To Tame a Highland Warrior (31 page)

“He’ll come, Mama. I know he will.”

Elizabeth smiled and smoothed Jillian’s hair, but weeks passed and Grimm didn’t come.

Even Quinn started to get a little nervous.

“What will we do if he doesn’t show?” Quinn asked. He paced the study, moving his long legs silently. The wedding was tomorrow and no one had heard a word from Grimm Roderick.

Gibraltar poured them both a drink. “He has to come.”

Quinn picked up the goblet and sipped thoughtfully. “He must know the wedding is tomorrow. The only way he could possibly not know is if he is no longer in Scotland. We posted those blasted banns in every village of over fivescore inhabitants.”

Gibraltar and Quinn stared at the fire and drank for a time in silence.

“If he doesn’t come, I’ll go through with it.”

“Now, why would you be doing that, lad?” Gibraltar asked gently.

Quinn shrugged. “I love her. I always have.”

Gibraltar shook his head. “There’s love and then there’s
love
, Quinn. And if you’re not ready to kill Grimm simply for touching Jillian, then it’s not the marrying kind of love you’re feeling. She’s not for you.”

When Quinn made no reply, Gibraltar laughed aloud and slapped him on the thigh. “Oh, she’s
definitely
not for you. You didn’t even argue with me.”

“Grimm said something very similar. He asked me if I
really
loved her—if she made me crazy inside.”

Gibraltar smiled knowingly. “That’s because she
does
make him crazy inside.”

“I want her to be happy, Gibraltar,” Quinn said fervently. “Jillian is special. She’s generous and beautiful and so … och, so damned in love with
Grimm!”

Gibraltar raised his goblet to Quinn’s and smiled. “That she is. If push comes to shove, I’ll stop the ceremony and give her a choice. But I won’t let her marry you without giving her that choice.” As he drank, he regarded Quinn thoughtfully. “Actually, I’m not sure I’d let her marry you even then.”

“You wound me,” Quinn protested.

“She’s my baby girl, Quinn. I want love for her. Real love. The kind that makes a man crazy inside.”

Jillian curled into a ball on the window ledge of the drum tower and stared, unseeing, into the night. Thousands of stars dimpled the sky, but she saw none of them. Staring into the night was like staring into a great vacuum—her future without Grimm.

How could she wed Quinn?

How could she refuse? Grimm obviously wasn’t coming.

The banns had been posted throughout the country. There was absolutely no way he could
not
know that
tomorrow Jillian St. Clair was going to wed Quinn de Moncreiffe. The whole blasted country knew it.

Three weeks ago she might have run away.

But not tonight, not three weeks late for her monthly flow, not with no word from Grimm. Not after believing in him and being proven a lovesick fool.

Jillian rested her palm on her stomach. It was possible she was pregnant, but she wasn’t absolutely certain. Her monthly flow had often been irregular and she had been later than this in the past. Mama had told her that many things besides pregnancy could affect a woman’s courses: emotional turmoil … or a woman’s own devout wish that she was pregnant.

Was that it? Did she so long to be pregnant with Grimm Roderick’s child that she’d fooled herself? Or was there truly a baby growing inside her? How she wished she knew for certain. She drew a deep breath and expelled it slowly. Only time would tell.

She’d considered striking out on her own, tracking him down, and fighting for their love, but a defiant shred of pride coupled with good common sense made her refuse. Grimm was in the thick of a battle with himself, and it was a battle
he
had to win or lose. She’d offered her love, told him she would accept any kind of life as long as they lived it together. A woman shouldn’t have to fight the man she loved for his love. He had to choose to give it freely, to learn that love was the one thing in this world that
wasn’t
frightening.

He was an intelligent man and a brave one. He would come.

Jillian sighed. God forgive her, but she still believed.

He
would
come.

H
E DIDN
’
T COME
.

The day of her wedding dawned cloudy and cold. Sleet started falling at dawn, coating the charred lawn with a layer of crunchy black ice.

