Amanda Scott (9 page)

Apparently, he did not, for although Macleod agreed soon enough that the time had come to dress for the wedding, by the time Hector returned to the great hall, the other guests had arrived and were in festive humor.

The only other member of the bride’s family that he recognized was Lady Euphemia, who approached him when he caught her eye. She smiled, saying, “I am delighted to see you again, sir, and before the wedding as well, for I did hope to find at least one tiny moment to speak with you before the ceremony had begun.”

“Aye, well, you have found that moment, my lady, but where are my bride’s sisters? I expected to see them all here.”

“Oh, I expect you’ll see them soon enough, sir. To my mind, the less one sees of them—or rather, hears of them, for they are generally noisy—the better. But I did not approach you to speak of the girls, did I?” Clearly not expecting a reply, she reached into her sleeve and extracted a silver coin that she handed to him. “For luck, don’t you know? You must put it in your shoe—at once now, lest you forget.”

He smiled, thinking the entire Macleod family was too superstitious for its own good, but obediently slipped the coin into his shoe. Nodding approval, Lady Euphemia took herself off, but she had scarcely turned away before Macleod joined him again, carrying his apparently ever-present jug of whisky.

Clearly, plenty of drink was available, but not a morsel of food had shown itself. Hector refused his host’s offer of another mug, however, insisting that he preferred to recite his vows from an upright position rather than lying flat on his back, as he was sure he soon would be if he attempted to keep up with Macleod. The man seemed utterly unaffected by the heady drink.

When the priest entered the hall, Macleod called him over to introduce Hector to him, insisting that both enjoy yet one more mug of brogac with him. Hector sighed but could see no way to avoid drinking with the two, especially since the priest clearly expected him to do so.

Glancing toward Mairi, he saw that she was merrily enjoying herself amidst the Macleod kinfolk. Surprisingly, no children had come into the hall, and he still saw none of his betrothed’s sisters. But although he took note of that fact, he found his brain unwilling to ponder it, and looked instead for some sign of his bride.

“Ye’ll no see her till the time,” Macleod said, grinning and clearly reading his thoughts. “’Tis fearful bad luck for any groom to see his bride afore the ceremony, on the day.”

“Aye,” the priest agreed. “’Tis true, that.”

At last, however, Macleod signaled his piper, who began to play a solemn tune. At a gesture from the priest, Hector followed the piper obediently to the dais and the makeshift altar there.

As he stepped onto the platform, he misjudged his step, tripping.

“Kiss your thumb, lad, quickly,” Macleod advised. “Ye’ll no want bad luck during your wedding night.”

Hector nearly laughed but caught himself, wondering why he seemed to have so little control over his body. On such an occasion, even the urge to laugh seemed odd, but his head felt as if a thick Scottish mist had settled in around his brain. Truly, Macleod’s brogac was powerful stuff if a few mugs were enough to make him feel so disoriented, even dizzy.

The pipes skirled, and he saw her walking toward him in a cloud of gilded satin. The guests . . . There seemed to be more now, twice as many, or his eyes were making two of everyone he saw. He gave his head a shake, but that only made him dizzier. He feared briefly that he might be sick but rejected the notion as soon as it struck. He was rarely sick, and now was not the time. How Lachlan would laugh to see him brought low by three measly mugs of Isla’s brogac.

His veiled bride stood beside him, although he did not recall seeing how she got there. Her sisters seemed to be attending her, but he kept losing count and could scarcely tell them apart. They were all fair and all seemed young, too. Where was the vixen? Nay, not a vixen precisely, but although he pondered for a moment, he could not find the word for what she was. His thoughts would not sort themselves.

He spoke the words the parson told him to speak, put the ring on her finger when bidden to do so, and then it was over, and they were walking to their places at the high table. Oddly, the lass sat to the left of Macleod, still veiled, and he sat to the man’s right. The arrangement seemed odd for only a moment, however, before he recalled that ladies nearly always sat to their host’s left, and gentlemen to his right. Or was it the other way? His mind simply refused to provide answers.

