Janet leaned up on one elbow and stared at Darach stretched out on his plaid beside her. “Why are ye doing this?”
His gaze traced her features against the golden flames. He smiled as if he couldn’t help himself. “Doin’ what?”
“Wedding me. Ye speak pretty words, but ye’re a rogue.”
He quirked his full, sexy mouth at her. “Ye think m’ words are empty?”
She met his deep gaze and searched him straight through. “Then, ye meant them?”
“Aye, and if I dinna’ wed ye, I’ll have to kill all the Menzies.”
“Hmm.” She nodded and smiled at his face. For a poet, he was very practical. She’d have to work on that with him. She tousled a lock of his golden hair with her fingers and moved her body a wee bit closer to his. “Killing all the Menzies might be better than having me as yer wife.”
He laughed, looking up at the moon, setting her heart to ruin. “It doesna’ matter. Yer mine now… aye?”
Was she? What exactly did being “his” mean? She asked him.
“’Tis Highland law, lass. Ye’re familiar wi’ it.”
Aye, she was. Normally, marriage was carried out under canon law, but Highlanders still wed by consent, present or future. For a marriage to be valid it didn’t matter if there were witnesses. Witnesses, including priests, only made it easier to prove. It didn’t matter if banns had been posted in advance or not. Exchanging consents in the woods with only forest creatures for witnesses was legal and binding, especially to a clan proscribed by the law and who were refused the sacraments by the church.
She had consented. Good Lord, what would William say? He would think it was a clever move to save the castle. Everything always came back to the castle. Ever since she was a babe and the men in her clan used to sit around the fire and discuss what Ravenglade meant to them and why they should always fight to get it back.
Now she was being wed to save it. Now she was a Grant. Or was she?
“Is it not true that both of us must consent?” she asked, tilting her brow at him. “As it stands right now, only I agreed. Ye did not.”
“Of course I did,” he insisted after he thought about it for a moment.
She shook her head. “Ye did not. A clever way, mayhap, to annul what ye claim is binding.”
He stared at her for a moment as if she’d lost her mind. Then he burst out laughing. “I consent to bein’ yer… husband.”
“Ye paused,” she pointed out.
He shook his head, his laughter fading into a smile. “Only because I never thought I’d hear myself sayin’ it. Not until ye.” He pulled her back down, close to him.
“Janet Buchanan,” his silky voice against her halted her words, her thoughts. “I consent, in the sight of God, to be yer husband. I promise no’ to ever strangle ye, though the urge is sometimes overwhelmin’. I promise—”
His vows ended abruptly when the click of a pistol sounded against his ear.
When Janet saw the man standing over them, she began to scream. A hand over her mouth silenced her. Another hand around her arm wrenched her from Darach, and from his plaid.
Everything happened so quickly she didn’t have time to think. She could only watch as Roddie Menzie dug the sole of his boot into Darach’s neck where he lay and pointed the barrel of his long pistol between Darach’s eyes.
“Shoot me,” Darach growled. “Because I’m goin’ to kill ye if ye dinna.”
Four more Menzies surrounded them. One of them pointed the tip of his pistol at Janet’s temple.
Darach went still. He met her terrified gaze and seemed to crumble to pieces inside his skin. Soon enough though, fury filled him and spilled out in the glistening of his eyes.
“Cover her!” Roddie shouted to his leering men. “I’ll cut out the eyes of the next man who looks at her. That includes ye, Grant.” He dug the edge if his boot deeper into Darach’s neck. “Ye’ll never touch her again.”
“Ye’ll never see yer home again,” Darach warned him through the slight air coming into his lungs.
Roddie lifted his pistol high in the air and before Janet could scream, the Menzie chief swung the metal hilt and smashed it into Darach’s head. She watched, horrified, while he fell unconscious—or dead. She begged God it wasn’t the latter while one of the Menzies tugged Darach’s plaid free from beneath his body and wrapped it around her shoulders.
She wiped her eyes when Roddie marched toward her. She was determined not to let him see how terrified she was. Anger filled her when he struck Darach and she wanted to tear out Roddie’s heart. Her daggers, unfortunately, lay useless in the grass.
