The Laird Takes a Bride

by Lisa Berne

“It was my mother’s, given to her by my grandmother. Who had it from her mother. And so on. I should have presented to you, before, all the Penhallow jewels, as was your right. But somehow it never happened.”

  “There were distractions.”

  “Too many. Let’s have a simpler life from now on.”

  “I’d like that. Alasdair, is this a betrothal ring?”

  “What do you think?” He smiled warmly at her.

  “I think—yes. But I need to know for sure.”

  “You can be sure.”

  “Will you say the words?”

  “Of course. Will you marry me, Fiona? This time for real? For ever? No matter what that damned Tome might reveal tomorrow, next year, or fifty years from now?”

  “Yes, Alasdair, I will.”

  “I’m glad, lass. Glad beyond words.” With a reverence that brought a rush of happy tears to Fiona’s eyes, Alasdair took the ring and slid it onto the fourth finger of her left hand.

  “It fits,” she said softly, admiring the sapphire’s fiery sparkle.

  “As we do.”

  He leaned his head down to kiss her again, and eagerly did she return his kiss. He pulled her close and she slid her arms tightly around his neck and they stood there in the sheep pasture, body to body, heart to heart, soul to soul. Despite the cold unfriendly winds buffeting them, Fiona was sure she’d never felt so warm before, so completely connected to another person. So safe.

  When at length they pulled away a little, he said, “I love you, Fiona.”

  “I thought—I hoped you did,” she answered, still a little breathless from that long, that delightfully long kiss.

  “I’m sorry for my blindness, for my stubbornness, and my fear.”

  “I’m sorry for my own, and for my haste in leaving you. For running away. When Isobel and Duff found the second decree, I felt I had to go.”

  “Naturally you did. I’d hurt you. I was a fool.”

  “No. Not a fool. But—I think we both had to grow a little?”

  “Aye. Do you still love me, Fiona?”

  “Yes. I love you, Alasdair. More, I believe.”

  She could feel his arms tightening around her again, and she smiled at him. She reached up a finger and lightly traced the firm curve of his chin, and those delicious lines bracketing his mouth. “What happened to your cheek?”

  “Oh, a mountain lion came at me near Golspie,” he said, nonchalant.

  “But how dreadful! Have you other injuries? Is Duff all right?”

  “No other injuries, lass, and Duff is fine. Although he did get soaked to the bone when the bridge on which he was riding collapsed and he tumbled into a stream. I haven’t seen him laugh so hard in years. He’ll tell you, however, that he had more fun the day before last, when we were set upon by a pair of brigands in Brora, and that he whistled all the way through a snowstorm in the Grampian Pass.”

  “Gracious, what a journey,” she said, twinkling up at him. “It’s all deeply romantic, and Isobel will be so pleased to think of the travails you and Duff overcame on our behalf.”

  “Knights in shining armor, that’s what we are!” Alasdair said, much struck. “I wonder I didn’t think of that before. How I shall puff myself about. I suppose I’ll be completely insufferable by dinnertime.”

  Fiona laughed. “Won’t you come back to the keep, and let me put some of my salve on that wound?”

  “If it will make you feel better, lass.”

  “It will.”

  Hand in hand, they strolled along the muddy path as if bathed in mild spring sunshine. Fiona told him about Nairna. Then, when her sadness lifted, she described her unavailing efforts to convince the cook to try some new recipes, and also about a harrowing birth in the stables at which Father had managed to save the lives of both the mare and her foal, now a healthy, promising colt for which Father had great hopes.

  Alasdair in turn told her all about a fascinating book he’d been reading (the subject being an ingenious new plow he wanted to try in the spring), his suspicion that Cuilean had sired a large and thriving litter of pups by one of Shaw’s retrievers (Shaw had offered to give her one), and also about the rumor going around the castle that Dr. Colquhoun had secretly proposed to Mrs. Allen. And of course he told her about the goldfinches.

  “Oh, I can’t wait to be home again,” said Fiona fervently. “When can we, Alasdair?”

  “Whenever you like, lass, although I must admit I’m keen to have you there sooner rather than later, and feed you Cook’s good food myself if I have to. You need fattening up.”

