Prologue
Scotland 1808
Icannae believe you’re my wife.”
Seraphina smiled into Iain’s bare chest, wrapping her arms more tightly about his waist. She could hardly believe it herself. How many summers had she spent at her family’s Scottish holiday home slowly falling in love with this man, how many autumns and winters and springs at her family’s English estate pining for him, how many secret letters written to him, how many furtive assignations gone on? And all because her father saw him as beneath the notice of his eldest daughter.
She perhaps might not have found the strength to accept Iain’s proposal had her father not informed her that they were cutting their holiday short and would be leaving the following day, that next spring she was to go to London for the season and find a husband. But he had, and she had, and here she finally was, in the one place she wished to be. She had always felt like the selkies of legend, those mysticalseals that could shed their skins to walk among humans, only to have their skins stolen and them unable to return to their rightful places. Now she had found her skin, had finally escaped the hateful home of her father, and was where she belonged: in the arms of the man she loved.
Her smile widened, one of such happiness that she felt it in every inch of her body. A body that was, if not singing with the aftereffects of pleasure, at least humming pleasantly. She rubbed her bare leg against his own. Had their first attempt at lovemaking been the stuff of her fantasies, something that the poets would write about? No. But they had the whole of their lives to perfect their bed sport. And she intended on practicing often.
A sudden commotion went up in the hall outside their borrowed room, two men arguing drunkenly, the sound of a woman screeching, some bit of pottery shattering. She tensed, her gaze darting to the rough wooden door. Iain’s arms tightened about her and he let loose a low curse.
“But our first time shouldnae have been in such a place,” he said gruffly into the crown of her mussed hair. “You’re used to so much better, and I should have given you so much better. You deserve to be loved on a mattress of the softest down, under silk sheets, your body dripping with jewels—”
Heart twisting at the self-condemnation in his voice, Seraphina gripped his arm and pressed her face into his chest. It was an old argument, and one made all the worse for what they had just shared together, for whatshehad shared with him. “Stop,” she rasped.
But he seemed not to hear her. “Even worse, I will never be able to give you what you deserve. You will never have a large house, or an army of servants. You will never set off on those travels you always dreamed of going on—”
She rose up and pressed her fingers against his lips, blinking back tears. “I won’t have you speaking like that,” she managed through a throat thick with emotion.
“Why nae?” he demanded. “’Tis true. You are used to wealth and beauty and privilege. You were brought up to wed a man of title and means. And instead you marry one who cannae give you better than a quick tumble in a borrowed room in the very worst part of Falkirk.”
Frustration reared. She had foolishly hoped that, once she promised herself to him, their difference in status would no longer come between them. She saw now, however, that it was not something that could be put behind them so easily.
But she would tell him every minute of every day that he was enough for her, if that was what it took.
“Listen to me, and listen well, Iain MacInnes,” she said through a throat tight with tears, cupping his rough cheek in her palm. “I don’t want some gilded life, nor some stuffy, uptight Englishman for a husband. As for those travels I always wished to go on, I know for a fact that any far-off vista I may see would pale in comparison to the ones I can view at your side. I chose you. You are my future. I made a promise to you, for good or bad, that I would be by your side, and I do not take those vows lightly. You are stuck with me, husband, whether you like it or not.”
His gray eyes suspiciously moist, he placed his large hand over her own, holding it to his cheek. “Aye, I like it, verra much,” he said, his voice gruff, before pulling her down for a kiss.
But the kiss did not—could not—last long. A sudden pounding at the door had both of them tensing again. And then a voice out in the hall, in a loud, aggravated whisper.
“MacInnes, are ye done wi’ yer lass? The innkeeper’ll have my head if he finds I leant ye the room at nae charge.”
A low growl rumbled up from Iain’s deep chest as he turned to glare daggers at the door. “Aye, Ross, keep yer kilt on,” he spat before turning regretful eyes back to Seraphina. “Nae the most romantic beginning to our life together.”
“Nonsense,” Seraphina said with a determined smile, smoothing a soft brown curl from his forehead. “I would rather be here with you than anywhere else.”
His smile, a strained thing, said he did not believe her one bit. But he gave her one more quick kiss, silencing whatever platitudes she had hoped to utter to soothe him, before rolling from her arms and the bed. “We’d best make haste,” he said as he reached for his loose linen shirt. “We’ve much ground to cover if we’re to make Glasgow by nightfall.”
Seraphina took a moment allowing herself to watch the play of his muscles under his bare skin, the taut curve of his buttocks, his strong limbs, before he covered them with his shirt. Then, with a small smile of anticipation for what would come later, she hurried from the bed. But there was no striding across the rough floorboards in her full naked glory. No, though she had lain with Iain just minutes before, her bare body joined with his, this was still all too new to her. And so, face flaming, she gripped the threadbare sheets to her bosom as she fumbled for her own clothing.
“From Glasgow we shall make our way up the River Clyde to Greenock, and then board a ship for Montreal,” he continued as he secured his kilt about his lean hips. His deep voice had gone soft, almost caressing the words. “We’ll find a good piece of land to settle on, Seraphina, a fine place to start our life together and bring up ourchildren. Mayhap we’ll have a strapping lad or two, or twin sisters with hair as bright a red as their mother’s.” He grinned at her, the future sparkling in his gray eyes.
But Seraphina hardly saw it. Her attention snagged and stuck on one word:sisters. Her heart twisted, her fingers stalling on securing the tapes of her gown. Elspeth and Millicent were the most important people in this world to her apart from Iain. They had been the only things making life bearable, the only good her father had ever put into the world. And she would never see them again.
She must have sniffled, for suddenly Iain was there beside her, pulling her into his arms. “Seraphina, what’s wrong?”
She was not one to indulge in emotional displays. And she abhorred tears. Yet she could not begin to stem her grief at the thought of never seeing her sisters again. She buried her face in Iain’s chest lest he see this proof of her weakness.
“Seraphina?” His voice sounded almost frantic as his large hands rubbed up and down her back.
She blew out a sharp breath. “I worry about Elspeth and Millicent,” she admitted into his shirt. “They might understand if I could explain things to them. But my father will fill their heads with lies about you, about us. They’ll hate me for it. And I cannot stand the idea of them hating me.”
He was quiet for a time, his hands massaging her tense muscles, soothing her. And then he spoke.
“I know how important your sisters are to you,” he said gruffly. “And I cannae stand the thought of you being in pain. While I secure our places on the coach and gather our things, why dinnae you return to them, to say a proper farewell.”
