The Laird Takes a Bride

by Lisa Berne

  Oh, heavens, Fiona thought sardonically, I must have inadvertently violated clan law by allowing marinated asparagus and broad beans to be served at the annual harvest celebration. I suppose they’re here to tell me this dish can only be served in October. Ten lashes with the cat-o’-nine tails for me, no doubt.

  When finally they reached the high table, Duff first courteously helped Isobel to sit, pressed on her a glass of wine; then he moved aside a large platter to make room for the Tome, which with a strange precision he set at an equal distance between Alasdair and Fiona.

  “What’s this all about?” asked Alasdair, frowning.

  Moving with an exaggerated slowness that didn’t disguise the fact that his hands were trembling a little, Duff opened the Tome to a place some three-quarters of the way through, and pointed to a small paragraph of text in the middle of the right-hand folio.

  “I’m sorry,” Duff said heavily. “So sorry. For both of you.”

  Fiona watched as Alasdair read the text. She watched as he read the paragraph over and over. She watched the muscles in his jaw tighten.

  Twenty lashes with the cat-o’-nine tails, she thought flippantly.

  Then Alasdair pushed the Tome closer to her.

  “Read this,” he said.

  He stood up and scanned the Great Hall.

  Afterward, everyone agreed that the laird hadn’t shouted or thundered; he had spoken in only a slightly louder voice than usual, yet it was strange, they later commented with awe, how effortlessly it had cut through all the noise and merriment, like a knife slicing through a thread.

  “Where is Dame Margery?”

  Something about the way he said it made the musicians put down their instruments, the children pause in their games. Servants stopped serving, ferrying dishes, whisking here and there.

  “I am here, laird.” Margery got to her feet, stood leaning on her gnarled stick.

  “Come here, madam, if you please.”

  “Aye, laird.”

  Fiona barely noticed all this, for now she was reading the text on page 758 over and over again.

  The ancient clan decree specifying that any chieftain of Castle Tadgh who, having entered into his thirty-fifth birthday still in an unmarried state, must, on pain of death, cause to be brought into the castle all eligible maidens of noble birth from among the Eight Clans of Killaly and from among them select a bride within a span of thirty-five days is hereby rendered null and void. Consequently the obligation among such maidens to comply with this decree or else suffer ignominious death by drowning is also declared obsolete. Be it known that should any chieftain and any maiden have unwittingly obeyed said decree, the union between them is legally invalid and they are to immediately retrogress to their previously unmarried state. Be it also known that no disgrace is to come upon them. The lady is to be granted her original virgin status. All offspring from this specious union are to have their parentage acknowledged but must formally be known as bastards henceforth.

  Fiona felt a crazy desire to laugh. At least I’m not going to be whipped for serving asparagus and broad beans. But instead of giving way to an unseemly bray of laughter, she loosely laced her fingers together in her lap, sat up straighter than ever, and made herself breathe in a steady cadence. She dared not look at Alasdair, who had once again taken his seat but was very still.

  A leaden silence descended as slowly Margery made her way among the crowds thronging the Great Hall. People stepped away from her as if from an Old Testament prophet, respectfully but also uneasily.

  At long last the old lady reached the high table.

  “How may I serve you, laird?”

  “I assume, madam, you are not familiar with this passage in the Tome?”

  In a careful, controlled voice, Alasdair read it out loud, and Dame Margery went white.

  “Oh, laird, on my life I was not! Surely you must know I was not!”

  “Anyone might have missed it,” Isobel put in, anxious to be helpful. “It was in the middle of a tremendously dull section about logging rights and timber sales, which seems like an odd place for such an announcement, when you think about it. It’s a wonder I came to notice it, for I’m not the least bit interested in lumber transactions.”

  Margery’s stricken gaze didn’t waver from Alasdair’s face. “I believed I knew the Tome from start to finish, laird, every page, every word, every statute and decree. My arrogance is unforgivable.” She bowed her head. “You must punish me as you see fit. Banishment would be a mercy, but if it’s death, then so be it.”

