Loveday smiled at her groom as she emerged from the coach. Leaving them alone for so private a moment, Juliet followed the twins into the house, where Father and Zipporah were waiting, dressed in their best just inside the open doorway.
“I spy another Buchanan.” Father pointed over Juliet’s head toward the driveway.
Relief flooded her as she turned around and looked through the open door. Leith was coming down the driveway at a canter, raising both the dust and her admiration. No finer horseman in green frock coat, leather breeches, and spurred boots existed, at least in her eyes.
Back out the door she went just as Loveday and Niall came in, leaving her alone with Leith in the forecourt as the coach rolled away. He dismounted, handed Eclipse to a stable hand, and reached for her hand, bringing it to his lips. Her heart turned over. He met her eyes and held her gaze for another heart-halting moment.
“Am I late?”
“You’re more gallant than tardy,” she said, smoothing his collar.
“A few matters needed finishing in Glasgow. Euan has agreed to manage Buchanan affairs while we’re away on a proper honeymoon.”
“Away ... as in Bath?” At his nod, she felt childishly emotional, like she might burst into tears as Bella and Cole sometimes did.
“You might enjoy Bath more if you were in the company of your family.”
Was that what he thought? Did the taint of her onetime refusal of him still trouble him? “Leith, all that I require is you.”
Still, a shadow seemed to cross his face. “Can you be away from the children for a time?”
“’Tis best. A long journey would tire them so.”
“And not only them,” he said with a chuckle as a sudden commotion behind them ended their intimacy.
Bella and Cole hopped down the steps and cavorted about them like leaping lambs. “Da! Da!”
With a last look at Juliet, he took them both by the hand and started up the stairs. “Let us waste nae time and see your uncle wed, aye?”
The parlor’s cool interior was hushed, but the moment’s pleasure and anticipation were palpable. Only a few family and friends had gathered, the parish clergy present too. A Scottish wedding required sprigs of white heather, worn by the groom and tucked into the bride’s bouquet. If Juliet had any reservations about Loveday’s feelings for Niall, they were put to rest simply by the adoring way she looked at him.
Did she herself regard Leith that way?
She stole a look at him as he stood by the groom, only to find his eyes on her. Heat bloomed in her neck and face, and she felt as much a bride as Loveday, so much so she forgot to listen to the hallowed vows or watch the fidgeting twins or pay attention to the time.
Suddenly the stirring ceremony ended. The joyful couple turned round as man and wife and led the way into the dining room for the wedding feast.
On the next clement day, Juliet and Leith slipped away to ride through Lanarkshire to the ruins of Kairthmere Castle. Juliet had chosen a young mare from Ardraigh Hall’s stablesnamed America while Leith rode his favorite, Eclipse. Summer seemed to reign instead of spring, the sun gilding the rolling hills with a special sheen.
Atop a rise sat the old pile with its commanding views, retaining its medieval essence. Entirely alone, they dismounted and turned the horses loose to graze on wildflower-colored grasses.
“I grew up playing here as a lad, pretending I was a knight in armor.” Leith led her past gnarled trees toward a tower house. “Some of these yews have been here for hundreds of years.”
“Does Kairthmere have a colorful past?”
“Treason, torture, and trysts, aye.” He took her gloved hand to help her over the uneven ground. “But such is Scotland’s turbulent history.”
She lifted her gaze from the ground to the blue sky. Walls of arched windows were still standing, as well as a worn turnpike stair that spiraled left.
Leith let go of her and began to walk up the narrow steps backward, wielding an imaginary sword. “These stairs are made for a car-handit, or left-handed, swordsman to fight his way up and down against mostly right-handed foes.”
“Foes who would be at a decided disadvantage,” she said, imagining it with a slight shudder.
He climbed higher till one wall gave way and he could have stepped into open air.
“I feel a bit like a damsel in distress watching you.” She held her breath till he came down again and stood on solid ground, the rush of the wind rustling the ancient trees around them.
“I suppose you’d like for me to live to see Bath,” he jested.
