Highland Lover: Book 3 Scottish Knights Trilogy (35 page)

She eyed him bleakly. “Is it not?”

“Nay, ’tis about you, Allie, and whether you’re willing to accept a future with me in place of the dismal one you’d have had with Clyne. Had this not happened, you might easily have muddled away the rest of your life without
knowing
that your marriage was a pretense that the Kirk could undo.”

Tears filled her eyes, but she dashed them away and
said, “Very well, sir. However, you might as well know now as later that I am an abject coward.”

“Ye’re nowt o’ the sort,” he said gruffly.

“I am, aye. I shrink at what my family will say about this.”

“You let me worry about your family. I’ll see to them.”

“Even Ivor?”

“Especially Ivor. In troth, he will give me less trouble than some others may. I do not know this Great-Aunt Beatha of yours, or your parents. They might present more difficulty than you’ve suggested in describing them to me.”

“Ranald, too, can be difficult,” she said. “He sees difficulties even where there are none. ’Tis his nature.”

“I will attend to Ranald, too.”

She put a hand to his cheek. “You sound gey fierce, sir.”

“I feel fierce when I think of how that scoundrel Clyne treated you. Your kinsmen had better come round quickly. That is all I will say about them.”

“Is that door locked, or were you two meaning to break your fast in the hall?”

Wardlaw’s hearty voice startled them both. When they turned toward him, they saw the Papal Legate at his side.

“Father Antonio has drawn up the annulment document, Lady Alyson,” Wardlaw said as Jake opened the chamber door for him. “You may sign it at my table yonder, along with the fair copy that Father Matthias prepared for you to take with you. Once you have signed them and Father Antonio attaches the papal seal, your unfortunate marriage to Niall Clyne will be as if it had never been. By my troth, my lady, it never
was
, due to his failure. Do you understand that?

“I do, my lord.”

“And do you agree to this annulment of your own free will?”

Alyson drew a deep breath, and Jake realized that he was holding his.

“I do agree to it, sir,” she said quietly but firmly.

“Do you likewise agree to marry Jake Maxwell when you are free to do so?”

“I do.”

“And you, Sir Jacob Maxwell, do you agree of
your
own free will to enter into marriage with the lady Alyson MacGillivray?”

“I do,” Jake said without hesitation. As he did, a warm and pleasurable feeling swept through him unlike any other that he could recall.

Father Antonio murmured something in Latin, and Wardlaw smiled. “He says we should get on with it. Then you will receive communion, break your fast, and get on with your consummation.”

Alyson gasped, and Jake experienced another surge of warmth altogether different from the first one and more easily recognizable. He wanted her badly.

His hands ached to touch her, his arms to hold her, and his cock to conquer her. All in all, he decided that he’d better hold his tongue until he was sure that she would go through with this outrageous wedding of theirs.

Alyson could not breathe. She had told the priests that she was ready, that she acted of her own free will. In truth, she wanted nothing so much as to be married to Jake. How that could be possible when she had known him for such a short time, and how she could be so sure of herself, she did not know.

She had nearly choked on her own indrawn breath
when the bishop mentioned consummation. Now that she had more knowledge about such things, the thought of coupling with Jake stirred feelings she had never even imagined feeling for Niall. Nor, she was certain, had Niall felt such things for her.

Before and after her wedding to Niall, when she had imagined their future together, she had imagined benign things such as discussing what needed doing on her estates, how many children they might have, how many tenants and servants they might need, and other such ordinary matters. Even sleeping beside him, she had never felt the stirrings she felt whenever she saw or thought about Jake.

Her feelings for Jake had seemed sinful before, as if she ought not to be feeling them. But he had shown her that they were natural, normal, and inevitable when two people loved each other. Moreover, he shared those feelings, so when they touched, the effect was magical.

Imagining marriage to Jake made her body tingle with anticipation.

Wardlaw and Father Antonio were businesslike. Urging her to sit at the table, the bishop examined his quill, sharpened it with a wee knife, and tested the ink from the pot. Then, dipping the quill and giving it a brisk shake, he gave it to her and showed her where to sign her name.

“Pray, tell me what the Latin means, sir. My cousin said that I should never sign a document without knowing what it says.”

Explaining that it formally annulled her marriage and any other agreements that may have alluded to her erstwhile husband, he translated the exact words.

When he finished, she had only one question: “What
about agreements that pertained only to me and preceded our marriage?”

“Such agreements will remain in effect under most conditions unless they designated you and your husband as one, naming you together as a married couple. In that instance, the designator must issue a new document.”

“There are none like that,” she said, signing her name without hesitation.

Wardlaw took the quill from her and wiped it with the cloth kept for that purpose. Then he said, “I ought to have asked earlier, my lady, but what have you done with Mistress Hyde?”

