“Judgment from a herd of slimy, untrustworthy MacTavishes? I am wounded indeed. I don’t believe anything you say.”
“Trust this, lass. I am even less happy to marry you than you are me.” Dougal’s jaw tightens, and I can see his frustration. Was he ordered to do this? “But we will be married. This mitigates your little robbery spree and keeps the agreement between the clans, even if your father doesn’t have the honor to do so.”
“You just shut your mouth! You do not get to disrespect my father and whatever shite you were told, there is a very good reason I was ordered to retrieve the…” I don’t want to admit that I don’t know what “it” is. “The item. It’s a bit pathetic that you don’t see that there are other truths than just the ones that fit your family’s self-interests.”
He’s dragging me over to the priest as if he’s not heard a word I said. With a sigh, Father Barclay begins.
“Dearly beloved, you have come together in the presence of the Lord so that your intention to enter into marriage may be…”
Thrashing harder, I growl as the over-muscled bastard tightens his grip. Father Barclay’s not looking up, calmly reciting the vows, until he gets to the Consent. “Dougal and Isla, have you come here to enter into marriage without coercion, freely and wholeheartedly?”
“Aye,” Dougal says hastily.
“I most certainly do not!” I shout, and Father Barclay looks horrified, as if I’ve just told him my parents were brother and sister.
“My son…” he’s closing the Bible, “I cannot-”
Dougal holds up a finger. “One moment, Father, if you would.” He hauls me over to sprawl on the couch like a bag of rocks and wraps his arms and legs around me. “You will listen carefully,” he hisses in my ear, “and you will not say a word. If you do not agree to marry me, the only other option is to declare war on the Blackwood Clan for what you’ve done.”
I know he can feel me stiffen into concrete. “Yer bum’s oot the windae, ye fuckin’ bampot! Ya’ don’t know who you’re dealing with!”
“We know about your new alliance with the Conti Mafia,” he cuts me off. “It won’t be enough to protect the Blackwoods. What your father ordered you to do is reason enough to bring our full might down on ya’. But this is a peaceful solution that blocks your father from any more rash decisions.”
Rash decisions…I grit my teeth until I feel a molar creak ominously. His words are penetrating the fog of fury clouding me, each threat a shard of ice digging deeper into my gut.
“You have a choice here, Isla. We will kill your people. We will decimate your business holdings and leave you with nothing for what you’ve done. Or, you can marry me. Take the peaceful solution.”
His voice is raspy and deep enough that I feel it, right down to the bone. I feel his certainty in every word. I know the Conti alliance is huge, but the MacTavish’s… they could crush us, I know it, even if Papa won’t admit it.
“This will never be a real marriage,” I manage to snarl around the lump building in my throat. My entire life has come to an abrupt and brutal 180 and I have no way to process this.
“Just say yes,” he croons, switching from cold to comforting in the blink of an eye which only proves he’s a complete sociopath.
Throwing a leg over me as I start struggling again, mindless with panic, he nods to the appalled priest. “Go on, Father.”
We’re getting a deeply abbreviated version of the vows, I can tell, which is good because I’m getting exhausted, squirming in this handsy bastard’s grasp. At some point, he grips my wrist and forces a ring onto my finger. I try shaking it off, but he tucks my hand under my stomach and leans on me harder.
“Isla Isobel Blackwood, do you take Dougal Stewart MacTavish as your lawful husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health until death do you part?”
The death part sounds very promising,I think.
Oh. They’re all staring at me. “I… do.” I manage between gritted teeth.
“Bless in Christ the consent you have declared before the Church, so that what God joins together, no one may put asunder,” Father Barclay speed reads the last lines and slams his Bible shut.
Dougal takes his enormous gorilla body off me and I can finally suck in a full breath.
“Thank you Father, I will walk you out,” Dougal says pleasantly, as if he didn’t just have me pinned to the couch. “Lachlan, why don’t you offer my new wife some champagne?”
Yer bum’s oot the windae, ye fuckin’ bampot! - Scots slang for, You’re talking rubbish, you unhinged tit!
Ya’ lavvy-headed eejit! - Scots slang for, You toilet-headed fool!
Chapter Ten
In which Dougal wonders why he keeps saving Isla's life.
Dougal…
