The Raven's Wish (27 page)

Quick as the snap of a whip, Kenneth pulled a plaid from a saddle and threw it over her head, catching her like a fish in a net. Struggling, she pushed against the pairs of arms that now held her, lifted her. Cursing, bucking against their handling, she kicked her feet into solid muscle here and there, but despite her efforts she was flung over the saddle like a sack of barley.

She was not frightened, but was angry and puzzled. Why would they do this in the black of night, when they could not go raiding now? What did they intend with Duncan?

The answer that came to her was so alarming that she kicked and struggled frantically. One of her cousins had climbed into the saddle and held her down. She shrieked, bucked in protest, but the plaid was tight around her and she had no choice but to subside as the garron surged beneath her and moved steadily over the moorland.

The air inside the plaid was stale and smelled of horses, and her head hung downward uncomfortably. She squirmed, trying to right herself, but could not. After a while, her cousin—she was sure he was Callum, for his hands were that large—gripped her arms and dragged her upright to sit in front of him. "Just behave," he warned.

"Behave?" she squeaked through the cocoon of wool. "And do any of you show good manners? Let me go! I do not like your drunken game!"

"Not so drunk, girl. We want you to be happy, that is all, so we take you to be wed."

"Happy?" she shrieked. "Wed? You abduct your own cousin for this? Wed who?"

"Duncan Macrae. A fine idea, is it not?" She could hear his grin in his voice. She elbowed him. He grunted. "Now, girl, you will be glad of this later."

"I will be glad when I can curse you to your face, you
gloichd
!"

"Ah, Elspeth, that hurts, to be called in idiot."

"Well, you are! Take me home. Take this blanket off me!"

"I cannot. The MacShimi has ordered this."

"Then he is an idiot with all of you. Did Duncan Macrae suggest this? I said I would not wed him!"

"He did not. We do you both a favor," Callum said.

"Give me none of your help," she muttered.

Callum laughed. She turned her head back and forth in agitation, trying to loosen the snug plaid. Finally her cousin let the fabric out a bit, and she felt fresh air, though he would not lift the plaid away.

They rode on while Elspeth fumed beneath the plaid, squirmed and swore, threatened and muttered creatively about the demise of each of her cousins.

"Hold now," Callum said. "We might deserve such awful fates—but later you may name your sons after us."

"I will name a plague on you," she said.

"We knew you would not come peacefully. We thought the marriage should be made, and this was the quickest way."

She leaned back against him as the pony took a steep hill. She was about to describe some ugly demise for Duncan Macrae as well, thinking him part of this drunken scheme, until she remembered that a grim fate already awaited him.

That sobered her anger. "Callum, please do not do this. You do not understand—I cannot wed this man."

"Here we are," Callum said then, halting the pony. He slid from the saddle and lifted her down. She snarled and struggled, determined to make this difficult for him, and all of them.

He carried her, swathed in the plaid, into a building, climbing a few steps to the entrance. Voices echoed all around her, quiet but hollow. She heard footsteps and echoes, the soft sounds of a stone interior, though she could still hear the moan of a fresh wind. They were inside, and yet outside.

A ruin, she thought. They were in some dilapidated stone structure. Callum set her down and someone else bound her arms to her sides. She pushed in vain against the new bonds.

"Hold, girl," Kenneth said at her ear. "Your temper does not belong in church."

"Church! Take the plaid from me. Please," she added.

"Not yet,
mo gradhan
," he said with affection, patting her shoulder. He left her there.

Long moments passed, and she felt panic rise from being half-smothered in the old plaid. Hopping about, she nearly fell over, her balance off kilter. Hearing a scrape and a thud close by, then a groan, she knew the voice. "Duncan?" she asked.

"Aye," he muttered. "
Dhia
, my head hurts."

Elspeth scowled. "And I hope it hurts you till Doomsday!"

"Do you think that I—"

"Are these the two?" A voice trembling with age spoke close by now. Elspeth heard Magnus answer affirmatively.

"Is the girl willing to take the man?" the old man asked. "I do not condone—"

"She is willing," Magnus said, and Hugh echoed him.

"Very well."

Elspeth knew the old man's voice—a parish priest named Patrick. She guessed that they were standing in an abandoned church a few miles north of Glenran, beyond the great loch.

