Amanda Scott (49 page)

Although Sorcha frequently said that Ardelve was too old and too pompous to make a good husband, Adela liked him. To be sure, he was nearly as old as her father, had been twice married and widowed, and had a grown son older than she was. But his children had raised no objection to the marriage, and his cousin, Lady Clendenen, the wealthy widow whom Macleod intended to marry, waited now in the front row, with an approving smile, for the ceremony to begin. As a result, Adela believed her marriage to Ardelve would be as happy as anyone could wish. So what, she asked herself, was wrong with her? Why did she not feel
something
?

So lost in her thoughts was she that when Sorcha touched her arm, she started, noting at once that her sister’s beaming smile had faded to a worried frown.

“Do pinch your cheeks,” Sorcha said. “You look as pale as chalk. Is aught amiss? Are you feeling sick?”

“Nay, all is well,” Adela said.

“You don’t look it,” Sorcha replied with her usual candor.

“Easy, lass,” Sir Hugo said, laying a gently restraining hand on her shoulder.

Not, Adela mused, that anyone—even Hugo—could restrain her sister unless Sorcha chose to allow it.

Hugo smiled as he said to her, “Doubtless you are recalling the last occasion, my lady. But no raiders will interrupt today’s festivities. That I promise you.”

Politely if automatically returning his smile, Adela said, “I have no such fear, sir.” She could hardly tell him she felt nothing at all, that it was as if she were in a dream, disembodied, watching someone else about to walk to the altar.

The look that crossed Sir Hugo’s handsome face then nearly matched the deepening frown on Sorcha’s. Adela saw his hand increase its pressure on her sister’s shoulder, as if he sensed without looking at her that she was about to speak.

For a wonder, Sorcha kept silent.

Hugo said quietly, “You should not wonder if you do not feel the usual bride’s excitement, Lady Adela. After the experience you suffered last time, it must be only natural to feel reservations now. Sithee, I have seen similar reactions in men after a battle, and I warrant it must be much the same way for you now as for them.”

“Pray, sir, do not concern yourself,” she said mildly. “I cannot imagine how what happened last time could possibly match aught that occurs in battle. I suffered no injury, after all. Indeed, I do not believe he would ever have harmed me.”

Hugo grimaced but did not contradict her aloud, saying only, “I think the piper is about to begin playing.”

Macleod, who had stood quietly, taking no part in the conversation, said, “Aye, he is, lass, so take my arm. We’re to go first, ye ken, after your maidens.”

She and Sorcha had four bride-maidens for this wedding, although they barely knew three of them. The one they did know was their youngest sister, Sidony, blue-eyed and fair, looking beautifully serene as she waited for the piper to begin. Two of the other bride-maidens were Sir Hugo’s younger sisters, Katharine and Margaret Robison. The remaining one was another niece of Countess Isabella’s.

Since Sorcha and Sir Hugo were already legally married, having taken advantage of the ancient Scottish tradition of simply declaring themselves husband and wife, they would walk together to the altar. Sorcha had said she couldn’t imagine why they need marry again, but Countess Isabella had declared that she intended to see them properly wedded by her own priest, and that had been that.

When the piping began, the four bride-maidens went single file up the narrow aisle between the flanking rows of standing guests. When the maidens had taken their places, two on each side of the steps leading to the altar, where Ardelve and Isabella’s chaplain waited, Adela put her hand on the arm her father extended to her. To the accompaniment of the piper’s tune, they proceeded slowly up the aisle to meet her bridegroom.

Though only a few years younger than her father, Ardelve was a handsomer, more dignified-looking man with a neatly trimmed beard and grizzled dark hair. For the occasion, he wore a high-crowned, white-plumed hat, a cut-black-velvet, sable-trimmed robe belted over parti-colored hose, and fashionable pointed-toe shoes. Standing straight and proud beside Isabella’s chaplain, he watched his bride walk toward him, and when his gaze met Adela’s, he smiled.

She replied with the same fixed smile she had summoned up for Sir Hugo but kept her gaze fixed on Ardelve, wanting to avoid meeting the eye of any onlooker. She had small inclination just then for polite gestures and wanted only to have the ceremony and the subsequent feasting well behind her.