  “Nonsense,” responded Alasdair, in that same controlled manner. “You may return to your seat.”

  “I thank you for your lenience, laird. ’Tis more than I deserve. With your permission, I’d like to go home. I’ve no stomach now for the feast, or for the festivities.”

  “Of course you can go home. Need you an escort?”

  “Nay, laird. In my spirit I am shattered, but my legs will carry me. For your benevolence I thank you yet again.” As sorrowful as a mourner at a funeral, Dame Margery turned and, leaning on her stick, with plodding steps began walking away from the high table.

  Alasdair saw before him a sea of stunned, troubled faces, saw the question in their eyes. He said, in a quiet yet carrying voice:

  “Those who wish may stay. Those who want to leave may freely go.”

  At his words, the crowd quietly dispersed. Nobody actually ran screaming from the Hall, but there was no question, Fiona thought, that they were fleeing as they would from a disaster. A flood, say, or a fire. Possibly a plague of locusts. And it was remarkable how quickly the place emptied. How eerie it looked with the tables still laden, but with the vacated chairs set higgledy-piggledy all around them. Only Duff and Isobel remained, their faces pale and drawn.

  “Christ, what an unholy mess,” Alasdair said.

  For a few seconds of wild confusion Fiona thought he was referring to the abandoned feast, and the monumental effort it would take to clean it all up, but when she looked at him she realized he was staring grimly at the Tome.

  It was then that she finally understood. Not just in her brain but in every particle of her being.

  She and Alasdair were no longer married.

  Grief slammed through her, hard enough to make her grip her hands painfully together. These past weeks had been awful, worse than awful, yet never in a thousand years would she have dreamed their marriage would be severed in this way. So quickly, so cleanly. So decisively. But in the wake of that sad dark wave there came a sudden thought:

  It’s not too late.

  What has been put asunder, can still be joined together.

  Hope fluttered up.

  Quickly Fiona half-turned in her chair, looked at Alasdair.

  Even as Fiona turned, Alasdair did the same, within him an inarticulate longing.

  Their eyes met.

  And held.

  A word, a whisper, the slightest smile, a hand extended, any sign of yielding could have brought them back from the brink. There was infinite opportunity in that locked gaze. There was a future.

  But between them, separating them, was pride, like a high fence staked deeply into the ground. Fear. Anger. Stubbornness. Old hurts, new hurts.

  How could hope stand a chance against it all?

  And so the moment passed.

  Their gazes fell away.

  Accompanying Dame Margery home to their cottage, Sheila suddenly said, “That’s three.” A vague memory floated across her mind, how she had, weeks ago, gotten out of her bed, very early before anybody else was awake, and slipped off to the castle in the gloom of waning night. There she had gone into the Armament Room, an intimidating place under ordinary circumstances, filled as it was with old guns and sharp swords in large glass cases, alarming suits of armor, shields and nasty-looking spears set high on the walls. After Granny had told everyone in the Great Hall about how the laird must marry, and after the great fuss that had followed, somebody had put that big, dusty old book
back in the Room, on its elaborate iron stand that looked just a little like an instrument of torture.

  She had taken the book—oh, how heavy it was!—upstairs, as quick as any deer of the forest, and gone into that pink frilly room where a big mahogany cabinet stood. She had pulled open one of the little doors and slid the Tome inside.

  Why, Sheila wondered now, had she done that? It had seemed so important at the time.

  “Three what, sweeting?” Granny asked.

  Sheila looked up at her grandmother. She’d already forgotten what she had said, and the memory of taking the Tome was swiftly fading. “Oh, nothing, Granny,” she replied. “It was a strange feast, wasn’t it? See? I told you I didn’t need to take a bath. I’m still hungry, aren’t you? What’s for supper tonight, Granny? I hope it’s something good.”

  In the Great Hall, Fiona said to Alasdair, coolly, “That’s that, then. I’ll leave tomorrow.”

  He watched in numb disbelief as she slid the gold ring from the fourth finger of her left hand. It came off with an ease that somehow seemed a little obscene. Gently she placed it on the table between them.

