Page 6 of Highland Seduction

The MacRob laird handed his brother a piece of cloth and as her soon-to-be husband wiped his face with it, Ainsley could not help it. She began to laugh. “These are the preparations for our wedding? To wipe fresh blood from yer face?”

Her hands, traitors that they were, began to shake. She clenched her fists in an attempt to stop them. Ainsley’s chest constricted.

She would not cry. She would not cry.

This was well and truly happening. The priest glanced up onto the dais at the king, who nodded. The hall, more silent than as if it had been empty, was suddenly the site of her wedding. Her . . . wedding.

“Stop,” the MacRob said.

Father Godfrey had just begun to make the sign of the cross when the MacRob made the order. Though the priest obeyed, he was clearly not pleased.

Ainsley’s cheeks tingled. No longer laughing, she refused to cry, but every part of her wished to do so. This could not be. It could not. How could she marry a MacRob?

“A moment,” her intended said. He stepped in front of her, between her and the priest. Leaning down, he whispered into her ear. “We are to be wed.”

“Wed,” she said wildly. “I’ve no’ a sixpence in my shoe. We carry no quaich nor oathing stone. Ye’ve no siller to give me. This is no’ a wedding but a jest, surely.”

“I dinnae want this either,” he said more softly, his words barely making sense to her. “We will find a way to end it.”

Her head snapped up. Did she hear him correctly? His eyes said she did. But he’d said the words so softly . . . Ainsley looked at Father Godfrey to be sure he had not heard.

Then, louder, the MacRob said, “We will do as the king bids, as we are his loyal subjects. I am a kind man, Lady Ainsley, and have no’ been cruel to a maid once in my life.”

She looked into his eyes, the clear green eyes of a MacRob. They were steady. True. But it was his first words she held onto. We will find a way to end it. Was such a thing possible?

Taking a deep breath, understanding, she once again squeezed her hands closed, and then opened them. They were steadier now. Ainsley swallowed, and nodded.

He stepped back. “Ye may proceed.”

As if the incident had not happened, the priest spoke. Father Godfrey blessed them and, apparently with a prompting by the king, he did not waste even a moment. “Repeat after me. I, Tor MacRob”—Ainsley shuddered at the name—“take thee, Ainsley Shaw, to be my wedded wife.” He repeated the words, as bid to do so, without hesitation. They continued, “To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, for fairer or fouler, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereunto I plight thee my troth.”

Nay, nay, nay. Was she properly marrying a MacRob? Ainsley herself would slit the throat of the man who began the fight here this night.

“I, Ainsley Shaw,” the priest said. She repeated the words, peeking at the man she was making her husband. Did he seem almost . . . amused? His eyes danced now, where earlier they appeared stormy. It was as if that storm had cleared, and despite their circumstances, despite the bruise on his face, despite that he clearly wanted this as little as she . . . he actually smiled.

Despite herself, Ainsley did the same. Maybe because she knew their secret. She knew not how he proposed to do it, but his behavior as the priest now declared them wed confirmed that her—dare she think the word—husband did not believe they would remain wed.

When the priest announced them as a married couple, silence, as opposed to the polite applause of their kinsmen earlier, descended on the great hall.

Her husband was not the only person who seemed to have undergone a transformation in these past few moments. The king, previously angered beyond measure, now seemed satisfied.

“Behold,” he called out, indicating Ainsley and the MacRob should turn toward the onlookers, “what ye have sown this night. A second wedding, and it will no’ be the last. By the next full moon, if this feud is no’ well and ended, if just one report of misconduct by either clan reaches my ears, a third will be performed. And a fourth and fifth until every unmarried man and maid of each clan is wed to the other. Do ye heed my words?”

No one responded. The king asked the question again. “Do. Ye. Heed. Me?”

Mumbles of “Aye, Yer Grace,” and “I do, Yer Grace,” could be heard this time. The king grunted in apparent satisfaction. Then, as if naught had occurred to interrupt his final course, he picked up a tart and popped it into his mouth. The priest slunk away. The music once again began to play.

“Now dance,” the king bellowed, his mouth still partially full of tart. “’Tis a wedding celebration, is it no’?”

Chapter 5

The sun rose high in the sky as if to fulfill a promise of the coming summer. Tor watched as the king and his entourage departed. Before they’d asked for his intervention, he’d borne Alexander no ill will. Even now, Tor managed to set aside some of the animosity he felt at the king’s heavy hand. If he’d been asked to end a twelve-year-long feud, Tor would not have been patient with the impertinence shown in the hall last eve. One which, according to his brother, their own kinsman began by “looking sideways at the wife of a Shaw warrior.” Their clan would deny it, of course, except that very kinsman was known to have a proclivity for women, married or nay.

“I am sorry, brother.”

He’d not seen Royce come up behind him.

“I know it.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the stone wall of the keep.