Gray rubbedhis thumbs across his damp palms, refusing to give in to the urge to wipe his hands across the backside of his plaid. He stood taller and sucked in a deep breath. A contented sense of completeness buoyed him. Life was good. He forced himself to clasp his hands in front of his sporran.A chief never exhibits anything but strength and surety.His father’s words echoed through his mind, causing Gray to lift his chin and stop fidgeting.
The largest room of the keep hummed with the excited conversations of his people and guests from even as far away as Ireland. Servants scurried in and out among the clusters of chatting folk, passing out small, folded linens soaked in cool, fragrant water.
A trickle of sweat started between Gray’s shoulder blades and rolled down his back. The belted waist of his léine felt as though someone had doused him with a bucket of water. Lore a’mighty, perhaps they should have had the ceremony outside.
The crowd went silent and heads turned as the droning sound of bagpipes rang out from the arch of entwined ivy festooned across the entrance of the hall. Two barrel-chested pipers, faces red and cheeks rounded as they puffed into their chanters, flanked Trulie as she stood smiling in the doorway.
Pride and love burned through Gray with every hammer of his heart. There she was. His woman. The mother of his unborn child. Gray drew in a deep breath. Thank the gods she took that jump back in time.
Trulie wore a simple dress of the whitest linen. The tempting mounds of her full bosoms rounded pink above a scooped neckline embroidered with a design of trailing ivy. The high waistline flowed out into graceful folds that barely stirred as she moved slowly toward him. The long bell-shaped sleeves hemmed with more carefully stitched leaves of green gently swayed with every step.
Lore a’mighty, he couldn’t help it. He shifted his weight from side to side. Surely even father would have fidgeted if mother had ever come to him in such a way. He swallowed hard against the sudden dryness of his mouth. He was blessed beyond measure and was about to wed an angel.
The throng parted, smiling and nodding as the pipers filled the hall with the soulful wail of their song and led Trulie to the front of the room.
As his precious lady reached the dais, Gray stepped forward and held out his hand. “I have never seen such loveliness.” Unspeakable emotion shattered his words into a broken whisper.
Trulie slid her damp palm into his. The lass was as nervous as he was.Her cheeks flushed pale pink as her gaze fell shyly to the unusual bough of herbs and flowers in her hands. The cluster of yarrow and dill trembled between them. Yarrow for everlasting love, myrtle for the emblem of marriage, and dill for protection against evil. Dullas had thrust the bundle into Gray’s hands just before he had entered the hall. The silent woman had pointed to the alcove where Trulie waited, then turned and shuffled away. A young serving girl who had befriended Dullas had whispered the meanings of the bundle before scurrying back to the kitchen.
Gray gently eased Trulie up beside him, crooked his finger under her chin, and brushed a chaste kiss across her mouth. “Tha gaol agam ort,” he whispered across her lips.
Trulie smiled. “I love you too,” she whispered back.
A clearing throat directly beside them broke into the moment. Gray straightened and turned to a very smug-looking Tamhas.
“Shall we begin?” Tamhas’s eyes sparkled with happiness as he lightly bounced in place.
Gray couldn’t remember the last time he had seen the old demon so happy. And that was just fine. Happiness was in abundance this day. Finally. MacKenna keep had found peace. Gray nodded once. “Aye. Proceed.”
Tamhas took Trulie’s bouquet and nodded toward their hands. “Join yer hands,” he instructed as he turned and handed the flowers to Granny.
Gray smiled his reassurance as Trulie’s hands trembled in his. He stroked a thumb across her cool, damp skin. She swayed a bit off balance, then jerked back into place, blinking hard and running her tongue across her bottom lip.
“Are ye unwell?” Concern piqued his senses as he freed her hands and steadied her by her shoulders. The flushed color across her cheeks had heightened to an alarming shade. “Is it the heat, lass? We shall stop right now and finish this in the gardens.” Gray could kick himself. What the devil had he been thinking? A formal wedding, inside the keep, in the heat of late summer?
She shuddered with a deep intake of breath. A sheen of perspiration shimmered across her pale forehead and the area around her mouth took on a sickly-yellow shade. “I will be fine,” she promised in a weak whisper. “We just need to hurry.”
Uneasiness stirred through him. From her increasing pallor, he verra much doubted if they could hurry fast enough. “Nay.” He crooked an arm around her waist. “Ye will never last. We must find ye some relief.”
She looked up at him and opened her mouth. But before any words came out, her eyes rolled back and she crumpled.
He caught her up in his arms as concerned gasps and exclamations rippled through the crowd. Trulie’s head sagged to one side, her arms dangling limp and lifeless in the air.
“No! Not the baby.” Granny rushed up to the dais. “Blood, Gray.” Granny’s horrified expression fixed on a dark-crimson stain slowly soaking through the folds of Trulie’s white gown.
He hefted her higher against his chest.Dinna take her from me,he prayed over and over as he strode from the dais to the winding staircase leading to their private rooms. “Get the midwife. Now.” A nauseating mixture of fear and rage pounded through him as warm wetness dripped down his arm. “Granny, come! Yer healing touch, Granny—now!”Dinna take her or the childhammered through his thoughts as he vaulted up the steps.
The sickening plop of blood against stone spurred him to move faster. He kicked through the final door to their private chamber and eased his precious love down on the bed. Gray choked back a groan and a bitter curse. All color had drained from Trulie. She already looked as though her soul had left them.
He traced a trembling finger across her clammy cheek. “Dinna leave me,” he rasped out past the knot in his throat. “I beg ye, my love. Please dinna leave me.”
Trulie’s eyelids fluttered open as she slowly turned her face toward him. Her eyes filled with tears as she rested a finger on his lips. “Please forgive me,” she whispered, then her hand dropped back onto the bed.
* * *
Thirteen.That was how many slabs of stone made up the floor of the room. Why the hell had the stone masons settled on thirteen? Gray stared down at the muted grays and blacks striated with lighter veins of white. The stones were cold. Unfeeling. Who knew how many tragedies the blocks had witnessed?
He raked both his hands through his hair, tempted to yank it out by the roots. The day had plummeted from joyous brightness to the suffocating darkness of sorrow. He lifted his head and stared at the closed door, refusing to lose her. Trulie’s rules of time runners and not dabbling with the past could just be damned. If the Fates took his beloved from him, he would send one of the other Sinclair women back in time and have them do whatever it took to warn Trulie of this day. He shifted his glare upward; defiance clenched his jaw. The laws of time meant nothing. He would never let her go.