  “Let’s get married tomorrow, then.”

  “I brought your wedding ring. Just in case.”

  “A short betrothal.”

  “And a long marriage.”

  They laughed.

  “Alasdair,” Fiona said, “do you like puns?”

  “You’d have to tie me to a chair to make me listen to them. Why?”

  “I was just wondering.” Fiona couldn’t help it, she gave a little skip of joy, and together, hands still warmly clasped, they kept walking.

  In the Great Hall they found a scene of genial confusion. Duff had wasted no time in gaining the hand of his Isobel (who, weeping happily, was successfully deploying one of her large new handkerchiefs), Mother was fluttering about still wrapped in her enormous shawl, Father had emerged from his gun room with one of the deadly-looking muskets grasped absentmindedly in one hand, his dogs were taking advantage of the disorder and boldly licking crumbs off the table, and Logan Munro stood close to the roaring fire, slavishly attended by two eager housemaids anxious to offer him tea or ale or whatever—whatever —he liked.

  Alasdair was introduced, wedding plans put forth, Father’s assent given, Mother joined Isobel in happy crying, and Logan, seeing that he was beaten, gave in with good grace, shook hands with Alasdair, congratulated him on his good fortune, and promptly made himself scarce, leaving the keep quietly the next morning and his absence mourned only by the maids—even Mother, the most good-natured person imaginable, privately confessing to Fiona that she’d gotten tired of having Logan lounging around the solarium, talking, and all too often interfering with her naps.

  Chapter 17

  And so the very next day, in the church where her sisters had been wed, Fiona and Alasdair were married. Rather to the disappointment of the local folk, there were no brawls, no sudden deaths, no ferrets dashing about, no spectacular leaks in the roof, or anything, really, to liven up what was, after all, just another wedding.

  Of interest was only the fact that immediately after Fiona and her foreign laird were leg-shackled, her cousin and his uncle were also married, and although Dame Isobel twice sobbed loudly enough to drown out the groom’s responses, nothing else untoward occurred.

  The feast that followed was also sadly unremarkable. There was no shouting, no cursing, no overturned tables, no fights among the dogs for scraps.

  Altogether a dull affair, said the locals.

  Fiona, however, wasn’t the least bit sorry everything had gone so smoothly. There were a few surprises here and there, but agreeable ones. Father, for one, was positively mellow. He had given a toast so eloquent and sentimental that she’d had to borrow Isobel’s handkerchief with which to dry her cheeks. And Mother had made a comment of stunning perspicacity.

  “I told you, Fiona dear, that you’d find someone you like!” she said complacently.

  Further stunning those assembled, Father had nodded sagely, and then planted a loud kiss on Mother’s lips.

  Wonders will never cease, thought Fiona, and turned her gaze from Mother’s astonished, but pleased countenance, to look across the table at Alasdair. They smiled at each other.

  There was another surprise in store.

  When the musicians began to play the lively, lilting “Largo Fairy”—not well, but with enthusiasm—Alasdair came to her and said:

  “Will you dance with me, lass? I’ve not yet had that pleasure.”

  Fiona demurred. “O
h, Alasdair, I don’t—I haven’t—the last time I tried was so long ago, and I tripped over my own feet, and forgot the steps, and really I was just terrible at it …” She trailed off, and for his ears alone she added softly, “I’m afraid.”

  He took her hand in his. “It seems to me that a woman who saved my life from the Dalwhinnies, and who kept herself alive and well when kidnapped by a band of desperate ruffians—to mention only two examples of your courage—need not fear a reel. But fear, I know, isn’t always a rational thing.” He lifted her hand to his lips, and kissed it. “If you wish, I’ll teach you. If you trip, I’ll catch you. And if you prefer not to, I won’t persist.”

  Fiona took a deep breath. The fiddles and the flutes did sound awfully inviting. Plenty of other people were already dancing —among them Isobel and Duff, and he so light on his feet it was a gladsome thing to observe. Everyone was having so much fun, and she—

  She had been thinking about slipping away, to make sure Duff’s things had all been moved into Isobel’s bedchamber, and that Alasdair’s had been brought into hers, and that a maid would be sure to bring up a hot cup of tea for Mother at bedtime, and also—

  But no. She could do all that later, or not at all. Everything would work out just fine. And meanwhile, the dancing looked like so much fun. And wasn’t it time that she allowed a little more fun into her life? Perhaps she and Alasdair could nip in there, inconspicuously—

  “Yes,” she said to him bravely. “Yes, I will.”

