He stood a long moment, his jaw working as if he fought with what he wished to say. “Handfast then. We’ll do this the Scottish way. In the hall at five o’clock. Do not be late.” The door slammed behind him, cutting off further argument.
My heart pounded loudly. Handfast. Was that better or worse than marriage? I glanced at the clock on the mantel. Nearly noon. Five hours before I had to face the devil again.
Chapter Twenty-four
“This will never do.” I touched my hand to my cheek, pale from the weeks spent indoors, and noted that my hair had grown both longer and lighter since I’d left England. The gown Ian had chosen complimented both, the reflection in the glass proving more favorable than I had anticipated— or wished.
“It has to. The MacDonald will have my head if you don’t wear this tonight. Besides, the gown’s only a wee bit long. Nothing that can’t be fixed.” Bridget knelt before me, fingering the delicate lace of the trim. “Shall I remove this?”
“Yes, please,” I said, eager to do any little thing to appear plainer. The gown fit well and hung all the way to the floor, unlike the plain, too-short, grey dress I had been married in. A heavy, deep rose fabric with a lavish imprint of flowers comprised the overskirt, while an inset bodice and sleeves of cream lace made it even more lovely. Too much so for such a somber occasion. I ought to be wearing black.
Once, years ago, beautiful gowns had been almost commonplace for Anna and me. But that time and place seemed far removed from today.
“Seems a shame not to use this,” Bridget said as she picked at the stitching of the delicate hem. “Perhaps in your hair.”
“No.” I didn’t want any more adornments and had almost refused the gown altogether, until Bridget told me Ian’s ultimatum. If I would not wear it I was to be given nothing, not so much as a stocking or shift, but would be required to attend the proceedings just the same— even if he had to carry me down. The thought of appearing naked in front of a hall full of people was too mortifying to contemplate.
I suspected Ian’s insistence would continue throughout the night ahead. If I refused to handfast with him, would he have my hand cut off?
“Oh, what a lovely sight you are to behold,” Mary exclaimed as she entered the room. “And how is my patient this eve?”
Miserable. “Well enough.” I mustered a smile for Alistair’s wife. She’d been nothing but kindness itself, and her attentions had spared my arm and perhaps my life as well. I should have missed the former very much, though I could not say the same of the latter. In the face of what lay ahead, death still beckoned with considerable appeal.
“This was your mother’s, I suppose?” Mary touched the elaborate sleeve as she took hold of my arm, her gentle probing of the bones beneath the splint making me wince as much from habit as from actual pain. Three weeks in the splint she’d fashioned had done wonders.
“It is well your sleeves are not longer,” Mary said as she examined her handiwork.
“Had a devil of a time getting that contraption through them as it were,” Bridget said.
“I remember when your grandfather sent away for this gown. It was a gift for your mother, to be worn on the occasion of a visit from some rather important English guests, if I recall.”
Father? “Why would he have wished her to be present at all?” I asked, confused, given the horrendous acts the English seemed to perpetually commit upon the Scots. “I should think he would have wished to hide his daughter away and pretend he had none at all.”
“One would think.” Bridget finished with the hem and stood, a bundle of lace in her hands. “But Liam Campbell did not think like an ordinary man. He felt. And because he felt, he knew.”
Mary nodded. “Pained him though it did, no doubt, your grandfather kent that his daughter was to marry an Englishman. All he could do then was to make sure she met the right one.”
“My father.” He’d been a good man, though some of the things he’d done while in service to the crown were not admirable.
I thought of him and my stepmother, my sister Anna and my little brother Timothy. Would I ever see any of my family again? What would they say were they to see me now, about to wed— or handfast— my husband’s twin, a scant week after learning of Collin’s death and not even two months since our own marriage?
No doubt they would feel as appalled as I did. In addition, my stepmother would have been horrified by the state of the castle and grounds. Anna would perhaps have described my gown as quaint and charming, all while holding her nose and thinking herself above wearing anything so antiquated. Timothy would have thought it terribly exciting that I was marrying a pirate.
I smiled at the thought.
“There now, lass. That’s it,” Mary said. “Smile like that for the MacDonald, and you’ll melt his heart fine.”
“The man doesn’t have a heart.” Bridget spoke my very thought.
“If that were truth,” Mary mused, “why did he not come here and slaughter us all? He might have, you know.”
“Perhaps he prefers to toy with his prey first,” Bridget grumbled.
I’d had the exact suspicion about Ian and found it even more discomfiting now that someone else had voiced it.
“I’ve never met a man who hasn’t a heart somewhere,” Mary said. “Even the fierce ones. Sorry I am that the task of taming this one falls to you, Katherine. But we’re counting on you, just the same.”
“What do you mean?” My eyes met hers in the reflection of the glass.
“The MacDonalds are here to stay. They’ve settled in right as rain and are not intending to go anywhere till next spring, at least. Ian MacDonald means to govern us all, and you’re the only thing standing between the clan and his temper.” Mary patted my arm softly. “Do what you can, lass.”