She reached the halfway point aware only of her hand on Macleod’s arm and of Ardelve’s face before her. Then, an abrupt movement to her right and the clink-clink of something falling to the chapel’s flagstone floor caught her attention.

Turning her head, she looked straight into the jade-green eyes of one of the handsomest men she had ever beheld.

He had finely chiseled features, smooth chestnut hair that curled slightly at the ends, broad shoulders, a tapered waist, and muscular, well-turned legs, the three latter features displayed to advantage in an expertly cut forest-green velvet doublet and smooth golden-yellow silk hose.

He had begun to bend down, so he had certainly dropped something. But whatever it was lay where it had fallen, because as Adela’s gaze collided with his, he froze where he was. Then, slowly he straightened, his gaze still locked with hers.

His remarkable green eyes began to twinkle. Then, impudently, he winked.

Startled, she wrenched her gaze away and sought Ardelve again, relaxing when she saw him still smiling calmly. She did not look away again.

The piping stopped when she reached the shallow steps near the front of the chapel, leading up to four kneeling stools awaiting the two bridal couples.

“Who gives this woman to be wed to this man?” the chaplain inquired.

“I, Macleod o’ Glenelg, the lassie’s father,” Macleod said clearly.

The priest beckoned to Adela, and releasing her father’s forearm, she went up the steps to stand beside Ardelve. Sorcha and Hugo followed, taking their places to her left. All four faced the altar and Isabella’s chaplain.

The audience was silent for a long moment before the chaplain said, “I be bound to ask first if there be any amongst ye here today who kens any just cause or impediment to a marriage betwixt Baron Ardelve and the lady Adela Macleod. If anyone does, pray speak now or forever hold your peace.”

Adela shut her eyes, for it had been at this very point in her first attempt to marry Ardelve that the interruption had occurred.

Today, aside from some brief shuffling, silence reigned.

The priest did not ask the same question with regard to Sorcha and Sir Hugo, as the two of them were merely sanctifying an already existing union.

Adela was glad to note that they seemed blissfully happy. She had seen them only once since their declaration, because they had removed to Hawthornden Castle, a mile up Roslin Glen, immediately after Hugo had declared them married. Three days afterward, she had accompanied Isobel, Sidony, and the countess to pay them a bridal visit, but she had not seen either since then until that very morning.

Isobel, who was now Sir Michael Sinclair’s wife and thus daughter-by-marriage to the countess, stood in the
audience with her husband. But with time so short, their other three sisters Cristina, Maura, and Kate were at home with their families, Cristina on the Isle of Mull and the other two in the Highlands.

When the chaplain spoke Adela’s name, she wrenched her attention back to the ceremony, responding as he bade her, and doing so calmly and clearly. The double ceremony was mercifully brief, and if the nuptial mass that followed was longer, at least she could recite her responses by rote and would not have to think.

When the priest declared them husbands and wives in the sight of God, Ardelve took Adela’s hand warmly in his and did not let go until they were offered the bread and wine for communion. After that, the Mass soon came to an end and Adela found herself hoping no one would ask what she had been thinking about or if she had enjoyed it, because the entire service had registered no more than a blank passage of time in her mind.

Isabella did not allow the bridal couples to linger but whisked them off to the great hall to receive their guests and begin the wedding feast.

Music and laughter greeted them long before they entered, for the festivities had already begun. Musicians in the minstrels’ gallery played lively music until the bridal party appeared in the doorway, at which time Isabella’s chamberlain stepped forward and in stentorian accents announced both couples:

“My lords, my ladies, and all others in the chamber, pray stand to make welcome Lord and Lady Ardelve, Sir Hugo Robison, and Lady Robison!”

Amid the cheering and resumption of music, Adela noted that a clear space in the center of the hall stood
ready for the jugglers, acrobats, dancers, and other entertainers Isabella had hired to perform during the feast.

As she and the others skirted that clearing, Ardelve bent his head close to her ear and murmured, “I would speak privately with you, my lady wife, afore we feast. Isabella has kindly offered us her solar, if you will oblige me.”

“Aye, sure, my lord, as you wish,” she said, hoping she had not already done something to vex him. She remembered the man with green eyes but quickly dismissed that possibility. Ardelve had displayed no indication that he might be either a possessive husband or a jealous one.