The celebration grew rowdier, with songs sung and pipes piping. Some folks got up to dance a ring dance, but Hector sat and watched, having all he could do to eat some of the food put before him and drink the many toasts offered to his health and that of his lady. The entire company seemed to have had too much to drink—even Mairi, he thought, easily able to imagine what his twin would say to him if he heard from others that his lady wife had grown tipsy at the wedding. That, however, was the last thought of any consequence that passed through his head before he heard his host announce that it was time to escort the happy couple to their bed.

His bride got up at once and went with her aunt and some other ladies, including Mairi, to prepare for bed.

What followed seemed dreamlike, as a host of Macleod kinsmen bore him off, stripped him of his clothing, and put him into bed with his bride, who remained shyly veiled. Amidst a chorus of cheering and ribald comments, the priest blessed the couple and the bed. His senses whirling, Hector’s head began to ache, his dizziness to increase, and then came only a dark, swirling cloud of black.

Chapter
5

H
ector awoke wincing, because some idiot had opened the curtains and a too-bright sun spilled unwelcome rays into the room. His first thought was to shout for a gillie to shut the curtains again, but even as he opened his dry mouth to do that, his headache reasserted itself, reminding him of the condition he had been in when he fell asleep—if one could so define the stupor into which he had fallen. As he tried to recall why he had drunk so much, he became conscious that someone else was in his bed, and memory swept in.

How, he wondered, could he have forgotten his wedding night? He was married now, the husband of the glorious Mariota, but he could remember next to nothing about the ceremony or what had followed it.

He turned his head on the pillow, noting that she was lying on her side about as far away from him as she could lie, facing the wall against which the bed stood. He frowned, trying to remember claiming his husbandly rights. Could he truly have been so lost to the whisky as to have forgotten such a significant event?

Her hair was a sunny cloud of curls on the pillow, paler blonde than he remembered it, but doubtless that was no more than the effect of the sun’s brightness. She breathed lightly, softly, and his body stirred with lust.

Cristina lay stiffly beside her husband, scarcely daring to breathe, let alone to sleep. She had lain so nearly the whole night, terrified that he would waken and reach for her. They were well and truly married now, just as her father had wanted them to be, but the reality was even worse than she had feared it would be.

She remembered the horror she had felt when four or five Macleod kinsmen had borne him into the room and unceremoniously dumped him onto the bed beside her. Then, with no concern for her modesty, one of them had snatched back the coverlet and draped it over him. Another had yanked off her veil, terrifying her, lest Hector see that she was not Mariota, but he was too far gone with drink to notice, and no one else was surprised to see her, since Macleod had neglected to tell anyone else that Hector had expected to marry his second daughter rather than his first. And although she had met Lady Mairi at Ardtornish, everyone knew that the Macleod sisters looked much alike, and Mairi had never laid eyes on Mariota. Moreover, the priest had hastily mumbled the words of the ceremony, so that no one had heard him say Cristina. And since nearly everyone had been indulging in her father’s whisky, most of the guests were too drunk to notice anything amiss.

Hector’s bearers’ speech was boisterous and bawdy, clearly shocking some of the ladies, and Macleod ordered the priest to lose no time in blessing the bed and the newly wedded couple. Then, ordering his guests to depart and leave them to consummate their union, he leaned close to Cristina and muttered, “Ye’ll no defy me now, lass, or by heaven, I’ll stay here myself to see the deed properly done.”

“I’ve no wish to defy you, sir,” she said honestly. “’Twould only create a scandal. But what he will do when he comes to his senses is another matter.”

“Then see that ye please him well, so we’ll ha’ nowt to worry us.”

“I will lie with him as his wife, sir. I can do no more than that.”

“Aye, well, ye can and all, but I’ve nae doubt the man will instruct ye in your wifely duties. Here, Hector,” he said loudly, giving her bridegroom a hearty shake. “Pay heed to your wife now, lad, and do your duty by her.”

Hector had groaned, then turned and flopped a heavy arm over her.

Apparently satisfied, Macleod had left her to endure her husband’s aimless pawing. Shortly thereafter Hector had begun to snore and she had managed, not without difficulty, to extricate herself from his clutches.

