Kieran was true to his word. They remained sequestered in their chamber for a sennight. They received trays three times a day and spent the time not only making love, but talking about their hopes for their life together as both a married couple and as laird and lady. They shared more stories of their childhood, and Maude learned that Kieran had a flare for storytelling, making her laugh and cry as he spun tales of a childhood filled with love from his father and restrained affection from his mother. In turn, she shared more about her upbringing and how she had been a fierce competitor against the boys her age until they became adolescents and male pride turned against her. She told tales of how her cousin Mairghread Sinclair encouraged her to stand up for herself when they were younger, and the boys challenged her as she learned to climb trees and shoot her bow. The four Sinclair brothers had given up trying to discourage Mairghread from joining them. Even Lachlan distanced himself for a while, but the five Sinclairs had always welcomed her. Kieran wished he had such endearing stories from his past, but his family had consisted only of him and his sisters, who preferred to remain in doors to sew and gossip with his mother. He had cousins, but beside Kyle, none were as close to him as Callum, Alexander, Tavish, Magnus, and Mairghread were to Maude. He remembered Father Michael and how Maude had explained that they grew up together. He’d met the priest’s parents while he waited at the kirk for his bride.
When seven days passed, the newlyweds admitted that they had hidden as long as they dared. They didn’t want to be rude, and the reality that they needed to depart Sutherland also took hold.
“Aught you wish to bring with you, buttercup? What we can’t carry on horseback can follow us in the wagon along with your dowry,” Kieran watched as Maude moved about the chamber she’d called her own since she was a child. She’d left most of her belongings behind when she departed for court, but now she accepted she would never return to Dunrobin as her home. They might use this chamber when they visited, but it wouldn’t be hers any longer. She nodded absentmindedly as she considered what she wished to send to Stornoway. There were several gowns and other pieces of clothing, along with her favorite books that she wanted, but she realized that Kieran and Trioblaid were the only two things she needed. Her mother made the same offer as Kieran the night before, when they emerged from their love nest at last. She shook her head only to pause when she caught herself having nodded and shaken her head in a matter of only moments.
“There is little that I need to have with me. What I wish for I already placed in my satchel. I am ready, turtledove.” She looked at Kieran, and a smile played at the corner of her mouth. “While you may call me buttercup around others, I think I should save ‘turtledove’ for the privacy of our chamber once you are among our people and once more the battle-hewn laird.”
Kieran snagged Maude as she walked past and lifted her into his lap where he sat on the end of the bed. It was the first time Maude had referred to the MacLeods as her people. It made him inordinately happy to know she considered herself a MacLeod before they arrived in Stornoway.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Can’t a newly married mon want to touch his wife? All the time.”
“Aye, and I like it, but I don’t understand the look on your face.”
“Look?” Kieran leaned far enough to the side that Maude grabbed his shoulders as he attempted to peer into the looking glass. “I enjoy hearing you refer to the MacLeod clan as ‘our people’.”
“That’s what they are, aren’t they? I’m a MacLeod now.”
“Aye, ye are, lass. Let me see my plaid on you.” Kieran eased Maude to her feet and fingered the brooch, but she slapped his hand away with a giggle.
“It’s ma plaid now. Ye canna have it back,” she teased, and Kieran tickled her ribs as the sound of her burr had its usual effect on him; his cock rose to attention.
“Continue on like that, and it’ll be another sennight before I let you go.”
“Promise?” Her hand traveled between his thighs, but he grasped her wrist lest they never leave.
“Cheeky wench.”
“Only for you---turtledove.”
“Aboot that. You may call me that or aught else you wish in front of anyone. I’m not embarrassed. I’m proud to call you wife, to be wed to a woman who loves me nearly as much as I love her.” Kieran ceased his tickling when he saw the stricken expression on Maude’s face. “What is it?”
“Do you think I don’t love you as much you love me? Have I not made it clear how I feel?”
Kieran chuckled. “You’ve made it clear morning, noon, and night. I believe the entire keep is aware of how much you love me.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Maude blushed as she recalled how Kieran never failed to make her cry out her release. “I mean outside of bed. And before you point out how we’ve made love on every surface in this chamber, you know what I mean.”
“Aye, I do. And I know you love me, lass. I didn’t mean to diminish that or have you question whether you’ve been the most wonderful bride a mon could have. I’d have you know how devoted I am to you.”
“I’d say you’ve made your devotionloudandclear.”
“Now who is only thinking of our lovemaking?”
“Maude?” Blair’s voice called through the door and brought their banter to an end. Maude opened the door to her sister, who hurled herself into Maude’s arms, tears streaming down her face. The sisters had shared a good cry the night before as the reality that they’d be separated for the first time in their lives sank in. They clung to one another until they both sniffled and pulled apart. “It’s time to leave if you wish to get ahead of the clouds that approach.”
They’d had wonderful weather since the wedding, even though Maude and Kieran hadn’t ventured out to enjoy it. Mother Nature seemed to understand the mood of the day and chose to match it. Maude nodded and turned back to Kieran, who gave the sisters space but now approached.
“Blair, you need only ask your father or Lachlan to accompany you, and you’re welcome at Stornoway without notice. The invitation is standing.”
Blair nodded as she once more hugged Maude, who breathed in her sister’s matching lemon verbena scent. She held her constant companion and tried not to burst into tears again. She couldn’t remember a time before Blair, since she’d been little more than a year old when her younger sister was born. Lachlan, two years her senior, said the same of his sisters. The trio walked belowstairs, with Maude only looking back twice. They joined her family and the MacLeod guards who mingled among the Sutherland guards who would join them. Hamish had insisted, and Kieran had agreed without argument, that they travel with two score of guardsmen even though they would be on Sutherland and then MacLeod land the entire time. Highwaymen cared little for clan land ownership, and neither laird wanted to risk Maude’s safety in case of another incident along the border. Amelia and Hamish pulled Maude into a tight embrace as both parents attempted not to cry. Amelia succeeded, but it was Hamish who had suspiciously damp eyelashes. Maude moved into a joint embrace with Blair and Lachlan, who appeared to whisper something that made Maude nod. Kieran suspected Lachlan was reminding her that he would thrash Kieran if he did anything to hurt her and would come for her if she sent word. His brother-by-marriage had reminded him of that pledge several times since he arrived a sennight earlier.
Kieran and Maude mounted with Maude riding in the center as they passed through the gates. She allowed herself to glance back twice before forcing herself to keep her eyes on the road ahead. Once the party settled into a steady cantor with no hazards in sight, Kieran pulled to the side until he could reenter the entourage next to Maude. The Sutherland guards would lead the way until they crossed into Assynt in two days. Kieran rode beside her, plucking her from her saddle when exhaustion threatened to knock her from Trioblaid’s back. He set an arduous pace the entire way until they reached the Minch and the birlinns that would ferry them to the Isle of Lewis. Once they were on the island, it was only two more hours’ ride until they passed through the gates of Stornoway.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Maude took a surreptitious look around as they passed through the village. People stepped out to greet their laird while assessing the mystery woman who accompanied him. She wondered if he had informed his people that he would return with a wife. As if reading her mind, he reached over to take her hand.
