She gathered her courage like a shawl around her shoulders, knotting it over her heart to hold it in place lest it slip off and fall to the floor. Should she do this? The laird, and even Mary, certainly thought so. Could she do this? She studied his expression. He looked calm, pensive, perhaps. Hopeful, though he needn’t waste any energy on hope. In truth, with an alliance that benefitted four clans, she had no choice. She could not honorably refuse. He knew that. Did he know that she knew it as well? Or did he fear she would turn him down, and in honor, he would be forced to accept her refusal despite her own laird’s assurances to him in the signed betrothal agreement. Or would he dismiss her wishes and take home a reluctant bride. Even a hostile one. What would that mean to him and to his new and perhaps unsteady control of his clan?
He’d been drawn to something he saw in her. Something that made her more appealing to him. He’d called her lovely, but said he was attracted to her for her haggling? What a curious man! Was that the kind of wife he wanted? He praised her beauty, but chose also to praise her skill. That told her he valued more than her appearance. It shouldn’t please her so greatly, but she couldn’t help the satisfaction it gave her.
But it also gave him a slight advantage over her, given that she hadn’t remembered meeting him. Despite his infatuation, he didn’t really know her, either. He didn’t love her. Perhapshe never would. Could she live with that? He might think her beautiful and biddable, but he would come to know she had many sides, many moods, and many abilities that he’d neither expected, nor counted on. She would show him who she was, and the kind of bride he’d brought home to his people.
Just as he would show her the kind of husband and laird he would be. Which would take precedence in his dealings with her? The husband? Or the laird? So far, in his dealings with her, she’d seen what she hoped was a little of both.
She’d always enjoyed a challenge, and Erik Ross would be the greatest she’d ever faced.
She gave him the first smile she’d managed since entering the Rose laird’s solar. “’Tis a lovely day for a wedding, aye?”
He brought her hand to his lips. They were firm and warm as he kissed the back of it. His gaze never left hers as he replied, “And to bring peace to four clans, aye. None better.”
“I wish us both a share of that peace, and much happiness,” Fiona told him, and walked hand-in-hand with him from the solar, on the way to the Rose wee kirk and the future she’d never imagined could be hers.
Erik Ross heldthe hand of his betrothed as he escorted her from the laird’s solar, still surprised and gratified that she’d accepted him, that she was willing to venture her future, her very life, on him. And not because she knew him to be a good man or a man who would care for her, or even come to love her. Rather, she seemed to understand the gravity of what their union would accomplish in settling the dispute between several neighboring clans. And she understood what that might mean to everyone whose life would be made better—or who remained alive ratherthan killed in a clan war—going forward. For him to gain a wife who thought like that, who saw what was at stake and the bigger benefit, was an unlooked-for blessing. She was a wife he would be glad to have stand beside him. A wife worth holding, even cherishing, and perhaps coming to love. If they got along well together, for the rest of his life, he would thank the saints for this day.
But her admission that she didn’t recall him stung. He thought he’d made an impression on the lass in the market, much as she had on him. But thinking back, he realized they had never conversed. He hadn’t congratulated her. He had fervently wished he had done so as an opening to meeting her. Instead, he had gotten her name from the merchant and he had vowed to remember it. And her. And now they were here, and she hadn’t said no.
Outside the door, another surprise awaited him. The laird stood in the hallway, waiting with his eldest daughter, Mary, and a guard.
When the Rose noted their clasped hands, he smiled and nodded. “To the kirk, aye?”
Erik nodded, not daring to speak or to look at Fiona. So he wasn’t the only one who had been uncertain how their interview would go. The Rose looked relieved. Erik didn’t want to give her a chance to change her mind. Too much depended on her. On her cooperation, her willingness to accept him as her husband and live her life at Ross, to help him build his clan into something stronger, bigger, more consequential than his small-minded predecessor Donas had ever imagined. But mostly, to help him care for his people in a way they wouldn’t expect. Years under Donas’ harsh rule had made them unaccustomed to real leadership, the kind he hoped to give them, if they let him. If Donas’ partisans gave him time, and if his supporters gave Fiona time to win them over.
The Rose gestured them forward.
Fiona pulled her hand from his and didn’t move. “Why must we do this today? A betrothal supports the alliance and yet allows us time to become better acquainted.”
Erik froze as his fear became real. After all they’d said to each other in the solar, she was going to refuse him.
Mary shook her head. “The priest is only here another week before he moves on to his next stop.”
Fiona opened her mouth, but the Rose didn’t let her speak. “I agreed to allow this wedding to take place today, no’ in a week. I will no’ change my mind. ’Tis too important to our clans and our allies.”
Erik took a breath only after the Rose spoke, upholding their agreement.
Erik gave Fiona a smile that he hoped reassured her and held out a hand, gesturing her forward. She knew the keep. He did not. She looked from him to Mary and the Rose laird. Erik could see she would not change her laird’s mind. Apparently she saw it, too. She nodded, took his arm and directed him out into the bailey. “All will be well,” he murmured to her, hoping her objection had been a momentary spike of uncertainty.
“Ye canna guarantee that. Nor can I. But it doesna matter. Like it or no’, we are committed to this path.” She led him around to a small kirk set against an outer wall, while he tried to think of something more certain to reassure her. There, a priest greeted them on the steps.
“Ye are here to be joined together in holy matrimony,” he announced, as if they didn’t know why they’d come. He looked to Fiona, waited for her to meet his gaze and asked, “’Tis yer wish to proceed, lass?”
Erik held his breath, waiting for Fiona to speak. If she had changed her mind and would refuse to proceed, the priest would refuse to perform the ceremony.
Finally, she answered, “Aye, Father. ’Tis my wish to proceed.”
“Ye are no’ under threat or coercion of any kind?” His gaze strayed from her to Erik, then the Rose, and quickly back again to Fiona.
Erik wanted to skewer the man for giving her a valid reason to refuse, but forced himself to calmness. Perhaps the priest knew Fiona and cared for her welfare. And perhaps had seen the Rose do the like in the past.
“None, Father. I am here of my own free will.” She turned from the priest and gave Erik an assessing look that shifted to a small, wry smile.
Erik could only smile back, gratitude so great his chest swelled with it and he couldn’t express it. He wanted her to be a willing bride, and she had said that she was. She had told a priest that she was. He’d hardly dared believe she was real and truly willing to go forward with this. Something in him twisted and broke, a pain he hadn’t known he carried suddenly popped and disappeared like sea foam on the shore of the firth. Something light—joy, perhaps—replaced the doubt that he had worn like a shroud, never expressed, but always there, until this moment.
“Very well, lass.” The priest’s shoulders dropped as if he had anticipated and feared trouble. Erik knew the Ross reputation. Did no one realize he was not Donas? Had he done or said anything to give them the impression that he would behave like the former Ross laird?
The priest turned to him and asked the same question, surprising him yet again. It seemed to be a day for things he didn’t expect. So far, all of them good. “Do ye, Erik Ross, wish to proceed?”
