“I only ask because I would be happy to go to that man and tell him that you’ve changed your mind,” Amelia told her. “If you’ve decided this is a mistake, that you don’t want to marryhim, then I’ll make certain that he understands and respects your choice.”
Mary shook her head.
“No,” she replied firmly. “I want to do this, Amelia. I have to do this.”
“Have to?” Amelia asked her, her eyes filling with sadness. “Mary, love, Arran only spoke of virtue lost because of…”
“No, it’s not… it’s not because of what Arran said,” she confessed, biting her lip. She had hoped she’d be able to avoid burdening her sister with this truth, but if this was what it took to make sure she was allowed to go through with the wedding, then she supposed she would have to share it.
“Then what is it?” Amelia prompted her. She looked genuinely confused, and Mary bit back a sigh. She loathed having to tell her sister the truth of what was going on with her father. She had barely escaped the same fate herself, after all, and Mary knew that hearing this would cast her back into the painful memory of everything that had happened.
“Our father, he… he had a match for me,” she replied, trying to couch the words in some sense of innocence so she would not read them for the harsh truths they were.
“A match?” she replied, confused, a crease appearing between her brows. “What do you mean by that?”
“He told me that there was a man he wanted me to marry,” she explained carefully. “A man he wanted to… to see me wed to. In much the same way that he had hoped you would marry, before you chose to be with Arran.”
Her face paled as the reality of what Mary was telling her began to sink in. Her eyes widened.
“He… he was going to do to you what he did to me?”
Mary nodded. A lump leapt into her throat. She could see the pain written all over her sister’s face, the pain that she wouldhave carried if she’d had to marry that man. She had to escape it, in any way she could.
“Why did you not tell me?” Amelia whispered. She sounded hurt, and Mary took her hand, squeezing it tight.
“You had the baby to think of,” she reminded her gently. “I didn’t want to burden you with that knowledge, not when I knew there was little you could do to change it, anyway.”
“Arran could have…”
“There’s nothing to worry about,” Mary assured her. “I have a way out. I’m marrying Kiernan, and you know our father will respect that, just as he respected your union with Arran.”
She nodded slowly. She knew Mary was right, much as she wished there was some other way to go about it. She swiped a tear away from her eye, and ran a hand through her hair.
“There’s nothing I can do to change your mind, is there?” she asked, and Mary shook her head.
“I have my heart set on him,” she replied. Though, in truth, she knew it was far from her heart that had chosen this man for her.
“Then I suppose you should go to him,” Amelia suggested, managing a small smile, though it looked as though it pained her.
“I suppose I should,” Mary agreed, her heart skipping several beats inside her chest as she realized what she was about to do. With one last look in the mirror, she tugged the shawl a little tighter around her shoulders, and made her way to the door, ready, at last, to become his wife.
Downstairs, in the chapel, the place was cold and nearly empty. Mary did not mind the lack of witnesses, though she wished Lily had been there to see it; she supposed her younger sister would have had a few choice words for her, given the suddenness of what she was doing, but she did not know howoften she would be able to see them again when all of this was said and done.
Kiernan stood at the altar, next to the priest. His eyes were fixed on her when she stepped into the room, as cool and blue as the river that ran through Stonehaven just a few miles away, and she offered him a small smile. Slowly, she made her way towards him, counting each footstep and each heartbeat, the last she’d have as a maiden.
When she reached him, his hand slipped to hers, just as it had on the night that he had stolen her away from the kitchen. If she had not gone with him then, would this have happened at all? If she was able, would she have turned back the clock and undone it all?
As his thumb skimmed over her knuckles, she knew the answer.No.She knew she would have ended up here no matter what she had done, and she wouldn’t have changed a thing.
“We are gathered here today…” droned the priest, in an almost bored tone, as though he could hardly wait to get this ceremony over with. Despite his attitude, Mary could feel excitement and nervousness prickling along her spine, twisting into a mess she did not know how to make sense of.
As the priest spoke, she could feel his eyes on her, studying her like he was taking her in for the first time. She stole a glance at him out of the corner of her eye, as though looking at him too hard might draw her mind in the direction of something unholy, in a place of such sanctity.
The light filtered in through the small windows that surrounded them, and landed on his face in such a way as to cause shadows on his jaw and his cheekbones. He looked sharp, like a wolf emerging from the kill. His grip tightened on her slightly, as though he could sense her nervousness, and refused to let his prey rush away from him before he’d had his fill.
“Lay your hands on the binding stone,” The priest ordered, and Mary tentatively pressed her hand onto the large rock that rose from the center of the altar. Along the base, tangled knots had been carved, rising up into a large cross that reached almost to the top. A tradition in this part of the world, she had been told, though one that felt entirely foreign to her. He planted his hand on top of hers, the pressure of it, the warmth, comforting in its firmness.
“Repeat after me,” The priest continued, and, as he began to read the vows, Kiernan repeated them back to her. He did not break her gaze for a moment as those sacred words passed his lips for the first time.