  Did she feel freed? From a burden so dreadful she couldn’t wait to be gone? Had her feelings for him, then, dissolved so quickly? Or was there something monstrous—repellent—in him, some awful, fundamental aspect of his character that was driving her away?

  Her face, calm, as remote as a medieval saint set in stone, was his answer. And he remembered that ugly exchange between them in the Great Drawing-room, when she had vehemently said, You’re nothing to me. I’m so sorry I married you. And determined to hold himself aloof from her, he’d replied, I’m afraid, though, that you’re stuck with me.

  How wrong he had been.

  How terribly wrong.

  “But the baby!” blurted Duff, and Alasdair whipped around.

  “What?”

  “Fiona is—that is, Isobel and I assumed—the symptoms—” Duff stammered out, then faltered when he saw Fiona give a small shake of her head. “Ah, lass, I’m sorry.”

  “Look on the bright side, Uncle,” she answered levelly. “No bastards to worry about.”

  My God, my God, Alasdair thought, but she’s a cool one. Out loud he said:

  “Are you certain, Fiona?”

  “Oh yes, quite sure. Nature has told me so.” She stood up. “If you’ll excuse me? I’ve so much to do before I go. Laird, I trust you’ll allow Begbie to assign some of his men as outriders on my journey to Wick Bay?”

  “I will escort you myself.”

  “No. I’ll go as I came, alone, a maiden—” Her lip curled ever so slightly. “— a maiden of clan Douglass.”

  He stood up also, and looked deep into those big, long-lashed gray eyes. “Fiona,” he said, quietly, urgently, “there’s no need to go in such haste.”

  “On the contrary, there’s every need. I want to move forward with my life.”

  “You can do that here.”

  “You and I both know that’s not true.”

  “Why is it not true?” he asked, feeling like a schoolchild who has failed, and spectacularly too, at a lesson that should have been learned some time ago.

  “Because I’m greedy,” she said evenly. “Because I’m greedy and I’m hungry. I’m ravenous. My God, I’m starving. But what I want you don’t have to give me. It’s not your fault. I don’t blame you. It’s just the way it is. And I don’t want to fight against it anymore. That’s why tomorrow I’m leaving here.”

  “But—” he said, “don’t you—shouldn’t we—” And abruptly he ground to a halt. Not knowing what else to do, he reached out his hand for hers, hoping that his touch might accomplish what his inarticulate words couldn’t.

  But she stepped back and away from him.

  “No,” she said. “It’s not proper. That’s all over now. Will you have Begbie assign some outriders for me?”

  “As you will,” he replied, numbly. “I’ll speak to him myself.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And—and could he have readied a carriage for myself, please, laird.”

  They all looked at Isobel, in whose trembling voice was nonetheless a firm resolution.

  “But—” said Duff, and stopped.

  “My place,” Isobel said, “is with Fiona.” She too rose to her feet. “How can I help you, Fiona dear?”

  “If I may, I’ll share your bedchamber tonight, Cousin. And we’ll need to get our things packed very quickly.”

  “Of course. Shall I—shall I send an express to your parents?”

  “No. We’ll surprise them,” said Fiona with a small, sardonic smile.

  “Very well.” Distressfully Isobel pressed a hand to her forehead. “Oh dear, how dreadful this is! I can only imagine the reception we’ll receive back in Wick Bay! Do you suppose your father will be very angry with us?”

  “With me, do you mean? I couldn’t care less. I’m too big to be left on the shores of the bay to die, after all, and if he sends me off to a hut on the marsh I’ll have a very nice time there, away from his moods and his tempers. Well,” Fiona added politely, “good day to you, gentlemen,” and briskly she left the Great Hall, an agitated Isobel following behind, doing her best to keep up on her shorter legs.

  Alone in the Hall, Alasdair looked at Duff, who had slumped, miserable, in his chair.

  “I’m sorry, Uncle,” he said at last, his voice low and rough.

  “I’m sorry too, lad,” answered Duff.