They crossed the crowded dais, moving around the long high table that would soon groan under the weight of many gold and silver platters and trays of food, and jugs of whisky and wine—not to mention the guests’ goblets and trenchers that were already in place—to a door in the center of the wall beyond it.

With a deep bow, a Sinclair gillie opened the door for them.

Nodding to the lad to shut it behind them, Ardelve guided Adela a little away from it before he said gently and without preamble, “One hesitates to speak to a lady about her looks, my dear, but all this splendor appears to have worn you to the bone. If you wish to retire, I would willingly make our adieux and depart at once.”

“ ’Tis kind of you to offer, sir, but it would be most unkind of us, not to mention ungrateful, to cut short the celebration after Countess Isabella has put so much effort into all these preparations to honor us.”

“Faugh,” he said. “Isabella does what she does for Isabella or for Roslin. In truth, I am a trifle weary myself, but if you are sure you are feeling quite well…”

“I am, sir,” she said. “I am a little tired, perhaps, but no more than that.”

He looked searchingly at her for a long moment, then said quietly, “If it is any relief to your mind, I will tell you that you have naught to fear from me tonight or any other. If you prefer to have time to adjust to our marriage before taking up all your wifely duties, I will certainly understand. I am in no great hurry, myself, and would understand your preference for a more peaceful place to get to know your husband. Do you understand my meaning, Adela?”

“Aye, sir, I do,” she said, aware that she was blushing. “My sister Isobel explained what my duties will be. You are very kind, sir, to be sure, but I do want children, and I have no objection to taking up my wifely duties whenever it shall please you. Indeed, if you do not
want
to stay now, that is quite another matter.”

He patted her hand. “I am content,” he said. “You are quite right to think of everyone who has worked so hard to provide our wedding feast.”

“I do look forward to returning very soon to the peace of the Highlands, sir.”

He smiled then. She thought his smile a particularly charming one and responded to it with her own first entirely natural smile of the day. No matter that Sorcha thought she was making a great mistake. Sorcha, after all, had married Hugo, a man who always wanted his own way and made no secret of that fact.

Since Sorcha’s nature was much the same in that respect, Adela could not doubt that sparks often flew between them. With Ardelve, she was certain that she would enjoy a far more peaceful, and thus a more comfortable, life.

He rested a hand on her shoulder. Then, as she turned back toward the door, he lowered his hand to the small of her back, and she was astonished at how reassuring it felt as they moved to rejoin the boisterous company. When she took her place at the high table next to Sorcha, in one of the four central places of honor on the long side facing the lower hall, Adela was still quietly congratulating herself on her wise decision to marry Ardelve.

Members of the Sinclair family comprised much of the company on the dais: Countess Isabella stood to Ardelve’s right with her eldest son, Prince Henry Sinclair, the owner of Roslin Castle, on her right. Lady Clendenen and Macleod stood beyond Henry, with an empty space at Macleod’s right. Sorcha stood to Adela’s left with Sir Hugo beyond. Isobel stood on Sir Hugo’s left, Sir Michael on hers, and then came Hugo’s father, Sir Edward Robison, flanked by a daughter on one side and an empty space on the other. They faced the rest of the wedding guests who had gathered around trestle tables set lengthwise in rows around the lower hall clearing.

After the countess’s chaplain had spoken the grace before meat, the company noisily took their seats, the carvers entered, and Adela sat quietly, speaking only when someone spoke to her. At one point, she caught sight of the handsome young man she had noticed in the chapel, speaking to one of Sir Hugo’s sisters. She thought it was the older one, Katharine, but their gowns and veils were much the same, and the two girls were nearly the same height, so she could not be sure.

Glancing past Sorcha at Sir Hugo, she was not surprised to see his frowning, intent gaze fixed on the couple. She was certain he must be a most protective brother
and had little doubt that he would have stern words for his sister. She sighed. To think that her own sisters had once expected
her
to marry Hugo!

Turning to Ardelve, she smiled, then shifted slightly to allow a gillie to pour wine into her goblet. She reached for it but pulled her hand back in almost the same movement when she remembered that there would be toasting.