"Father Patrick!" she said. "Och, someone take this thing off my head!" She stumbled into Duncan, who grunted and fell to his knees while she floundered on him like a landed fish.

"Hold still, my girl, I cannot help you with my hands bound," he said, his voice close to her ear.

"I want no help from a drunken idiot who helps with a marriage abduction," she said through her teeth. She wriggled away from him but he turned on his side and she was pinned face to face with him against a stone wall, his chest hard against her softness.

"I am as surprised by this as you. Stop wiggling about," Duncan muttered, "pleasant as it is."

"Pleasant!" She thrust her fist into his midsection.

"Oof," he said.

"Father Patrick!" she called as Duncan took her over in a roll, both of them tangled in the plaid.

"Elspeth, listen," Duncan whispered.

"Ah, look, those two cannot be wed too soon," Ewan drawled. Another of her cousins laughed, and strong hands hoisted her to her feet, taking away the plaid. The chill air felt like wind from heaven.

She rounded on her cousins, who grinned. "How dare you do this?" she demanded, as Ewan took her arm. "Let me go!"

"Dear one, I cannot," Ewan said. "This marriage will be done, if we have to force it."

"Force if you must, you get no consent from me!" Beside her, Magnus and Callum lifted Duncan to his feet and undid his bonds. He shook his head as if he were dazed, then spoke to Kenneth, standing near him. Her dark-haired cousin replied softly and turned to Elspeth.

"Hush now, and let the priest marry you to the lawyer," Kenneth said.

Father Patrick now came toward him, stoop-shouldered and white-haired, shuffling beside Hugh, who spoke to him in a raised voice. Then Elspeth remembered that the old priest was deaf—and nearly blind. Likely he had not heard her call out to him, and may not have noticed that the bride and groom had been bound and brought here against their will.

"So, he is the best priest for the task," she said low.

"Certainly," Ewan said. "Ah, girl, surely you will accept and be pleased with the husband we have chosen for you."

She curled her lip. Yet secretly, her heart beat oddly fast. Glancing at Duncan, she saw that he now leaned against the wall, looking at them with a wary expression. In the moonlight, she noticed a trickle of dried blood on his forehead.

"Not drunk, but hurt!" She turned an accusing glance on Ewan, then Kenneth. "What have you done?"

"We tapped him a bit on the head. He would not have come with us otherwise. Callum was careful," Ewan explained.

"You truly are idiots, all of you," she snapped.

Kenneth bent toward her, his long dark braid brushing her shoulder. "We want you to be married to his man, and we think you want it, too, so we are seeing it done. He was planning to leave for Edinburgh tomorrow, so we had to do something fast. Abductions are easy enough to arrange, and not uncommon for a wedding, and often result in a happy marriage. Hugh agreed it should be done."

Elspeth looked again at Duncan, and as he glanced at her, she blushed—not from anger, but with sudden, breathless anticipation. He came toward her, and her heart leaped like a doe.

He was fully capable of refusing the marriage now that he was recovering from the blow. Yet he had not argued, and seemed willing to go through with it.

"Elspeth." He stood close to her, leaning down to speak quietly. "You know what they mean for us to do here."

"I know. But I did not—"

"Mo caran," he murmured, lifting his hand to brush her cheek. "This will be a good thing, I promise you."

"I am afraid," she said quickly, surprising herself.

"I will not take you out of the Highlands, if that is what you fear."

She shook her head. "It is not that. I fear for you."

"No need. I am not afraid to marry you." He gave her a wry smile and stepped away.

"Duncan—"

"Here is Father Patrick!" Hugh said loudly, bringing the old man forward to stand with Elspeth and Duncan, and the rest of the cousins, near the weather-stained, moonlit altar.

Surrounded by a tight circle of determined men, Elspeth tipped up her head to look at Duncan, who took her hand in his.

Father Patrick was old and impaired, but he had an intact memory and a nimble tongue, intoning the ceremony in Latin and Gaelic so quickly that Duncan was asked if he would take the woman before Elspeth had even formed her response, for she would not go quietly into a forced marriage of any sort.

"I will," Duncan murmured.