Jillian stayed in bed, listening to the sounds of the castle preparing for the wedding feast. Her stomach rumbled a welcome to the scents of roasting ham and pheasant. It was a feast to wake the dead, and it worked; she stumbled from the bed and groped her way through the dimly lit room to the mirror. She stared at her reflection. Dark shadows marred the delicate skin where her cheekbones met her tilted amber eyes.

She would marry Quinn de Moncreiffe in less than six hours.

The rumble of voices carried clearly into her chambers; half the county was in residence, and had been since yesterday. Four hundred guests had been invited and five hundred had arrived, crowding the massive castle and
spilling over into less accommodating lodgings in the nearby village.

Five hundred people, more than she would ever have at her funeral, tramping around the frozen black lawn.

Jillian squeezed her eyes tightly shut and refused to cry, certain she’d weep blood if she allowed even one more tear to fall.

At eleven o’clock Elizabeth St. Clair dabbed prettily at her tears with a dainty hanky. “You look lovely, Jillian,” she said with a heartfelt sigh. “Even more so than I did.”

“You don’t think the bags under my eyes detract, Mama?” Jillian asked acerbically. “How about the grim set of my mouth? My shoulders droop and my nose is beet red from crying. You don’t think anyone will find my appearance a bit suspect?”

Elizabeth sniffed, plunked a headpiece on Jillian’s hair, and tugged a thin fall of sheer blue gossamer over her daughter’s face. “Your da thinks of everything,” she said with a shrug.

“A veil? Really, Mama. No one wears a veil in these modern times.”

“Just think of it, you’ll start a new fashion. By the end of the year, everyone will be wearing them again,” Elizabeth chirped.

“How can he do this to me, Mama? Knowing the kind of love you and he share, how can he justify condemning me to a loveless marriage?”

“Quinn does love you, so it won’t be loveless.”

“It will be on my part.”

Elizabeth perched on the edge of the bed. She studied the floor a moment, then raised her eyes to Jillian’s.

“You do care,” Jillian said, somewhat mollified by the sympathy in Elizabeth’s gaze.

“Of course I care, Jillian. I’m your mother.” Elizabeth regarded her a pensive moment. “Darling, don’t fret, your da has a plan. I hadn’t intended to tell you this, but he doesn’t plan to make you go through with it. He thinks Grimm will come.”

Jillian snorted. “So did I, Mama. But it’s ten minutes to the hour and there’s no sign of the man. What’s Da going to do? Halt the wedding in the middle if he doesn’t show up? In front of five hundred guests?”

“You know your da has never been afraid of making a spectacle of himself—or of anyone else, for that matter. The man abducted me from my wedding. I do believe he’s hoping the same will happen to you.”

Jillian smiled faintly. The story of her mama’s “courtship” by her da had enthralled her since she’d been a child. Her da was a man who could give Grimm lessons. Grimm Roderick shouldn’t be battling himself about her, he should be battling the world
for
her. Jillian drew a deep breath, hoping against hope, imagining such a scene for herself.

“We are gathered here today in the company of family, friends, and well-wishers to unite this man and woman in the holy, unbreakable bonds….”

Jillian blew furiously at her veil. Although it puffed a bit, it didn’t clear her view. The preacher was slightly blue, Quinn was slightly blue. Irritably she plucked at the veil. No rose-colored hues for her on her wedding day, and why should there be? Outside the tall windows, sleet fell in vaguely blue sheets.

She stole a glance at Quinn, who stood at her side. She was eye level with his chest. Despite her despair, she conceded he was a magnificent man. Regally clad in ceremonial tartan, he’d pulled his long hair back from his chiseled face. Most women would be thrilled to be standing beside him, saying the vows of a lifetime, accompanying him to be mistress of his estate, to give him bonny blond bairns and live in splendor for the rest of their days.

But he was the wrong man.
He’ll come for me, he’ll come for me, I know he will
, Jillian repeated silently as if it were a magic spell she could weave from the fibers of sheer redundancy.

Grimm plucked another bann from the wall of a church as he sped by. He crumpled it and crammed it in a satchel that was overflowing with balled-up parchment. He’d been in the tiny highland village of Tummas when he’d seen the first bann, nailed to the side of a ramshackle bothy. Twenty paces beyond it he’d found the second, then the third and the fourth.