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But that didn’t mean he enjoyed being fleeced for the most outrageous bride price anyone had likely ever paid. Had Gillian’s father not been such an unabashed opportunist, he would have been happy for the alliance to the powerful border lord. As it was, he couldn’t wait to get as far away from Lord Lyndwood as possible.

“Most men aren’t quite so forlorn on their wedding day.”

He hadn’t noticed Emma’s approach.

“May I?” She gestured to the seat beside him.

“Of course,” he said, watching her.

She was a beautiful woman—always had been—but he was surprised to discover she no longer had the same hold on him. In fact, he found himself thinking longingly of Gillian’s faint freckles as he looked at Emma’s clear complexion.

“So it seems you’ve joined our ranks in married bliss,” she teased.

“Bliss?” He tried not to sound bitter. “I’m not sure I’d call a forced wedding ‘blissful,’ but you have the right of it. I am, indeed, a married man.”

“Is it true you were deceived?”

Graeme hadn’t given another thought to who could have alerted Gillian’s parents and his hosts to their indiscretions. “Apparently, but it matters not.”

It would be easy to blame someone else, but he knew it was no one’s fault but his own.

“You’re not angry?”

At himself? Aye. But that wasn’t what she meant. “What cause would it serve?”

Emma looked up, as if considering the point. “I’m not sure when you ask that way.”

“I don’t mean to say that I wasn’t angry. Or that I won’t be so again in the future. But to remain so would only shift blame, and in truth, I should have known better.”

“Graeme . . .”

For the short time he’d known Emma, she nearly always smiled, or laughed, or teased. But not now. Her expression was as serious as he’d ever seen it.

“Something is amiss with Gillian,” she started. “I don’t know her well, but I do know Sara. And she’s worried for her. Please take good care of her.” She took his hand. “Sara loves her like a sister, which means I do as well.”

He squeezed her hand and released it.

“She is my wife,” he said by way of explanation.

“And as such,” Garrick finished, approaching them, “he will never hurt or betray her. You’re looking at the most loyal of men.”

Both he and Emma stood.

“Congratulations, Graeme,” Garrick said, standing next to his wife, who smiled at him like he was a god and not a mere mortal.

“Thank you,” he said, shaking Garrick’s hand.

Garrick turned to Emma. “And so you’ve nothing to fear, my love.”

“Men,” Emma said, tugging her husband’s hand. “Come, dance with me.”

And the man who was reputed to have single-handedly helped Prince Edward emerge victorious in the Holy Land walked, hand in hand, with his wife to dance at a midday meal.

Graeme shook his head.

Married? Fine. But that? Never. To open oneself up for the kind of pain that inevitably came with rejection? He’d rather be dragged to Acre by his toes and placed at the feet of the bloodthirsty Saracens.

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