She flinched when he took her wrist, and David told himself it did not matter that she detested him. The marriage was necessary to serve his goals.
When he placed their hands together palm to palm in preparation for the vows, the significance of how this marriage would change his life struck him like a thunderclap. He chose her out of duty, as chief of the Humes, but he would live with her as a man.
He had been so focused on his goals of protecting his family and punishing the Blackadders that he had not considered he would be sharing his table, his hearth, and his hall with this woman. Since laying eyes on her, he had, of course, devoted a great deal of thought to bedding her for the first time. But this black-haired lass with an angel’s face would share his bed for years to come, bear his children, and, if they both survived, grow old with him.
And she would rather be boiled in oil.
What troubled him even more than her aversion to him and their marriage was this dangerous longing he had to fight to hold at bay when he imagined a lifetime with her.
***
Alison felt woozy as she watched David Hume, Laird of Wedderburn, wrap the symbolic binding around their joined hands as he recited the words that would bind them together as man and wife. His hand dwarfed hers, and his palm was rough with callouses from swinging sword and ax.
She glanced to the side until she found her daughters and was relieved to see Will standing between them and holding their hands. How did Wedderburn get such a sweet brother? Wedderburn had insisted the girls attend the ceremony, knowing she would put on a brave face for them. She smiled at her daughters, just as he expected her to, and pretended she was content to become the wife of the Beast who had stolen their lands and castle.
The ceremony brought back a flood of terrible memories. Although she was just as powerless to stop her marriage now as then, she was not the naive thirteen-year-old girl she had been ten years ago. At least this time she already knew the groom was a monster.
Unlike her first husband, however, Wedderburn was undeniably handsome. She would give him that. His striking features were harsh and forbidding, reminding her of the old stories of the Norse warrior god Thor. He wore his sun-streaked bronze hair loose, except for two braids on either side at his temples—probably to keep his hair out of his eyes while he was swinging his murderous weapons. Though he had traded his chain mail for a clean linen shirt and fine tunic, he remained every inch the warrior.
She stared at their hands, bound together now, and felt the tension flowing between them. When she looked up, she realized Wedderburn must have stopped speaking some time ago and was waiting for her to say her part. He had three hundred witnesses who would swear she made her vows freely. It would be pointless to provoke his temper by refusing.
Alison looked into the eyes of the most dangerous man she had ever met and pledged her body, heart, and loyalty to him, until death.
The ritual was complete. So why did Wedderburn continue to stare down at her, unmoving, as if there was something more to say?
“As soon as I can,” he finally said in a low voice meant for her ears alone, “I’ll find a priest to bless our union.”
Unfortunately, the church’s blessing was not required to make a valid marriage.
“Would a blessing ease your guilt?” she asked.
He turned abruptly to face the hall and raised their bound hands into the air as if proclaiming victory. The shouts of his men thundered in her ears as he led her to her usual place at the high table. He sat next to her in the ornately carved chair that had belonged to Blackadder chiefs for generations.
In the absence of a priest, Wedderburn signaled to one of his men to say grace.
“God bless this food and all of us Humes.”
The Humes must be accustomed to such brevity, for they immediately began filling their trenchers from the platters.
“Ye must eat,” Wedderburn said, glaring down at her untouched meal.
She did not answer. How could he expect her to eat?
“I apologize that there was no time to prepare a grand wedding feast,” Wedderburn said, “with lavish dishes, music, and dancing.”
Though the quickly prepared meal was paltry for a wedding feast, it seemed bountiful after their days of want. He must have sent for the additional food to be brought with his brothers.
“I had a grand feast at my first wedding.” She fixed her gaze on the wine cup clenched between her hands. “I don’t need another.”
“Well, this is my first wedding, and the only one I’m likely to have, so I do wish it could be different.” Wedderburn tilted his head back and drained his cup.
“Ye wish it to be different?” she snapped, her anger making her forget her fear momentarily. “Yechoseto do this and got precisely what ye wanted, while I must suffer to do as ye command.”
He pressed his lips into a tight line and did not speak for a long moment.
“I forced ye to wed me because Imust,” he said beneath the noise of the hall. “But I will protect ye better than your own family did.”
“So you’ve told me,” she said.
