Chapter Eighteen
Callum stood on the battlement overlooking the front gate of the castle. There was no one left outside. All the guests were already crammed into the great hall. He looked out at the countryside, every lump and bump of the landscape as familiar to him as his own hand.
It felt strange to think that the next time he stood up there he would be a married man. He would be a husband. He would have a wife.
He found himself thinking just how lucky he was. He had come back to MacCleod castle ready for a blazing row with his parents. He took Kerry with him into the great hall, finding his father on the dais dealing with petitioners and his mother reading by the fireside.
It was a source of great pride to him that both his parents could read and that they had taught him the difficult skill while he was still a child. His mother looked up from her book, smiling when she saw him.
“We were hoping you’d come back,” she said. “The abbot said you went north. I feared you went to pick a fight with the MacIntyres. Were you that desperate to get out of your wedding that you would get yourself killed in a pointless skirmish?”
“I went to fetch someone.”
“Hi,” Kerry said, waving next to him. “Nice to see you again.”
“You’re back,” Alan shouted from the dais. “Get over here. I want a word with you.” He waved the petitioners away. “Everyone out but my son.”
Kerry looked unsure but Callum slipped his hand into hers, bringing her forward with him. The room emptied as he stood before his father, ready for the yelling to begin. “I will not marry Nessa MacKay,” he said, bracing himself for the response.
“Aye,” his father replied. “I know that.”
“What?” Callum was thrown. “You are not angry with me?”
“Why would I be angry with you?”
“Because you’ve insisted on this wedding for weeks and told me if I didnae go through with it, I’d be banished.”
“Aye well I didnae expect Nessa to run off in the night and marry her man before anyone could stop her, did I?”
“She ran off?”
“Said she’d be damned before she’d marry a MacCleod. So that’s that.”
Callum turned and smiled at Kerry. “Which means there’s nothing to stop us marrying.”
“Only one thing,” she replied.
“What’s that?”
“You haven’t asked me yet.”
Callum leaned over the battlements, recalling how she looked in that moment, the sparkle in her eyes, the amused look, the way the light from the fire made her hair glow with life. She looked more beautiful than ever as he asked her the only question that mattered.
“Will you marry me?”
“Of course I will.”
“That’s good news,” Alan said, slapping their hands together. “I would have hated to see all that food go to waste.”
“Is the alliance threatened?” Callum asked.
“Old man MacKay is so embarrassed by his daughter’s actions that he gladly signed a peace treaty just to sweep it all under the rug.”
Gillian got up from her fireside chair and walked over, looking closely at Kerry. “You love him, don’t you?” she asked.
“I do,” Kerry replied. “With all my heart.”
“Then you have my blessing.”
