“Oh.” Flustered, she shook her head. “I didn’t realize–”
“We’ve our own vows,” Lachlan interrupted.
“But I don’t–”
“Just repeat after me if ye can.” He briefly rested his forehead on hers. “And if ye find the words tae difficult tae remember, then all ye need tae do is promise tae love me and tae remain loyal tae me. A man canna ask for more than that.”
When he put it that way, it didn’t seem too difficult.
“All right,” she said, and he gave her a wink.
“That’s me lass.”
“Are ye ready?” the vicar asked. “I’ve a line nearly out the door, ye know.”
“Aye.” Lachlan’s chest lifted as he took a breath, and then took her other hand. Fingers entwined, they faced each other, and everything else…the vicar, the pedestal, the witnesses…faded away, blurred into obscurity by the fiercely possessive glow in Lachlan’s gaze. “This is a Celtic blessing that me father spoke when he married me mother. It’s been used tae bind kings and queens, warriors and maidens, farmers and milkmaids. I use it now, tae bind ye tae me, in the hopes that nothing from within or without will ever tear us asunder.
“Brynne Weston, ye are the star of each night. Ye are the brightness of every morning. Ye are the story of each guest. Ye are the report of every land. No evil shall befall ye, on hill nor bank, in a field, valley, on a mountain, or in a glen. Ye are mine, and I am yers, from this moment forward until death comes tae part us asunder.”
A single tear ran down her cheek.
Lachlan caught it on his thumb before it could fall, and pressed his thumb to his lips. “This is my solemn promise tae ye,” he said quietly. “As a man, a husband, and a lover.”
Then it was her turn, and her voice trembled with emotion as she repeated the vows that would bind them together for the rest of this life and the next. “Lachlan Campbell, you…you are the star of each night. You are the brightness of every morning. You are the story of…of…”
“Each guest,” he provided helpfully.
She was crying in earnest now; her face as wet as if she’d stepped out into an early morning mist. But they were silent sobs born of joy, not sadness, and she smiled through them at the man that she loved as all of her misgivings and doubts were washed away by the cleansing rain of her tears. “You are the report of every land, and no evil shall ever befall you on hill nor bank, in a field or in a glen. You are mine, and I am yours, from this moment forward until death comes to part us asunder. This is my solemn promise to you as a woman, and a wife, and…”–sneaking a peek at the vicar, she discreetly lowered her voice–“a lover.”
“Well done,” the vicar said with an approving nod and what might have been a tear of his own, although it was hard to tell with the spectacles. “With the power invested in me by the Church of Scotland, I hereby pronounce ye as husband and wife. Ye may…yes, ye may do that.”
He obligingly looked the other way as Lachlan yanked Brynne against him and gave her a kiss that would have surely burned St. Paul’s Cathedral to the ground and earned them a lifetime of repentance besides.
Clinging to his shoulders as he lifted her off the floor in his exuberance, she laughingly wrenched her mouth free. “Lachlan, people arestaring.”
And so they were. The vicar, and the witnesses, and even the other couples waiting to be wed, peering in through the doors and the windows with varying expressions of shock and amusement and disgruntlement.
“Let them stare,” he growled. “It’s me wife they’re looking at, after all. And I’m pleased tae show her off.”
She slid down his body a few inches. Gasped when her thigh encountered something quite unmistakable in both its size and shape. “Lachlan.”
“Aye,” he said with a grin that bordered on the sheepish. “Maybe we’d best take this someplace private.”
Evidently spying his opportunity to move them along, the vicar seized upon it. “If ye’ll sign here and here,” he said, all but throwing his quill at Lachlan, “ye may be on yer way tae a more…discreetlocation tae celebrate yer matrimonial bliss.”
They wrote their names; Lachlan’s penmanship rough and hurried, Brynne’s elegant and perfectly spaced. A fitting juxtaposition that went far beyond a signature.
“Lady Campbell,” said Lachlan, gesturing towards the door with an exaggerated sweep of his arm.
“Lord Campbell,” she replied, sinking into a curtsy before she preceded him out of the shop with all the feigned aplomb of Queen Victoria exiting the throne room at Buckingham Palace.
Her husband–how strange and delightful it was to describe him that way!–followed right on her heels, and like the children they’d been during that wild, reckless two weeks nearly ten years prior, they raced across the village square, giggling all the while.
This, she thought dazedly as he pulled her into an alley, pressed her up against the brick side of a milliner’s store, and began to kiss his way down her neck.This is what heaven must be like.
And for a while, it was.
Chapter Seventeen