"He will," Hugh and Magnus said together.

The priest asked Elspeth a similar question, and she tried to yank her hand from Duncan's when his grip turned to iron.

"I will no—" she began. Ewan clapped a hand over her mouth.

"She will," he said.

"Oh, she will," Kenneth told the priest loudly. The old man nodded, while Elspeth stomped on Ewan's foot.
Married!
She could hardly believe it.

Father Patrick intoned the blessing and sketched a cross in the air. Then Hugh thanked the old man and led him away, and Ewan took his hand from Elspeth's mouth.

"Good," Kenneth said. "The thing is done."

"My wedding day, and not even a wish for luck?" Elspeth fumed as she looked at the men gathered near her. "Not even flowers for my hair? And all of you, proud of this." She fixed each with a glare and whirled toward Duncan. "And you!"

He tilted a brow, then leaned down and kissed her lips, quickly and tenderly, so that her breath caught in her throat, but she would not let on that it meant anything. "That, for luck."

"This cannot be a legal marriage," she said.

He nodded as if considering that for the first time. "I wonder. A marriage must be registered with the archbishop to be recognized—Fortrose on the Black Isle would be the place for our location. And since the Church has lost so much power in Scotland, marriage vows said by a priest might be questionable—"

"There, see!" Elspeth said.

"But we have several witnesses, and that is enough," Duncan finished.

"It is not registered, and the Church ceremony may not be approved," Elspeth told her cousins. "This is not legally done."

Hugh laughed outright. "We saw a wedding, and we say you two are wed, and I am chief, and that is good enough." He turned toward the others. "We shall go home now with our cousin and her new husband, and share a few drams of Glenran's finest
uisge beatha
in celebration!"

"A few drams will likely kill Duncan after that head knock you gave him," Elspeth said.

"Then you will be a rich widow," Callum said. He clapped Duncan on the shoulder. "I am sorry to have hit you, man, but you seem none the worse for it. And you are wed now, and that is what is most important."

"Indeed. Fetch the horses, lads, if you please. My head is aching and I wish to go home…with my wife." Duncan looked at her and lifted a brow. "Will you go with me, Elspeth?"

She drummed her fingers on her folded arms. "I will join you when all the seas turn to ice," she said between her teeth.

"It is a chill night," he mused. Someone laughed.

"This was dishonorably done. I said I would not marry you in the Highlands or the Lowlands."

"And this place is neither," Hugh pointed out. "It belongs to the Church."

"Clever lads," Duncan said, nodding.

"Still, we are likely not legally married," she persisted.

"Long-robe, your wife does not lose her anger easily," Callum said amicably.

"So I am learning," Duncan said. "But for now we are wed, and that is good enough until we can sort out the rest."

"Girl, you will thank us for it one day," Kenneth said.

Elspeth turned on her heel and stomped out toward the waiting horses.

* * *

The dream came to him again, slightly different this time. Standing by a dark sea, Duncan saw the waves rising over Elspeth. He swam with hard, strong strokes, came close enough to grab her, but lost his hold. The sparkling dark surface of the water sucked her under. He called her name—and he woke.

Sweat dampened his skin, and his head ached in dull reminder of Callum's wedding gift. The room was dark: he had slept from afternoon well into evening, after succumbing to one of Flora's infusions for headache.

Shoving away the coverlet, he sat up in trews and loosened shirt. The dream still spun in his mind, and he had to be certain that Elspeth—his wife, for love of heaven—was safe. He had to see her. He set his bare feet to the floor.

When they had returned to Glenran after the wedding, Elspeth had gone up to her room and had locked the door, refusing to admit any but Flora, who had come downstairs now and then to dutifully scold and repeat a little invective for the cousins' benefit. Elspeth sent no message to Duncan, who sat in the hall with a foul-smelling poultice on his head for Flora's sake, who had fussed over him. Duncan had let Elspeth be, waiting for her temper to cool; there was no point in approaching her until then.

Robert Gordon had sat with them in the hall, sharing strong drink and listening to their accounts with a gleam in his pale eyes. When he raised his goblet to toast the day, Duncan felt sure that Robert enjoyed the turmoil more than the wedding news. He gave no congratulations, asking only how many witnesses were there.