  In a minute, Alasdair thought, he’d go off to the stables and find Begbie. Do everything that was needful to ensure a safe, comfortable journey for Fiona and Isobel.

  He’d go in a minute.

  Just until he could process the fact that his life had, in the blink of an eye, come crashing down around him, with an irrevocability that seemed to turn his insides to a solid block of ice.

  Chapter 15

  The next morning, under a bright blue sky filled with white, hurrying clouds, it seemed as if every able-bodied member of clan Penhallow had gathered in the courtyard to say farewell. Fiona couldn’t help but be touched, and although it took everything she had to remain cool and calm amidst such a large crowd—A chieftain’s daughter doesn’t cry in front of people, she kept reminding herself—there was something to be said for a public goodbye to her former husband.

  Duff had already, with exquisite care, handed a white and trembling Isobel into the carriage.

  Now he came to Fiona. “Well, lass,” he said, and paused, awkward. Then, as if language failed him, swiftly he hugged her, and stepped back, his gaze going to Isobel whose face was framed, as if in a portrait he would never forget, in the carriage window.

  “Goodbye, Uncle,” Fiona said. Uncle-that-was, actually, but why bring it up now? Behind her, held by his leading rein by Begbie, Gealag snorted, and she could hear the cheerful jingle of his harness as he tossed his great head, as if he were impatient to be off and on their way.

  Then Alasdair was there, tall, grave, regal, his dark-red hair glinting in the sun, his eyes pure amber and citrine. How odd it was, Fiona thought, that when she first met him, and for some time thereafter, she had not found him particularly attractive.

  Now it occurred to her that she must have been blind.

  You look but you do not see.

  So she studied his face, allowed her gaze to sweep up and down the entire muscular length of him, memorizing every detail, for it would have to last her a long time. Forever: yes, a very long time indeed.

  “Mar sin leat,” Alasdair said to her. “Slàn leibh.”

  Goodbye. May you be well.

  “You also.” She was glad her voice was so steady, for in reality she didn’t feel very sturdy. No, her legs felt a little shaky and she could have sworn the ground beneath her feet was tilting ever so slightly.

  “May I?” asked Alasdair, as Begbie brought Gealag forward.

  “I—yes.”

  And for the last time Alasdair was intimately close to her, for the last time he
was touching her, his big hands about her waist; with his immense strength he lifted her without apparent effort onto the saddle.

  He stepped back.

  “Thank you,” Fiona said quietly, and just as quietly he said:

  “You’re welcome.”

  She gathered Gealag’s reins in her gloved hands; gloved because today there was a distinct chill in the air. Summer was gone. Fiona looked at Alasdair for the very last time, looked down upon him where he stood in the courtyard, very still, very straight, his arms at his side. Into her mind came Juliet’s anguished words to her Romeo when they parted for—as it would turn out for them also—for ever.

  Methinks I see thee now, thou art so low as one dead in the bottom of a tomb. Either my eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale.

  And trust me, love, in my eye so do you, answers Romeo. Dry sorrow drinks our blood.

  Fiona shuddered. She clicked her tongue to Gealag and at once he broke into a playful trot. Together they led the way out of the courtyard, followed by the large handsome coach in which Isobel rode, and the dozen armed men who would bring her safely home.

  She did not look back.

  When the cavalcade had disappeared from sight, Alasdair went out beyond the kitchen garden and chopped wood for Cook’s fires, did it until blisters, angry and painful, had sprung up on both hands, until Duff came, until Duff came and with the soft voice of one approaching a vicious and unpredictable beast, finally managed to coax him away from the towering pile of wood which might well last Cook into, and through, a long, harsh winter.

  Isobel managed to retain her composure until the third day of their journey. She and Fiona had finished their evening meal, alone in a capacious private parlor of the inn where they were to pass the night, and they were sitting before a large comfortable fire that helped chase away a threatening dampness. Rain had swept down upon them late in the afternoon and now they could hear it drumming hard upon the roof, lashing furiously at the windows.