Page 67 of Promised to the Cursed Laird

"Then ye follow it," Elspeth said, drawing back, her eyes bright. "Whatever it costs ye tae hold ontae, ye follow what ye actually want, my lady, because I've watched a great many women in this household spend their whole lives nae getting the chance ye're being given right now. Dinnae waste it doubting yerself intae smallness."

Neilina laughed, unsteadily, wiping quickly at her eyes before the tears could fall. "Ye sound like him."

"I've kent him longer than ye have. It's a fair habit tae have picked up."

Neilina wrote the letter later that morning, alone at the small table in her chamber. She found the words came easier than they had the first time, because there was nothing careful or diplomatic in them, only the plain truth, laid out exactly as it stood.

Fearchar, she wrote, I ken ye'll have heard troubling things of late, some of them true and some of them nae. I write ye now tae settle the matter myself rather than leave it tae rumor or another man's account. I am nae being held. I am nae being forced. I have chosen, of my own will and with a clear head, tae marry Marcas MacKinnon, and I ask that ye trust me in this, as ye’ve nae the way ye've nae always trusted me before. Nae because ye must, but because I am asking ye tae, as yer sister, plainly and honestly, for perhaps the first time in either of our lives. I ken ye love me. I ken everything ye've done, ye've done believing it was for my good. I ask ye now tae believe that I ken my own good in this better than anyone else can decide it for me.

She signed it, sealed it herself, and sat back, feeling something settle into place that had been unsettled since the postern gate. It might not be certainty about everything still ahead of her, but certainty, finally, about this one thing.

Marcas couldn't stop smiling. He noticed it first standing alone at his study window the following morning, and realized, with a kind of bemused wonder he hadn't felt in years, that his face had simply arranged itself this way and showed no interest in stopping.

He turned the thought over slowly, the way he might turn a coin in his palm to test its weight, because some old, cautious part of him kept expecting to find the catch in it, the condition, the but that had shadowed every good thing in his life since he was sixteen years old. He found nothing.

Only the plain fact of the way she’d held him, the certainty of her touch, and the warmth of her still sitting somewhere low in his chest like a coal that refused to cool.

He crossed to the chair and sat, but made no move to pick up his quill, simply allowing himself sit there a while longer than he had any real reason to, replaying the night before.

I nearly stood here bracing tae lose her. He shook his head slightly at his own foolishness, a huff of quiet laughter escaping him that had no listener but the empty room. I had the whole speech ready. I'd nae stand in her way, I'd help her pack, I'd ride her tae the border stone myself and smile the whole way there, so she'd never ken what it cost me. And instead⁠—

Instead, he thought, and let the smile come back, unchecked.

He found himself wondering, absurdly, what came next, whether she'd let him keep his hand at the small of her back in front of the whole hall now, without either of them pretending it meant nothing.

Every one of these thoughts a week ago would have terrified me, he realized, turning the quill idly between his fingers without using it. And now I cannae stop having them.

He was halfway through a letter to the King's man when she came in, and he glanced up out of habit more than urgency, and the moment he saw Neilina standing there, he smiled wider.

Then he felt every thought in his head empty out at once the moment he saw the seal on the letter she carried.

She's written tae Fearchar. She means tae go.

The thought landed with such force that his fingers tightened around the quill still resting in his hand. He set it down carefully, afraid that if he did not, he might snap it in half.

He made himself breathe through the cold spreading in his chest, and told himself, with what discipline he had left, that he'd promised her the choice freely and he'd honor it freely, whatever it cost him to watch her walk out his gate.

So this was it.

He had told her she was free to leave. He had given her his word, and he would not break it simply because the thought of her walking through his gates had become far harder to bear than he had ever imagined.

But knowing that did nothing to lessen the hollow opening beneath his ribs.

When would she leave? Would Fearchar come for her, or would she ride north alone? Would she look back when she passed through the gates? Would she regret leaving? And what, precisely, was he meant to do after she was gone?

He had no answer to any of it.

"Ye've written tae yer brother," he said, quietly proud of how level he managed to keep his voice.

"I have." She crossed the room and set the letter on his desk. He made himself look at it, rather than at her face, bracing for the words he expected to hear.

"Ye needn't explain it tae me first," he said. "I told ye I'd nae stand in the way, whatever ye⁠—"

"Marcas." She said his name the way she said things that mattered, plain and direct, cutting straight through whatever careful speech he'd been building to protect himself from her leaving. "It says I want tae marry ye."

He went very still.

"What?"