Then she set the dress back on her chair and stepped back to admire the fine gown and again considered her position here. For a prisoner, she was treated far too well.
Reade — he was the supposed ogre. Yet if his mother and sister were this compassionate and giving, perchance the son might have some of those traits, deeply hidden though they might be.
It wasn’t much to start her future on, but it was a start.
Despite his protestations, Reade found himself standing on the kirk steps right outside the palisade wall, dressed in his finestléineand a fresh plaid of the MacDonald muted red and black tartan, shot with muted green. His leather boots and belt were polished and shone even under the overcast sky. If ‘twas any colder, then snow might yet fly this supposed spring day. For now, the rain held back, but the gray clouds and brushed-back unruly waves of his chestnut hair told him a storm was brewing.
A storm indeed,he thought sourly as he stood next to the priest, who waited patiently to bind him to this lass.
At the last minute, Reade argued for a more common hand-fasting, but as the Laird’s son and with his father’s admonishment (“We are no’ heathens, lad!”), that option was quickly dismissed. Nothing less than a full wedding, before the clan and God, would suffice for the MacDonalds.
Reade stomped from one foot to the other, waiting for Blair to make her appearance.
“Calm, brother,” Maddock hissed in his ear. “’Tis no’ the end of the world.”
“No’ for ye,” Reade grumbled back.
Then the crowd at the base of the steps hushed and separated to make a path for his bride.
His stomach curdled at that word.
A piper sounded from the edges of the kirk yard, the bagpipe notes high and long.
Then Blair stepped into his view, and rational thought flew from his head.
She wasn’t merely beautiful. In her wedding finery, most likely obtained by his mother, she was simply stunning.
Under the cloudy sky, her hair shone more red than brunette and pulled back at the crown to fall in a silky cascade over her shoulder. The loose sleeves of her gown gathered at her wrists. The fitted, embroidered bodice, a creamy color barely a shade lighter than her skin, clung to her gentle curves and slender waist before falling into a filmy skirt that covered her toes. The only color on the dress came from the blue and red Hamilton tartan folded neatly over her shoulder and tucked into the thin belt around her waist. A battered silver brooch held the plaid on her shoulder and the rest of the fabric fell down her backside. He watched as the long edge of the plaid brushed the ground behind her as she walked toward him.
It was like she was walking to the gallows.
Evidently, three days was not enough time to suppress her hesitation about this wedding arrangement, either. Reade marveled that she had managed to remain upright as forlorn as she appeared. Her hands clutched at a round posy of thistle, heather, and myrtle, tied with a cornflower blue ribbon. And if he could see her hands, he was certain they would be completely white.
His mother’s words flashed in his head – that there was an intimacy to shared experience, and mayhap this wedding was evidence of that. Mayhap being forced to wed one another might bind them in a way their marriage wouldn’t.
Then, just as sudden as his thoughts flew from his head, they returned as he gazed at the MacDonalds of Glenachulish standing around him. Well, most of Glenachulish. One man was missing – Camden. His cousin who should be standing on the steps next to him, who should be making lewd comments about Reade’s future bride in his ear, who should be slapping him on his back once the deed was done.
But now Camden wasn’t here. And the blame for that fell at the feet of the Campbells, and this lass had been married to a man supposedly cavorting with those vile German-monarch lovers.
Any compassion or concern he might have felt for this woman extinguished like a weakly kindled fire stomped out of existence by a heavy boot.
He had to compel himself not to scowl when she stepped to his side, keeping a hand-width of space between them.
She didn’t want to touch him any more than he wanted to touch her.
Their actual wedding was a blur – so focused he was on his own fury at his present circumstance that he didn’t move when the priest said, “man and wife.” It took a shove from Maddock to bring Reade out of his stupor.
He turned stiffly and looked down at her face. She didn’t lift her chin to him as an eager bride awaiting her husband’s kiss. Rather, she stared straight ahead at his chest. Were her lips quivering? Nay, ‘twas irritation, lamenting being married to him.
Reade clenched his jaw, steeling his resolve, and with his finger, lifted her face to kiss her. Blair’s eyes lifted a second after her face. Were her eyes watering? He took a moment to gaze at her clear face, her watery blue eyes filled with tears and hesitancy.
Was she trying not to cry? Aye. Not irritation or dislike.
Fear.
In a moment of his own weakness for the lass, he slipped his hand around to the small of her back, and despite everything in his body that screamed out the betrayal of this marriage, the disloyalty to Camden’s memory, he lowered his lips and caught her cool, quivering ones with his. Light at first, then deepening without thought until her lips parted and his tongue slipped into her mouth, touching her tongue in an enticing caress.
Another shove from behind, and he ripped his lips from hers and stepped away quickly, shock at his reaction to her heating him from the inside out. He slowly came to his senses to hear the crowd cheering shouts of “huzzah” that filled the air.