  And then he smiled, and led her into the dance.

  They passed their first night together in her cold, draughty bedchamber. Her bed was really too small for them both. But Fiona and Alasdair noticed neither the cold nor the size of the bed. They were intent on each other, whether it was to rediscover, or to discover, each other it was impossible to tell. It didn’t matter. A second chance had been given them—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that together they had created this second chance—and they were both determined to make the most of it. Their lovemaking was by turns fierce and tender, raw and achingly sweet.

  It wasn’t until the deepest dark of night was just beginning to yield to soft intimations of morning that they lay at rest, entwined, at their ease, utterly content.

  “Now that,” said Fiona with a purr in her voice, “is what I call a proper wedding night.”

  He kissed her ear. “Aye. Better this time around.”

  “Indeed. It makes me wonder what our third wedding night would be like.”

  “I don’t think we’d survive it.”

  She laughed, and snuggled her head a little more cozily into that wonderful hollow between Alasdair’s shoulder and his neck. How good he felt, and smelled, and tasted. And how tired she was. But in a nice way. She yawned, and lifted a hand—happily conscious of the rings upon it—to cover her mouth.

  “Alasdair.”

  “Aye, Fiona?”

  “I’ve just had the strangest thought.”

  “Tell me it.”

  “It suddenly occurred to me that the discovery of that second decree, which seemed so dreadful at the time, actually helped bring us together again. Doesn’t it seem that way?”

  “Aye,” he said, thoughtfully. “It was a kind of impetus, wasn’t it? It helped each of us realize we wanted to fight. Fight to find each other again.”

  Lovingly she pressed her lips to the warm, faintly salty skin of his neck. “How wonderful, and how mysterious.”

  “Life is, I think, filled with mysteries.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “There’s so much we can’t know.”

  “How Isobel came to read the Tome in the first place.”

  “Why goldfinches arrived at Castle Tadgh,” Fiona said.

  “Is there really a mysterious Greyman roaming the summit of Ben Macdui.”

  “The reason dogs turn in a circle before lying down.”

  “Why people like bad poetry,” said Alasdair.

  “Will Monty let me have some roses in the spring.”

  “The spices your cook put into the mutton stew.”

  In the cozy dimness Fiona smiled. “That, I daresay, we’ll never know.”

  “And may be better off not knowing.”

  The edge of the thick wool blanket had slipped away from Fiona’s shoulder, and Alasdair brought it up again, tucking it securely around her.

  “Thank you, dear heart,” said Fiona, drowsily, and yawned again. “Good night,” she said to him, “sweet dreams,” and then, as if it was the most natural thing in all the world, she gave a soft, happy sigh, closed her eyes, and fell deeply, deeply, asleep in his arms. And a minute or so after that, Alasdair had fallen asleep, too.

  There were, in fact, so many things Alasdair and Fiona could not have known.

  They didn’t know that on this night they had conceived a child, who would grace them with his presence some nine months later. They would call him James Amhuinn Gavin Penhallow—Amhuinn being the masculine version of Nairna. James would have the dark-red hair of his father, the changeable blue-gray eyes of his mother, and a merry laugh so contagious that you couldn’t help but laugh along with him.

  They didn’t know that James would be joined by a little brother approximately two years later: Archibald Stuart Bruce Penhallow, known at once and forever as Archie, much beloved by James—and vice-versa.

  Nor could they know that Duff would become so outraged by how Isobel had been cheated of her modest fortune that he became a dedicated student of the law-books, and would successfully bring her case through the tangled morass of the Edinburgh courts. But they did not live in the city, preferring, instead, to set up house in a charming cottage not far from Castle Tadgh, which very soon became a favorite haunt of the local children, who could rely on Isobel for a doll or a treat, and on Duff for a toy he’d whittled or a fascinating story he would tell. James and Archie would spend a lot of time there.

