But Clan MacAllister cannae survive the winter without a man holding the title.”

Mabel’s hands tightened into small fists in her lap. They daenae see me at all. They only see what I lack.

“Which brings us to the inevitable,” Duncan stated bluntly, crossing his arms. “The lass needs a husband. A strong alliance to absorb the MacAllister lands and protect her people under a new banner.”

The words hung heavily over the table.

Mabel stared straight ahead, refusing to look at Caelan. This was his plan. He had brought her here to make her listen to this exact conclusion.

A sudden scrape of wood against stone echoed through the hall.

Laird Gregor MacNab stood up slowly from his bench.

He was a tall man, unscarred, and dressed in polished leather and rich, dark green tartan. He was newly widowed, having lost his wife to the fever the previous winter. He possessed a handsome, aristocratic face, heavily lined with age but still commanding.

“If I may,” Gregor said smoothly, his voice cultured and perfectly polite. He turned his attention directly to Mabel. “Miss Mabel, I had the profound honor of fighting beside yer father during the last uprising. He was a fiercely loyal man, and I mourned him deeply when word of his fall reached me gates.”

“Thank ye, Laird MacNab,” Mabel replied stiffly.

“Me own clan, the MacNabs, hold the lands directly south of yers,” Gregor continued, stepping out from behind the table. He clasped his hands behind his back. “Our borders touch. Our people trade. It would be natural for our houses to unite.”

Caelan went still beside her. Mabel could practically feel the temperature drop radiating off his frame.

“I am a man of means,” Gregor addressed the room before looking back to Mabel with a charming, polished smile. “I have two hundred fighting men ready to march into the western valley tomorrow. I can secure yer borders. I can rebuild yer father’s keep.”

Gregor took a slow step closer to the head of the table. “I would be honored, Miss Mabel, to formally declare me intention to court ye. I believe a marriage between us would solve every issue currently threatening yer people.”