"Did ye have someone ye loved?” she asked softly.
"Aye but she was given to anither ere I became betrothed."
"Is she still wed?"
"Nay,” he answered slowly, beginning to see where her questions were leading. “I dinnae love her still either."
Color tinged her cheeks. “I am sorry. My tongue oftimes outruns my mind and my good manners."
"'Tis no matter, lass. I will be honest though it be far from polite. I dinnae want to take a wife. One buried is enough for me. The king doesnae want ye to wed either of your other suitors, doesnae want them with land upon the troublesome border. Our families are both loyal and obedient to the king. He wants our forces joined and that land to be held in loyal hands."
So romantic, Islaen mused wryly, but she had expected little else. Something had to drive such a man to do what he so clearly did not want to do. It was no surprise that the king was the prod. It also told her that, as she had suspected, she had as little choice in the matter as Iain did.
"Ah, a bulwark against unrest, one place along the border that he need not worry about. In the end, three loyal houses."
Iain nodded. “All that doesnae mean I will be a poor husband. As I told your fither, I dinnae beat women nor wench."
"That is nice. Such things could cause strife within a household,” she drawled, her eyes dancing, and was pleased to see a brief laughing light flare in Iain's remarkable eyes. “I suspicion that Lord Fraser is a wencher."
"Aye? How did ye espy that in him?"
"Ye will laugh, but t'was because he licked his lips and his palm was sweaty."
"Sure signs of a wencher,” Iain said in a choked voice and, to the amazement of all, he did laugh, although softly.
The pair became of great interest to all as the news of the betrothal seeped through the hall. An official announcement would be made after they had all dined, but by the time the feast was laid out, it was not really necessary. Neither was it much of a secret that it was a match urged by the king. Islaen did not know whether to be embarrassed, angry or amused as she was seated next to Iain at the king's table. She was certainly unaccustomed to being paid such a great deal of attention.
Some of the attention was far from favourable. Many a woman thought and whispered spiteful things about her. It did not matter that the king had urged the match. All the women saw was that a tiny girl with little figure and none too spectacular looks had what they had tried so hard to get. To be outdone by a border wench of no great standing was a bitter potion to swallow. The king's part in it was a salve of sorts, but inadequate. Many of them decided to increase their efforts to draw Iain into a liaison. They felt sure that, once he had become reaquainted with loving and his wife proved sorely lacking, his eyes would turn elsewhere. Knowing that her new husband was romping with another would put Islaen MacRoth in her place.
Islaen sensed all that, could read it in a number of fair faces. It both pleased and worried her. She found pride in the fact that she would soon be wife to a man so many wanted. She worried that she might not be wife enough. Although he had said that he was no wencher she doubted he knew just how great a challenge to resist temptation would now be tossed at his head. Islaen could read the threat to trespass in far too many female eyes.
It also annoyed her that they could not leave well enough alone, plotted to do to her as she would never dream of doing to them. The sanctified bonds and vows of matrimony clearly meant little to them. Their vanity needed appeasing, she supposed, and she felt ashamed for them. There was to be a fight ahead and she dreaded it, for she could not feel sure of victory.
Dissatisfaction was in two male breasts as well. Ronald MacDubh and Lord Fraser were hard put to hide their anger. In each case the money Islaen would have brought them was sorely needed. The lives they led, remarkably similar, were costly. Debts were owed and to people who would not wait patiently for repayment. The chance of getting a well-dowered bride were few and far between for men who were of an increasingly unsavory reputation. MacRoth had been blissfully ignorant of their full characters. It grated to see such a prize go to a man who neither needed it nor wanted it. Such a thing hit them in the purse, where all their sensitivity rested.
They also resented the property MacLagan would get. Opportunity for gain could be found upon the border. The king's mailed fist was unable to fully control the area. Loyalties thinned in that area making it ideal for a man whose loyalty was only to himself. The chances of anyone outside of the clans or their allies marrying into them and gaining land that way were small. To watch such an opportunity slip into the hands of another man, himself from a border clan, was too much to tolerate. Resentment boiled and fermented in their breasts, aimed itself at Iain MacLagan and gave rise to plots, vague but growing clearer, of satisfactory revenge.
Iain was not oblivious to all the undercurrents. He was uninterested in any female plots, just as he had been more or less unaware of women for a long time. His attention was on the disgruntled suitors. Money and land could stir emotions as easily and as deeply as love when lost to another. The fact that both rejected suitors were in sore need of both only increased the chance of possible trouble.
What was frustrating was that he could not be sure how they would react to their loss. At the moment they looked close to uniting in their anger over losing such a prize. A union like that could be deadly. It was not really for himself that he worried either. Although Islaen was the prize the men sought, she could all too easily be hurt in whatever plan they might form. He was going to have to keep a close eye on both men.
It occurred to Iain that, for such a tiny thing, Islaen MacRoth was towing a lot of complications behind her. Several of her brothers had hinted that any hurt done to their sister would be repaid in full. Iain wondered if the king knew how easily the strong alliance he sought could become the bloodiest feud the borders had seen in a long time. Added to that was the resentment of two men not known for their even temperament or good sense. There could easily be swords drawn from that direction.
When he recalled that he already had a sword hanging over his head like Damocles, Iain nearly laughed. While he fretted over Islaen possibly getting with child, he was ringed with people who could easily make her a widow before any seed of his could take root. He knew his sense of humour might be thought rather twisted, but such thoughts caused him to smile rather openly when the king called for a toast to the betrothal.
Bemused by Iain's smile, Islaen responded to the congratulations absently. She did wonder, with a touch of bitterness, why they congratulated her. She had not won the man's hand nor heart; he had been shoved her way by the king himself, ensnared into marriage by a king who wished to lessen a few of his troubles.
Very firmly Islaen pushed aside that bitterness. It was a feeling that only brought trouble or grief. She had seen the proof of that more often than she had cared to. That was not a poison she wished to seep into her life and marriage. Ruefully, she admitted that she would probably find more than enough trouble in her marriage than she could handle anyways. When Iain's smile faded she wondered if he had suddenly seen all the difficulties that lurked ahead for them.
Iain's smile was gone when the king proceeded to announce that he would be seeing to the wedding himself. It meant that the wedding night would take place within the palace, thus killing any hope Iain had of leaving the union unconsummated. His protest that his family would be unable to attend only brought sympathy, no change of plans. Now he would have to exercise one of the various methods used to prevent conception and hope that Islaen would not feel it was a personal affront.
After the king's announcement Islaen could feel Iain retreating. It surprised her that she seemed to so easily sense his moods. She hoped she was not fooling herself, seeing what was not there or misreading what was. Despite warning herself that she could be, she still felt sure that he was retreating, pulling back into his hard, cold shell, and she felt helpless to stop it. It was something she had no experience with, for her family was the open sort, hiding little of what they felt or thought. She also saw how hard it would be to establish any sort of true bond with him when he could so neatly pull away from her as he was doing now.
She realized her path was going to be strewn with stones. Love was what she sought but her ever-present practicality reared its head. To hope for that was to invite pain. She would instead aim for a congenial relationship. In the ways only a wife could, she would make herself important to him. Watching her brothers’ wives, she had seen how that could be done, how a man could find himself turning to that woman without thought whether there was love there or not. Habit could serve almost as well. Depending upon how demanding he was in the bedroom, whether or not his reputed celibacy came from lack of interest or rigid control, she would learn to give him all he could want until there too no other woman could do as well. She might not attain the perfect marriage, but she was determined to have as near to it as she could get.
