Page 126 of Claimed By a Ruthless Scot
The castle, though alive with movement below, seemed gentler there, as if even the stones understood what this day meant. The nearer they came to the Great Hall, the more clearly Elaina could hear the whispering of gathered voices and the distant swell of music soft enough to stir the heart without overwhelming it.
When they reached the doors, Catriona stopped and turned to her. For once, she did not speak. Her bright eyes shone with too much feeling for easy teasing, though joy still danced there as naturally as light upon water. She took Elaina’s hands, squeezed them tightly, and then rose to press a kiss to her cheek.
“Ye are about tae make me braither the happiest man in Scotland,” she whispered. “Dinnae keep him waiting too long.”
Elaina laughed softly, though her throat felt suddenly tight. Then Catriona gave her one last radiant smile and slipped through the side entrance into the hall, leaving Elaina alone before the great doors.
She stood there alone, drawing breath. Her heart was beating so hard that she could feel it in her hands, in her throat, in her very lips. Yet beneath it all, there was a peace so profound it steadied everything else. Every step she was about to take belonged to her.
Then, the doors opened.
The sound of the hall reached her all at once, and so did the light. The Great Hall had been transformed. Fresh greenery and flowers had been worked along the beams and around the front of the room, softening the strength of stone with living beauty. Faces turned as one. The murmur stilled.
And at the far end, waiting for her, stood Duncan.
In that moment, everything else fell away. He looked more handsome than she had ever seen him, though the handsomeness of it was not merely in his features, fine though they were, nor in the dark richness of his wedding attire.
It was in his expression, in the way his eyes found her at once and held her as though he had forgotten that anyone else in the world existed. It was also in the unmistakable wonder of a man who loved, and knew himself loved in return.
Elaina began to walk. She scarcely felt the floor beneath her slippers. The hall, the guests, the flowers, the music… all of it became a kind of dream through which she moved toward theonly reality that mattered. Duncan never looked away. With every step she took, he seemed to welcome her more and more.
At last, she reached him. He took her hand as though it were the most precious thing ever placed in his keeping, allowing his fingers to close around hers with a reverence that sent a little shiver through her.
Then, she heard him whisper words meant only for her. “Me Elaina, ye are lovelier than the morning light itself, and brighter than any sun that ever rose.”
The sweetness of it went straight to her heart. Elaina smiled up at him, and if her eyes filled a little, she did not care.
The ceremony began. The proper words had been spoken, the witnesses had stood in all the right places, and vows had been exchanged before God and before all assembled. But in the moment itself, it passed for Elaina like a beautiful blur.
She heard the voice of the officiant, which was grave and measured. She heard her own when it came time to answer, though it seemed to belong to someone more certain than she had ever been. She heard Duncan’s vows, spoken in that deep steady voice she had first trusted and then come to love, and each promise seemed to settle around her like the careful laying of a foundation beneath their new life.
When she spoke her own vows, she did so looking only at him.
There was no one else, not her father, not Lachlan MacKenzie, not the fearful girl who had once fled into the dark believing she would forever be at the mercy of other people’s will. She spoke her vows only for Duncan, who was standing before her with love in his eyes and her hand held fast in his own.
And then, all at once, came the words that seemed to ring louder than all the rest.
“Ye may kiss the bride.”
Elaina scarcely had time to draw breath before Duncan stepped closer. His hand rose lightly to her cheek, so tenderly that the touch itself felt like a vow renewed, and then he kissed her. It was soft, lingering, and filled with such devotion that Elaina felt the whole of her new life begin in that single moment. All that had come before, the fear, the struggle, the misunderstandings and the losses, seemed to fall gently behind them, transformed into the path that had led there.
This kiss was different from all the others. It was sweeter and safer. It held not merely love, buthome.
When at last he drew back, the hall around them had vanished again, blurred by happiness and by the tears she could not quite keep from rising. Duncan’s forehead rested briefly against hers, and his smile was the smile of a man who had found everything he had once believed himself destined to live without.
And Elaina, standing beside him as his wife at last, knew with quiet certainty that that life, that love, and that future were hers, freely chosen, wholly cherished, and only just beginning.
