“This way.”
Alec’s tone as terse as before, Rowen felt his hand tighten around her arm as he steered her toward what she could see was a chapel near the entrance to a great hall—certainly not as large or impressive as the hall at her father’s fortress. Her heart beginning to pound, she tried to slow her step but he seemed to have anticipated her reluctance and wound his arm around her waist.
“No antics now, lass, remember your father’s admonition.”
Antics? Rowen wanted nothing more than to stomp on his boot and shove him with all her strength into the wall, but she was standing before the altar almost before she could blink and facing a plump, red-faced priest who made a sweeping sign of the Cross.
Was it more for the Mackays and Sutherlands filling the small, candlelit space? The priest’s pale brown eyes were round as if the very sight of longtime enemies gathered together filled him with fright.
“Get on with it, man, let’s see the thing done as Laird Sutherland requested,” commanded Alec’s father from behind her, Hamish grunting his assent.
Still Alec had his arm at her back and he drew her even closer, which made Rowen gasp and stiffen, her face flushing with heat as the priest began the ceremony.
The wedding she had dreaded from the first moment her father had told her of King Robert’s decree was happening!
No longer would she be Rowen Sutherland, but Lady Mackay, that thought alone making her empty stomach pitch and roil. She was going to be sick…
“Will you answer the priest, lass?”
She glanced up at Alec to find him staring at her, his expression hard as stone and his eyes appearing dark as night in the candlelight, only finding voice to stutter, “W-what?”
“Repeat the words for her, Father.”
“Aye, do you take Alec Mackay as your husband, lass?”
Now Rowen felt as if the cramped room was spinning around her. She glanced behind her to see her father staring at her, too, his expression as hard and unrelenting. She had never known him to be so harsh with her, not in all her twenty years, which made her believe he was more furious at having to abide by this heinous arranged match than at her.
Trembling, she turned around to answer the priest, “I-I will.”
“As will I take this woman as my wife.”
Alec hadn’t waited for the priest’s query, nor had he said her name, his tone cold even as his arm tightened around her.
She was a mere possession to him, his property, his chattel, Rowen trembling more at the cruel fate that had befallen her.
Why hadn’t she just ridden over that cliff? For a fleeting moment, she had considered such an end to her predicament until she had hoped wildly instead that she would veer away in time for Alec to gallop to his death. She had seen at once, with a glance over her shoulder, that he had been the one to ride after her.
His great gray steed thundering behind her mare and drawing closer, closer…
“The Lord’s blessings upon you, Laird Mackay, and your bride—ah, God, catch her!”
The priest’s frantic cry the last thing she heard, Rowen felt herself swept up even as the chapel seemed to fade around her…a broken sigh escaping from her lips.
CHAPTER2
“Stand back, all of you, give her some air,” Alec demanded as he settled Rowen upon the paving stones, fiery red strands of hair covering her ashen face. He felt as startled as everyone else appeared that his defiant bride had succumbed to a fit of nerves after the foolhardy rebelliousness she had displayed…until he heard her stomach growl noisily.
“It’s not nerves at all, but hunger,” he muttered, tamping down the rush of pity he had felt when she had fainted beside him. Alec had barely caught her in time before she hit the floor. He looked up at her grim-faced father and four brothers who surrounded them, grating out, “Hasna the lass eaten today? It’s well past midday.”
“She had no appetite for food,” spat out the brother who appeared the youngest, his gaze filled with barely contained anger. “She didna want this disgusting marriage and neither did the rest of us?—”
“Silence, Errol!”
Hamish Sutherland’s roar echoing in the chapel, he stared so sternly at his son that the young warrior seemed to blanch. Without another word, Errol shot a last glance at his sister’s still form and then stormed from the chapel even as Rowen’s stomach growled with more insistency.
To Alec, she looked paler, a sheen of sweat upon her brow. Quickly he unfastened the clasps of her cloak and flung aside the heavy garment to reveal not a woman’s silken gown, but a woolen, knee-length tunic like the one worn by men, a leather belt around her slim waist that sheathed a wicked-looking knife.
God help him, if not for her father’s rebuke that had seemed to tamp down Rowen’s defiance, he might have found himself stuck between the ribs in a fatal blow!