“All the more reason for a bit of lace.” Bridget stood behind me and began gathering my hair. “He’ll not let me serve you after tonight if anything goes wrong. He’s told me as much already.”
I didn’t want my hair done up fancy but held back my protest. It seemed almost selfish, given what Mary had just shared with me. What I wanted ceased to matter— if it ever had.
I stared at my reflection again. From the moment I’d put on the gown, I’d felt equal parts dismayed and bolstered in spirit, as if my mother knew me and the peril I faced and would be beside me in my trials. It was a feeling near to what Collin had described to me once, and what had seemed strange then, felt comforting now. If the spirits of the dead lingered in this place, I welcomed them and whatever help they could give as I stumbled blindly into a frightening future.
“A bonny bride you are, that’s what.” Bridget stood back to admire her work. “A shame you’re marryin’ the devil.”
“I’m not a bride.” I turned from the glass and the woman I saw there about to betray her husband.
It was Collin for whom I should have looked pretty. Collin, who had never seen me in a gown this fine, or with my hair arranged as it was now.
When Alistair came to my room a few minutes before five my face was already wet with tears. He didn’t appear well either, with dark circles beneath his eyes, and hair not much tidier than Ian’s.
“Are you well?” I asked with concern. Ian had kept Alistair a prisoner only one day after the Campbell vigil outside my door, but I’d not been allowed to speak with him at all.
“Ah, lass.” He patted my hand affectionately. “As well as can be. Better than you’ve been, I hear.” His reproachful, downcast expression made me squirm.
“I’ve never been more proud than when I saw you ride out to face Ian Campbell with your head held high. And I’ve never been more disappointed than when I heard you’d tried to take your life. It is a sin serious enough to keep one from Heaven,” Alistair reminded me gently.
“I know,” I whispered, too ashamed to look at him. “But how am I to live without Collin, and with Ian?” More tears. Would they never cease?
“I’ve no answer for you, save to tell you that yo
u will,” Alistair said. “It isn’t in your nature to back down from a challenge. I could see that the first time we met. Then, when I found out you’d come with us on so little notice and without any recollection of your past, I knew you’d a rare courage. Then and now,” Alistair added. “That much hasn’t changed.”
I swallowed and nodded. “I didn’t remember Collin then, so how is it that it feels like I’ve known him my entire life? Three weeks feels like three decades. I never knew anything could be so powerful.” Or so crippling when it is gone.
“That is the blessing and curse of love.” A wistful smile broke through the untamed scruff of Alistair’s beard. “Would you have given up those three weeks to avoid feeling as you do now?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Well then, there’s your answer, lass. When you gave your heart to Collin, you knew what might be required. He did as well. And you cannot have only part of the bargain.”
I clasped my hands, still clammy and shaky from the tonic, together beneath my chin. My legs felt weak as well. “But Ian—”
“Ach.” Alistair clucked his tongue disapprovingly. “It’s a dangerous game the MacDonald plays at, though I must admire his strategy.”
“What do you mean?”
Alistair moved nearer the fire and held his hands before it, warming them. “Have you not heard the tale of how he came to take the castle?”
“He had an army and we did not?”
Alistair chuckled. “The sorriest force anyone has ever conquered with, no doubt. Made of women dressed as men and children perched on tree stumps and bearing wooden swords. The MacDonald army was naught but an illusion, a ruse meant to frighten. In reality they’d barely enough fit men to do battle with the council, had they stayed. Mostly, we are hosts to MacDonald women and bairns.”
“So you don’t believe Ian intends a repeat of Glencoe, only the other way around?”
“Bah.” Alistair swatted the air in front of him. “You may put that worry from your mind.”
With a sigh that strained my bound ribcage, I did, grateful to have one less thing to fear.
Alistair turned away from the fire and then angled his backside toward the heat. He gave a sigh as well, one of comfort and satisfaction. “I only wish I could be there to see Brann’s face when he realizes he was ousted by a group of bairns.” Alistair chuckled again. Then his lips puckered in seriousness. “But it is a dangerous game the MacDonald plays. He has been allowed to stay thus far, simply because he’s rid the castle of Brann. But that doesn’t mean the Campbells are pleased to have MacDonalds in their keep.”
“I should think not,” I said. I doubted any Campbells were in favor of hosting an enemy clan all winter. “Has something else happened?” I didn’t want to worry over one more thing. What I wanted was to be left alone with my grief, to mourn Collin instead of worrying about his brother’s behavior.
“Some of the MacDonald men left the night before last. They aren’t in accord with joining with the Campbells as Ian intends. He’s worried they’ll ally with another clan or even Brann’s group to bring us more trouble. As such, the MacDonald has set extra guards round about, particularly out in the fields with the beasts. After two nights on the watch, I’m needing a bit of sleep is all.”
“It’s only a matter of time, isn’t it?” I bit my lip. “Before something terrible happens.” My something terrible had already happened, and while I didn’t think I could hurt more than I did now, neither did I wish harm to come to anyone else. “Ian doesn’t really believe the Campbells and MacDonalds can coexist, does he? He must have something else planned.”
