She struggled to regain her composure, her thoughts and her voice. Her heart hammered in her chest and her back ached from the fall. Her lungs brought in uneven breaths, and overall she was plain startled by what had happened. She could see they had moved the target now. How had she failed to notice earlier? She had never been so careless before during a tournament. What had come over her?
She frowned. Her urgent desire to find a suitable husband had blocked out her reason. If he hadn’t intercepted her, she’d have an arrow through her chest, or worse. She rubbed her arms.
‘Is this your first time here as well?’ he asked, glancing over. He leaned forward on his elbows, assessing her.
‘Nay. I have been at these as long as I can remember. I am Mrs Moira Fraser, daughter of the Laird of Glenhaven.’
His face paled. ‘Whom I have just tackled unceremoniously to the ground.’ He cringed. ‘My apologies. I’ve never attended the tournament before and arrived only today due to an unexpected delay. I’ve yet to meet everyone. I’m Rory McKenna, Laird of Blackmore.’
‘You saved my life. I should thank you.’
His brow crinkled. ‘So, if you know a great deal of tournaments and shooting, why did you charge headlong out into the practice field where the targets were? You could have been killed.’ He held her gaze awaiting an answer.
‘Honestly, I wished to speak to you, my laird. Urgently.’
‘Oh? Why is that?’
‘I wished to ask you to be my husband.’
Rory frowned at her. Poor lass must have cracked her head during the fall. Or perhaps he had.
‘I’m sorry, what did you say?’ he asked.
Her lips quivered into a half-smile and she leaned closer so no one would overhear, her turquoise eyes bright and hypnotic. ‘I want you to be my husband. I’m looking to remarry as my husband passed but a year ago, and I hear you are also on the quest for a wife. Perhaps we could come to an agreement that benefits us both.’
While Rory wasn’t a man of many words, it was by choice, not because he had nothing to say. Except for this moment. Her words dumbfounded him. He knew his chances of finding any woman who would agree to marry him were slim at best. He was a dying man after all.
‘Do you know anything about me?’ he asked.
‘Aye, my laird, I know who you are and that you are ill. Dying, they say, but I believe you look quite healthy. Perhaps it is all a rumour to create a more mythical presence about you.’ She bit her lower lip and peered closely at him. ‘Are you truly sick or is that just nonsense?’
‘Are you always so direct, Mrs Fraser?’ he asked.
As much as he should be annoyed by her enquiries that bordered on rudeness, he found her directness quite refreshing. Most of those around him walked about as if nettles were underfoot as they never wished to discuss his sickness, let alone his looming death.
‘My past experiences have taught me that sometimes there is no time for subtleties and hints, or reasons to be so. Directness suits me quite fine. I hope you don’t find it offensive, my laird.’
‘Surprised, but not offended,’ he offered. ‘The rumours you have heard are true. My physicians seem to think me but months from an unfortunate demise. That is why I am here. My uncle wishes for me to find a bride, as do I.’
She lifted her eyebrows at him in encouragement.
‘In hopes of somehow siring a child, a direct descendant, to carry on the family name...before I die.’
‘Even though you may not live to see the birth of your own child?’ Her eyes widened and softened. ‘Seems a rather sad mission to attempt to fulfil.’
‘Aye, perhaps. It is all a bit of a last attempt to secure a strong future for our clan, but he asked me to try.’ He shrugged. ‘So I am here to honour his wishes. He has cared for me since I was a boy. I owe him a great deal.’
‘Then maybe we could make an arrangement. One that could please us both in our current and unfortunate circumstances.’ She played with the end of her long raven plait of hair. The woman was a beauty, but he’d been fooled before, and he’d not be mesmerised by a woman’s physical charms again.
He sat back and crossed his arms against his chest, clearing his throat, commanding himself to focus once more on her words. ‘I’m listening.’ And he was. He was intrigued by what the lass would say next, as it was never quite what he expected. For the first time in ages, he wasn’t bored.
‘I have been married, but now find myself a young widow without children. After my husband died,’ she began quietly, ‘I left the Frasers, my husband’s clan, and returned here, my childhood home. Now that more than a year has passed, my father grows weary of me putting off his attempts to find me a new and suitable husband.Iweary of trying to find one. I have until the end of the tournament tomorrow to tell him my choice. Otherwise, he shall choose for me, as he did last time.’ She laced her hands together in her lap so tightly that her knuckles whitened.
The hitch in her voice and her pinched features made him curious to know more about why she would leave her married family to return to her father’s home and why the idea of remarrying was so objectionable, but he set it aside for now. He needed to know if the lass was serious. He’d not the time to waste on whims of fancy.
‘Am I yourlastchoice for a husband, then?’ he asked, wanting to get to the crux of the truth.
‘Nay, my laird,’ she answered, gifting him a full smile that finally reached her eyes. ‘You are my first.’