“She will be along shortly, sir. In troth, she made no objection when I suggested preceding her. However, I am glad I was able to talk freely with Jake and with you before she arrived.”

The legate said quietly then, “Art ready for the ceremony, my lady?”

“Aye, but—” She broke off when a loud rap announced Father Porter, who ushered Mistress Hyde into the room.

“Be there aught else I might do for you, your reverence?” the porter asked.

“Tell them to serve our breakfast here if you’ve not already done so,” Wardlaw said. “And see that Sir Jacob’s room is made ready.”

“I took the liberty of seeing to that as soon as I received word that he was up,” Father Porter said, smiling at Jake. “I also ordered your breakfast served here.”

“Excellent,” Wardlaw said. “You may stay if you like. Father Antonio is about to marry this pair.”

Mistress Hyde beamed at Alyson. “It be an honor tae attend ye, m’lady.”

“I know that we can rely on your discretion, Mistress Hyde, as always,” Wardlaw said with his charming smile.

“Och, aye, your reverence. I dinna talk o’ nowt I see here, even tae me man, unless ye say I may. Which ye never do,” she added conscientiously.

“You are a rare woman, Mistress Hyde,” he said. “Shall we begin, Father?”

“We shall,” Father Antonio said. “As to asking if anyone here knows just cause to object to this wedding…”

“We can dispense with that,” Wardlaw said easily. “Jake, if you will stand beside Lady Alyson…”

Jake did so, and five minutes later, Alyson had married him. The ceremony seemed to go much faster than she remembered.

When Father Antonio declared them husband and wife and Jake had given her a chaste kiss, Wardlaw rubbed his hands together and said, “Prithee, see if our food is forthcoming, Father Porter. New beginnings give me an appetite.”

Conscious only of Jake standing beside her with his hand at her elbow, Alyson could not seem to think about food.

“Don’t be nervous, lass,” he murmured when Wardlaw turned away to seat Mistress Hyde at the table they’d used the previous night.

“I’m not nervous,” she said. “I’m curious.”

Alyson’s frank statement stirred Jake’s libido so strongly that his appetite for food vanished. Knowing he would need all his energy to get through the day, especially since he’d not slept much during the night, he forced him
self to focus on the ale, bread, and soft-boiled eggs that constituted his breakfast.

Father Matthias was one of their servers. Jake nodded at him and smiled, although he knew that the priest would not speak or respond in any other way while seeing to his duties unless Wardlaw or Father Antonio addressed him.

They ate silently and finished their meal quickly. Meantime, Jake mentally calculated how long it would likely take the
Sea Wolf
to reach the harbor at Perth from St. Andrews Bay.

Having seen when he awoke that the tide was low but on the turn, he knew it would flow with them for hours but would turn against them at midday. During the afternoon, it would flow hard against them until low tide, soon after dark.

Allowing for the vagaries of the wind and the tides, it would take ten to twelve hours,
after
they got going. The
Sea Wolf
would go nowhere until he had consummated his marriage, but he did not object.

He would
not
make the same mistake that that dafty Clyne had made.

Chapter 17

T
he view from Jake’s bedchamber was as splendid as the view from the tower room. But when he shut the door, Alyson’s interest in the panorama fled.

The room suddenly seemed much smaller.

Jake stood with his back against the door, gazing at her as if the sight of her gave him deep pleasure. That look stirred the sensations she felt whenever her gaze met his but stronger than ever. She wondered if her parents felt so when they’d first married. She was sure Lizzie and her Jeb had.

“How curious are you, lass?” Jake asked softly.

A jolt of fire blazed at her core, as if her body burned for him to touch her there. Surprised to feel such a sensation before he had touched her, she knew she was blushing and could think of nothing to say.

“Speak, Allie. You don’t usually hesitate to tell me what you think.”

When his eyes began to gleam wickedly, she realized she had drawn her lower lip between her teeth again. Faith, she was chewing it!

“I’ve warned you about that,” he murmured. He straightened like a stretching cat and moved toward her purposefully.

Licking her lips, she said, “Is it better if you
tell
me things or show me?”

He grinned. “We must try both to find out. We’ll begin, I think, with the showing. I want to see you, lass, all of you. Let me help you unclothe yourself.”

His words increased the flow of heat through her body. When he looked into her eyes as he reached for her bodice lacing, a hunger for him filled her that was unlike anything she had ever known. He wore his usual leather vest, white shirt, deerskin breeks, and rawhide boots, and she was about to suggest that he, too, was overdressed when he reached into the pouch attached to his belt and took out the circle stone that he’d found on the cliffs.

“Remember this?”

“Aye, sure.”

“I looked through it again after we boarded the
Sea Wolf
. Guess what I saw.”

“What?”

“This,” he said, pulling her close and kissing her. Her clothes were quickly gone, and although he made no move hastily, she was soon in his bed, where he began at once to teach her what other married couples did in their beds.