Alex had not found much rest the previous night as he considered the impending arrival of his bride-to-be.
He did not like to show any uncertainty or insecurity while among his advisors and servants, but when he was alone, those feelings tugged him to and fro like a rabbit fought over by a pair of hunting dogs, and he found himself staring at the ceiling for hours on end, hopelessly frustrated, his fingers tightly laced behind his head.
Alex was loathe to admit that the dissolution of the previous engagement had been his fault. Men like Kirk and Bryan were unwilling to say such a thing out loud in his presence, but he knew that they felt it was true, just the same. And even their silence on the subject spoke volumes.
He finally rose and rubbed his eyes, knowing that sleep would not find him that night. Instead, he decided to set about the castle and make sure all was in perfect readiness for the MacDonells.
He went from room to room, brusquely interrogating the servants about what they were doing and why they weren’t doing it more quickly and efficiently. No nook or corner of the placewas beneath his notice, and he quite literally ran his gloved finger along every surface he found to determine whether there was dust upon them. In cases where he found some, he made a misery of the morning to those whose task it had been to keep those areas spotless.
As he did, his mind kept returning to the brief encounter he’d had with Lady Isla before… though of course, she’d not been much of a “lady” back then, just a little girl with an overactive imagination and not much sense of propriety.
Surely, he thought,she must have matured in her behavior since then?
He had no way of knowing that for certain, though, and so he kept imagining a fully-grown woman scuttling through the corridors sideways whilst pretending to be a crab, or encouraging him to act like a bear or some other creature. He chided himself for these silly mental images, and tried to make himself all the more stern and overbearing in spite of them, until the Oliphant servants started to feel as though a living hurricane of judgment and scolding had touched down among them.
Alex knew that most men in his position would very likely go and visit with their fathers during moments such as these, for wisdom and encouragement. In this case, however, he decided against it, for he worried that the old man, even in the throes of illness, would still muster enough energetic contempt to denounce his son as one who would never make much of himself as a lairdora husband to a prospective bride.
Constant disapproval and criticism. That was all Alex had ever received from Douglas in his lifetime. He remained certain that if there had been any way at all for his father to bestow lairdship upon someone other than Alex, he would have gladly done so.
But the eldest son was long gone, and so there was nothing else for it: When Douglas’s ailment prevented himfrom continuing to rule with an iron fist, Alex ascended to the position.
And if he asked for guidance from his advisors?
Alex knew full well what that would yield: The two men would only re-emphasize the importance of this union with the MacDonells, and encourage Alex to loosen his usual standards.
As though it were that easy.
For them, yes, he supposed it was. They only had to provide guidance when asked, the weight of the entire clan did not sit on their shoulders, and never would. They had not been raised with Douglas Oliphant berating and abusing them, insisting that they were worthless and weak, that they would never be good enough to lead.
No, that treatment had been saved for the old man’s sons.
Alex hated it when the thought entered his mind unbidden, but it did far more often than he would ever have admitted to anyone:No wonder Duncan chose to walk away from it all.
That, indeed, was the reason for Alex’s anger toward his older brother. All of this responsibility should have rested onhisshoulders, not Alex’s. He should have been the one scrambling about to find a suitable bride, and worrying about what might happen if he couldn’t.
It simply wasn’t fair that such things had been dumped over Alex’s head, and that was the truth of it.
But fairness did not enter into the matter, and Alex knew that, no more than if Duncan had died in a riding accident, or from some sudden illness. All that mattered was the situation at hand, and all the lamentation in the world would not change that.
So Alex continued to scour the entire castle, looking for imperfections so that he could take out his nervousness and frustration on the servants who had not been attentive enoughfor his liking. Ordinarily, he might have taken some small satisfaction from such pursuits.
Today, though, they felt hollow, and made him doubt his own worth all the more.
He had no breakfast, for he was too restless. He paid no heed to his advisors, who suggested that he ought to try to rest a bit before his initial encounter with the visitors. He merely kept rampaging from one chamber to the next like a force of nature, causing servants to skitter and stammer and turn red under his relentless questioning.
He had to do these things, for he felt that if he gave himself even a moment or two to be idle, he would drive himself mad with expectation and uncertainty. He had to keep moving, remain active, find things to occupy his time and attention. His trepidation expressed itself as mounting anger and impatience at the incompetence of those around him, until he was red in the face and wished that he could simply get things over with.
Several hours later, the MacDonell carriage and its armed escorts arrived at Castle Oliphant.
Isla had begun to regret her decision regarding the mud hole some time before, as the muck caked on her skin and her clothes began to dry and harden. The rest of her ride was quite uncomfortable as a result, but she refused to let it show, preferring to make everyone believe she was adamant in her desire to make such an initial impression on the waiting laird.
Elspeth refused to look at her during the rest of the journey, and made errant small talk with Lily, as though trying to pretend the entire scene had never happened. Lily responded earnestly enough, but she kept sneaking peeks at Isla and stifling her giggles.
Now Isla craned her neck to take in the entirety of the castle in all of its majesty.
She had, naturally, always seen MacDonell Manor as a grand and glorious place, but now she was awestruck by this stronghold with its tall towers and seemingly impenetrable walls. It looked as though it could withstand an attack from any army that might rise up to threaten it. Indeed, based on the scarred blocks it was constructed from, she got the impression that it had indeed stood up to numerous sieges in the centuries since its construction.
This is a price to be paid in marrying into such a powerful clan, she mused darkly,and one that I had not previously contemplated: Such clans tend to have enemies, those who would seek to conquer them and take what is theirs. Now that I am to be a member of this clan, those enemies will become my enemies as well.
