The first day was the worst. Never had she felt so alone. Abandoned by her new husband at the gate to a castle of clansmen stunned by the news of their chief’s sudden marriage, Christina felt like she’d been dropped on the other side of the world.
The MacLeods of Skye spoke the same language, wore the same clothes, ate the same food, and lived in similar structures as she did, but everything was different. Subtle variations made even the familiar feel strange and new.
The two days that followed were marginally better, if only because she’d decided to keep herself busy by making the Great Hall feel more welcoming. The Hall wasn’t as primitive as she’d feared on arrival, but neither did it have those additional touches, the small luxuries, that she was used to. Everything about the Great Hall of Dunvegan, the principal building of the castle—its structure, furnishings, and decorations—were basic, practical, and undeniably masculine. It looked like what it was: a shelter for warriors when not on the battlefield.
Nothing close to the cozy haven she’d imagined.
At first she feared she would have to sleep communally by the fire, but she was relieved to discover that behind the long wall of the hall were three private partitioned chambers. She was led to the middle of the three—a small room with a bed, a table, a chair, and a small ambry for storing clothes.
She now stood before the largest of the three chambers. Christina knocked softly on the door to the lord’s—or king’s, as they called it here—solar, entering when bidden.Ri tuath. King of the tribe. That’s what they called her husband. At first she thought she’d heard it wrong, but if there was anything she’d learned since she’d arrived, it was that these people revered their warrior chief. To them, Tor was what he’d been before Skye had been annexed to Scotland: an island king. The fact that he was considered the greatest warrior of the age only added to the clan’s pride. The poems recited by theSennachieat the meals seemed almost mythic in their lauding of their chief. Surely, her husband couldn’t have defeated a score of men surrounding him by himself?
Rhuairi, the humorless seneschal, looked up from his seat at the table beside the clerk. The young churchman gave her a welcoming smile, which she returned gratefully. Most of the familiar faces of Tor’s personal guard had sailed with her husband, and the clerk was the sole friendly face in a sea of taciturnity. If Christina had wondered where her husband came by his cold, remote expression, she need look no farther than his clansmen. She feared it was an island trait.
“Good day, my lady,” the clerk said. “You are up early this morn.”
She returned his smile. “Aye, Brother John, I’ve quite a few things I would like to attend to today.”
Though he made no sound, the seneschal appeared to groan.
Christina tucked her hair behind her ear and squared her shoulders, refusing to be deterred. This was her home now. She was the lady of the keep, and if she wished to make a few changes, it was well within her rights to do so.
Though she’d been tempted to hide in her chamber and read her book until her husband returned, she was determined to prove that she could be a good wife to him. She knew he thought her young and inexperienced. To him, she was the foolish girl who’d made a mistake and nearly gotten herself ravished, or the coward who’d tricked him into marriage rather than face the wrath of her father.
But there was more to her than that, and she wanted him to see it. To seeher.
“Of course whatever you need, my lady, will be at your disposal,” the seneschal said.
“Thank you,” she said. “I thought today I might start on the walls.” The previous two days she’d attended to the most pressing matters, including laundering the bed linens she’d found stacked in a trunk (apparently no one had used the room for some time), changing the rushes in the hall, and replacing the lumpy mattress in her chamber—intheirchamber, she corrected herself, heat rising to her cheeks.
The intimate part of her marriage weighed heavily on her mind. Delay in their wedding night had only given her plenty of time to think about it. Would it be different now that she knew what to expect, and now that he knew it was she?
Both men looked a bit perplexed. “The walls?” the seneschal was the first to ask.
“Aye.” With only arrow slits in the thick stone and the hole in the center of the wooden ceiling to allow the smoke from the fire to escape, to say the hall was dark and dreary was a prodigious understatement. She’d added a few candelabra to the tables, but it would take a small fortune in candles to truly make a difference. “When cleaning out the ambry, I noticed a stack of old tapestries. I thought we might take them out for dusting and hang them on the walls.” Her brows drew together atop her nose. “Do you know where they came from?”
The seneschal shook his head. “Nay, my lady. It’s been sometime since anyone has used that chamber. Perhaps they belonged to Lady Flora.”
Tor’s first wife. Christina had thought as much. She’d been from Ireland, and many of the tapestries appeared to contain Irish motifs and folklore. Christina didn’t want to rouse any painful reminders of his first wife, but her husband hardly seemed prone to sentimentality. No matter the source, the tapestries were too colorful and beautiful to hide in a closet.
“Is there anything else?” he asked, his voice suggesting that he hoped not.
“Nay, that is all.” She started to leave and then pretended that she’d just thought of something, though it was the true purpose for her visit all along. “Has there by chance been any word?”
She’d not made the mistake of saying “for me” after the puzzled look the seneschal had given her the first time she’d asked. Why would her husband send word for her?
But her effort at nonchalance hadn’t fooled either of them. The clerk looked down, studying his parchment intently, and the seneschal eyed her uncomfortably. “Nay, my lady. No word.”
“Oh well,” she said good-naturedly. “I’m sure they will return soon enough.” But the false brightness did not completely mask her disappointment, even to her own ears.
Christina left the men to their duties, eager to avoid their pitying looks. They felt sorry for her in a manner that made her think she was missing something important.
She was beginning to wonder whether Tor would ever come back. Determined not to be hurt, she told herself that he had responsibilities … even if it meant missing their wedding night. If she was going to be married to a warrior, she had to get used to it. But though she could make herself understand, it was much more difficult not to be disappointed. He’d left without saying good-bye. It made her feel insignificant—a feeling she’d hoped to forget.
She busied herself the rest of the morning seeing to the cleaning and hanging of the tapestries, while trying to keep the chief’s dogs off her new rushes. But the three enormous deerhounds were too adorable, and after a few licks and whines, she gave up and ordered them bathed instead. The serving boy gave her a look as if she was addled but did as she bid.
It was a look she was becoming quite used to. It wasn’t that the people were unfriendly, but neither were they friendly. It was somewhere in between. Respectful and puzzled about summed it up.
Except for one.Herlook had been entirely different.