  Further afield, Logan Munro would eventually marry again, to an amiable, attractive young lady whose chief interest in life was dressing in the height of fashion. If he wasn’t quite as good a husband to her as he was to Nairna, and if he thought of Fiona a little more often than he should, he at least managed to conceal this from his new wife reasonably well. And if he did kiss housemaids in the stairwell now and then—so fond of him as they were!—this too he did with admirable discretion.

  Little Mairi MacIntyre, dainty, girlish, ethereally pretty, would receive several offers of matrimony, but confounded expectations by refusing them all. Instead she would become a passionate advocate for animal welfare in the Western Isles, spending most of her money on these endeavors, doing a great deal of good, and becoming yet more lovely as she aged.

  Wynda Ramsay, who had run away from Castle Tadgh in the middle of the night, had gotten as far as Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, where in due course she would marry a rich old shopkeeper who would then oblige her by dying within a year of their marriage, leaving her his entire fortune. Wynda would then—at last—betake herself to London. She would promptly wed an impoverished viscount, thus fulfilling her long-held ambition of entering the ton. If she hadn’t quite made it to the upper echelons of Society, well, it was a beginning.

  Her French never improved.

  And what else lay in store for Fiona and Alasdair?

  Immense happiness, and an appreciation for each other that would only continue to grow: love everlasting.

  And in the meantime, some other things would become known to them.

  For example, Shaw would give Fiona one of his retriever wolfhound puppies, who was, everyone agreed, the most engaging, the most adorable creature who ever lived (even with an incurable tendency to try and eat your shoes).

  Alasdair, despite a lifetime of avowals to the contrary, would indeed go to England—with Fiona, of course—and to his surprise, he’d have a good time there on his visit. His Sassenach relatives, he would discover, weren’t at all what he’d been expecting.

  The goldfinches would return, year a
fter year, to Castle Tadgh.

  And Monty would indeed bring Fiona roses in the spring, and for as long as they grew and bloomed.

  His best roses.

  Acknowledgments

  With deepest gratitude to Cheryl Pientka, Sarah Weston, Katelyn Detweiler, and Sophie Jordan.

  An Excerpt from The Bride Takes a Groom

  Keep reading for a sneak peek at

  The Bride Takes a Groom,

  the third book in Lisa Berne’s

  irresistible Penhallow Dynasty series

  Coming in Spring 2018!

  Prologue

  The Basingstoke Select Academy for Young Ladies

  Coventry, England

  June 1805

  A summer evening.

  Overhead, a full, golden moon.

  A soft, masculine voice murmuring in her ear, “Ma chérie, je veux te toucher.”

  A hand, drawn across her bosom.

  The faintest scent of lavender, carried ever so gently on the breeze that rustled leaves, caressed flowers.

  Lavender, and … witch hazel?

  A sudden, urgent warning sounded deep in Katherine Brooke’s brain, but it was too late.

  “Miss Brooke! Monsieur de la Motte! What is the meaning of this?” came the outraged voice of Miss Wolfe, headmistress of the very exclusive and even more expensive boarding school at which Katherine had been immured for two long, miserable years.

  Germaine—Monsieur de la Motte—gave an audible gasp of horror, and before Katherine’s equally horrified gaze the dashing music instructor who had been so bold, so daring, so eloquent, seemed abruptly to become a rather large pile of blancmange. He released her and pulled away as if he had just been holding in his arms a repulsive, bad-smelling troll he’d found lurking under a bridge somewhere, and gibbered:

  “Oh, Mademoiselle Wolfe, forgive me—it was nothing—without significance—a brotherly embrace to comfort only—the poor demoiselle so lonely and far from home—and but this one time, I do assure you—it was that I felt so deeply sorry for her—”

  “You lie, you—you weasel,” interrupted Katherine hotly. If she’d had her wits about her, she might have gone along with his inane little story and maybe, just maybe, mitigated this rapidly unfolding disaster, but there was something about the way he was babbling on, as if she was nothing, as if she was without significance, that made a crimson mist of rage rise up in front of her eyes like a vengeful wraith.