How easy it had been then to tell herself that she had simply obeyed her father and was therefore only doing her duty. It was true Macleod had left her little choice, but one always had a choice if one was willing to suffer the consequences of that choice. And the plain fact was that every choice had consequences. What those would be for her, she could only guess, but she would soon find out, because he was awake. She knew because his breathing had altered, from stertorous to steady.

The moment of discovery was so close that she could not breathe. She wanted to curl into a ball, or better yet, to disappear, to return to yesterday when she was unmarried and could still change her mind about duty and obedience.

Sensing movement next to her, she started nonetheless when his large hand grasped her shoulder.

“Look at me, lass,” he murmured. “I would see you in the morning light to savor your beauty. I fear I was not as attentive as I might have been last night. I hope I did not hurt you.”

Remembering for perhaps the hundredth time since the priest had united them that men called him Hector the Ferocious, Cristina wondered if she would live to see more that day than the sunrise. But she was no coward. Drawing a deep breath, she turned to face him.

Hector gasped and shoved himself up on one elbow, wincing at the pounding in his head but ignoring it otherwise as he exclaimed, “You!”

“Aye, sir, it is I,” she said with calmness that he thought bordered on the perverse. By rights, she ought to have been terrified. When he gaped at her, she added in the same tone, one that reminded him of a nursemaid he and Lachlan had had when they were small, “I fear that you have been the victim of a dreadful trick. Indeed, I would not be astonished if you wanted to murder me for my part in it, but I hope you will not. You must realize that I did but obey my father’s will.”

“But where is your sister?”

“In her bed, I imagine, considering that the day has scarcely begun. Do not blame her, I pray you. She had as little to say about this as did I.”

“But we cannot be married! At the very least, your name was misspoken!”

“Nay, it was spoken properly, but the priest has a quiet voice, sir, and no one but Lady Mairi would have been surprised to hear my name instead of Mariota’s. We were well and truly married and have now lain together as man and wife, so there is naught that either of us can do to alter things.”

“The devil there isn’t!” he exclaimed, sitting upright, scarcely able to contain his fury. “I will immediately demand an annulment.”

She bit her lower lip, but whether from vexation or in an attempt to control her emotions, he could not tell. She still seemed much too calm, and he remembered that he had thought her composure unnatural when first they met. Surely, however, the present situation would distress any normal woman.

He moved to get out of bed.

“I pray you, sir, do nothing in haste,” she said, and this time she seemed troubled, even to be pleading with him. “You would much embarrass me and yourself as well, I fear. You have a reputation, after all, for being a man who gets what he wants, who wields great power. If you leap out of bed and fly from this chamber now, demanding annulment of our marriage after sleeping with me, consider what everyone will believe.”

“Don’t be daft, lass. Everyone will know that your father tricked me.”

“They certainly will if you tell them so,” she agreed.

“Aye, and when I tell them that I woke up in bed beside you instead of your sister, it will be clear to the least intelligent amongst them that your father performed a despicable deception by foisting you on me in her place.”

She caught her lower lip between her teeth again, but this time, he thought he sensed anger. Even so, her voice retained that devilish calm when she said, “You still are not thinking clearly, I fear, for they will know as much only if you tell them. No one hereabouts knew that you intended to marry Mariota, because my father told everyone he invited that you wanted to marry me. You undoubtedly told people that you were going to marry Macleod’s daughter. Did you mention Mariota’s name or tell anyone that you were marrying his second daughter?”

“I told my brother, Lady Mairi, and his grace that I was marrying Macleod’s second daughter,” he said. “I also told them that her beauty is so startling that it stops men in their tracks,” he added brutally.

She seemed unfazed by either his tone or the harsh words.

“I doubt that his grace or your brother will say aught of it to anyone else, especially since neither is here,” she said. “They may wonder at your taste when they see me, especially after they see Mariota, but unless you named her or told a host of people that you intended to marry Macleod’s second daughter, most will think nothing of it. Your people will welcome your wife to Lochbuie, and folks here will congratulate you. Moreover,” she added thoughtfully, “I believe it is not easy to gain an annulment after a man and woman have lain together as husband and wife.”