Page 34 of Promised to the Cursed Laird

"Ye're angry," Cormag said, and had the sense to look briefly alarmed at his own boldness in saying it aloud.

"Aye. I'm angry." Marcas let that stand, unashamed of it, because pretending otherwise to this table would have cost him more than the anger itself. "I'm angry that ten men who've never once had tae choose a wife under threat of a King's writ are sitting here telling me the woman I'm meant tae marry disnae deserve the one thing I'd want for myself in her place. I'm angry that ye'd have me build the same cage my father built my mother and call it duty. I'll nae do it. Nae for the Accord, nae for this council, nae for anything short of the clan burning around my ears, and it isnae, so the argument ends here."

Silence settled over the table, the silence of men who disagreed and knew, simultaneously, that they had already lost.

"Ye're certain of this," Ionmhainn said, quieter now, less challenge in it than genuine question.

"I'm certain of one thing," Marcas said, forcing the heat back down, though it cost him more than he let show. "I watched my father hold my mother tae a bargain she never wanted, for thirty years, and call it duty. I watched what it did tae both of them. I'll nae repeat that. If that makes me a poor steward of the Accord in yer eyes, ye're free tae say so tae my face, here, now. I'll hear it. But I'll nae be moved by it."

Cormag opened his mouth to press further, and Baird, surprisingly, put a hand briefly on the young man's arm, a small, quelling gesture that told Marcas the argument, for today, had reached its end even if the objection hadn't.

"We'll hear ye, laird," Baird said, gruffly, clearly unhappy, equally clearly finished. "As we always have."

"Good." Marcas rose, too fast, the chair scraping loudly behind him. The meeting had accomplished what he'd come to accomplish and he could feel the anger still sitting hot under his ribs, wanting somewhere to go that wasn't this table. "That's all I called ye for."

He left before Cormag could find his voice again, before Ionmhainn could offer one more careful, dry objection dressed up as counsel, his stride too fast for the corridor, his jaw set hard enough to ache. And he did not slow until he'd reached the stair down to the training yard and the cold outside air had started, marginally, to clear the worst of it from his chest.

Lachlan caught up with him at the yard's edge.

"Ye left that room like a man who wanted tae hit something," he said.

"I want tae hit several somethings." Marcas was already unbuckling his sword belt, the morning cold biting at his skin in a way that felt like the first honest thing he'd encountered all morning. "Ten men telling me a woman's freedom is a poor bargain for the clan. My father's voice coming out of half of them without them even kenning it."

"Ye didnae expect them tae simply agree with ye."

"Nae." He took up a practice blade from the rack, testing its weight, the anger still riding hot and close under his skin. "I expected it, and I'm still furious about it, which I'm aware isnae strictly reasonable, but I'll thank ye nae tae point that out again this morning."

"Wouldnae dream of it," Lachlan said, and left him to it.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

He worked the anger out the only way he'd ever properly known how, with blade in hand. The practice yard's packed earth was cold and hard under his boots, as he ran the same drills he'd run since he was a boy until his arms burned and his breath came ragged and there was nothing left in his skull but the next strike, the next parry, the next clean line of movement that asked nothing of him but his body.

He didn't notice how long he'd been at it until the sweat had soaked through his shirt. He pulled it off, tossing it over the fence rail, and kept going, blade cutting the cold morning air, muscles working loose and hot despite the chill, the council's voices finally, blessedly, quieting somewhere under the rhythm of it.

He didn't notice her at all until he'd stopped.

She was standing at the yard's edge, near the gate, close enough that she must have been watching there for some time. Something in her stillness told him she’d not wanted him to notice.

"How long have ye been standing there?" he said, breathing hard, lowering the blade.

"Long enough." Her eyes moved over him then came back up to his face, the look not nearly as casual as she intended. "Ye fight like a man with something tae prove."

"I fight like a man who's just left a council meeting." He crossed to the fence, took up a cloth, wiped the worst of the sweat from his face and neck without bothering to reach for the shirt. "Ye heard, I take it."

"The whole household's heard by now." She came closer, arms crossed against the cold, though he noticed she didn't retreat from the yard the way she might have before. "They're saying ye stood against yer own council for me."

"I stood against them because they were wrong," he said. "Ye happened tae be what they were wrong about."

She was quiet a moment, watching him rewrap his hand where the practice blade had worn the skin.

"If ye leave MacKinnon," he said at last, "do ye ken how tae defend yerself?"

Neilina hesitated.

"I ken enough tae get myself into trouble," she said. "Not enough tae get myself out of it."

His mouth tightened faintly.