“See, lass?” he murmured, leaning in a little closer. “No’ so bad, eh?”
“Och, ye have not seen bad yet,” she murmured only for him to hear and glanced back at the minister, imploring him to go on.
He did as he was told at once, turning to Tavish’ vows. “And do ye, Tavish, promise to protect yer new wife? To love her and care for her and any children ye may bring into this world, to adore her and provide for her in all the ways that will be expected of ye as a husband?”
“Aye,” he replied. “Aye, I do.”
Sohedidn’t have to say all of that to her?
But before she had the chance to call him out on his hypocrisy, he moved towards her, pulling her in for a kiss without waiting for the blessing of the minister.
She gasped as his hands caught her face, and his mouth claimed hers with a hot, hungry passion that more than matched the kind she had envisioned in her dream the night before.
It was not a question for her, not a soft wondering of whether she would gift herself to him, but a promise—a promise that he would take her and make her his in all the ways that he wanted to, and that the best she could hope for was to keep up in the process.
His tongue skimmed across her bottom lip softly, drinking in the taste of her. Right there in front of the minister, in a house of God, it seemed absurd that he could do something so devilish, but, she supposed, he was not used to playing by the rules laid down by anyone else.
“Ye’re mine now, lass,” he murmured, low enough that she was the only one in the room who could hear him.
And, as the grin spread over his face, something else bloomed in her chest. Some twisted mix between desire and fear that she could not make sense of and that she did not want to.
And she knew he was right. Whatever happened next, she belonged to him—and there wasn’t a thing in the world she could do to change it.
Chapter Six
The wedding feasttook place inside the Keep later that evening and was barely better attended than the ceremony had been. Maids scurried back and forth to make certain that the drinks were topped up and the plates were full, but conversation seemed stilted, almost careful, as though there were some matter that everyone was avoiding.
And the longer she sat there, the more certain Ailsa became that she was that very matter. She was positioned at the head of the table, next to her new husband. Though she hardly felt she commanded anything in the way of power as he did. His hand rested along the back of her seat, and occasionally, he would let his fingers trace the nape of her neck. He had a knack for identifying the most sensitive parts of her, the parts that would get a reaction, and she did not have it in her to deny him a response.
One of the clan elders, she noticed, seemed to have been muttering something to his dinner companion since she had walked in, and the two of them had been shooting glances in her direction all evening. A part of her wanted to toss all of the food to the floor and demand to know what was being said about her,but she knew that it would only give Tavish more reason to keep her under lock and key.
Instead, she reached for the cup of ale before her and drank deep from it, catching the eye of one of the maids as she passed by and holding it up to her.
“May I have more, please?” she asked, keeping her voice as sweet as she could muster.
If she was going to survive here, then she would need to make sure that the household staff were on her side. An ally in such a place could be a powerful thing, and she was not foolish enough to make a mess of it before she’d even had a chance to get her feet under her.
She drank and drank and drank, anything to undo the knot in her chest. And every time she brought the cup to her lips, she could have sworn that she saw Tavish watching her. She almost expected a smirk on his part, something to show her that he knew exactly why she was feeling the way she did and that he could do nothing to change it, but perhaps she was imagining it.
Every time the cup pressed against her lips, she felt his mouth there; the way he had kissed her in the chapel and how it was only the beginning of everything she knew they still had to share.
Eventually, a man approached the head of the table, not far off her age. He nodded to her in greeting, and she managed to muster a smile.
“I thought it was only right I introduce myself to the new lady,” he remarked, lowering his head. “I’m Ewan, Captain of the Guard.”
“A pleasure to meet ye, Ewan,” she replied. She furrowed her brow slightly as she ran the name around her head.
“I ken that ye likely dinnae remember me,” he went on. “But I was out wi’ ye and Callum a few times when we were bairns.”
“Oh, aye, I do!” she exclaimed, her mood brightening at once.
Catching sight of someone, however briefly, who had been part of her old life like that felt like a gift she needed to cling to with everything she had. She felt Tavish’ fingers brush against her nape again, and she could not tell if they were meant as a warning or something else entirely.
“I’m glad that ye could still become part o’ the clan,” he continued. “Callum’s loss was… it was a dreadful thing for all of us, but he’d be glad to see ye here.”
“Aye, he would be,” Tavish added, his voice measured.
She shot a look over at him; there was something loaded in his tone, something she could not quite make sense of, and frankly, she was not sure she wanted to. He had been almost silent since they had come to attend the feast, and she couldn’t help but wonder exactly where his mind was.