“He doesn’t, lass. Strange though the whole affair seems. He’s convinced this is the only way. I near am too,” Alistair added quietly, then offered his arm. “Shall we? Best not be late.”
I placed my hand on his sleeve but held back. “You were there at the river when Ian tried to kill me. How can we even contemplate joining forces with him? Is there nothing else we can do?”
Alistair’s weariness melted into compassion as he placed his hand over mine. “It seems impossible now, but I do believe this is the best chance— for all of us.” He turned to face me, looking me in the eye as he spoke slowly. “Ian is not the same man he was at the river.”
I swallowed back a sob and nodded bravely. “I know. Something’s happened to him. But that doesn’t mean we should trust him.”
“We’ve no choice but to.” Alistair led me to the doorway. “He’s given me his word he will not harm you.” Alistair paused. “Nor touch you unless you desire it.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably as we stepped into the darkened upstairs hall.
I felt grateful Alistair could not see the doubt on my face. A promise given to Alistair is all I have to keep me safe. I didn’t believe for one minute that I was protected.
Chapter Twenty-five
In contrast to the dark upstairs, the room below was a blaze of light. Warmth from the many bodies crammed into the space radiated upward, making me feel even more faint than I did already.
What am I doing here?
The first time I’d faced a MacDonald before a much smaller crowd had been hard enough. But to make any sort of bargain or promise with one who loathed me and in front of this many strangers seemed the worst sort of idea. But I’d run out of alternatives.
“Courage, lass,” Alistair whispered as we descended the stairs. It seemed he was out of ideas too. “Bear up. Perhaps it will not be as bad as you think.”
The crowd parted at the foot of the stairs, and Alistair left me to walk the distance to the dais alone. I hadn’t looked up there yet, but I knew Ian waited. I could feel him again, could feel his tension. For entirely different reasons, his nerves were stretched as taut as mine. This was to be a symbolic joining of our people. It would not take much objecting to go terribly wrong.
Just one illegal weapon decently aimed. I looked up sharply at the crowd and felt an equally sharp pain in my ribs as this thought— Ian’s— struck me. He was worried someone, a displeased MacDonald or one of Brann’s followers, might hurt me. As if I hadn’t enough to be afraid of before.
I gathered my skirts to ascend the steps, and a bandaged hand appeared to help me up. I took it, and the fingers closed gently over mine. I looked up at Ian— his disfigured face, eye mask, and frighteningly bald head. A gasp parted my lips, and I pulled back.
His knowing smirk appeared at my open-mouthed stare. “You objected to my hair, did you not?” He helped me up the stairs and leaned closer, whispering so only I could hear. “Couldn’t have you displeased with me already, could I?”
I didn’t answer. My eyes were too riveted to the right side of his head and what the bandage had been hiding. A thick, ugly red line curved from his forehead over the top of his skull. It had been stitched neatly, and that thought alone made me shudder.
“The work of a claymore,” Ian said, turning his scar my direction, as if to show it off. “Would have split my head in half, had I not already been falling backward. It knocked me to the bottom of a ravine between granite cliffs. Nearly broke my neck in the fall, but it saved my life. Redcoats supposed I was dead and didn’t bother to follow.”
“I thought swords of any kind were outlawed.”
“They are.” Ian scowled. “But the English like to play with the ones they confiscate.”
“That scar doesn’t look like anyone playing.” I raised up on tiptoes, to better see it, strangely drawn to its gruesomeness.
“True,” Ian said. “At least one of us was not having fun.”
“Who mended it for you?” I walked behind him, trying to see how far it went. Nearly to his neck. I suppressed a shudder.
“My brother stitched it,” Ian said. “Not a bad job, considering the circumstances.”
Which were? I imagined Collin tending Ian with care. Part of the debt incurred?
“Wishing he hadn’t done quite so well?” Ian asked. “Or perhaps wishing to see my other injuries.” He stuck a fin
ger beneath the mask as if to pluck it from his face.
“No,” I said quickly and shuddered, imagining a vacant socket where his eye had been. If his head is this bad...
“When did Collin tend your wound? Where were you? Where were the soldiers who took him?”
“I will tell you all, but not now when we’ve other matters to attend to.”
I pressed a hand to my stomach, feeling queasy. Not only because of Ian’s gruesome injuries but because of the reminder of what lay ahead. In a haze of distress I allowed him to take my arm and lead me to the center of the dais where Collin’s casket had been laid out just a few days earlier. All evidence it had been here was gone, but I could not so easily forget.
Collin. Collin is my husband. Not Ian.
Ian seemed determined to change that. He was dressed in finery equal to my gown, his shirt freshly pressed beneath a narrow-cut surcoat. Dark breeches tapered to tuck into the polished black boots I remembered from the day I had wed Collin. Then Ian had seemed intriguing and perhaps a little dangerous. Now, with his bald head, hideous scar, bruised face, and eye patch, his appearance was both revolting and sinister.
It inspired fear. Words— not so quiet as those speaking likely intended— filtered through the hall.
“The poor thing. Glad I’m not her.”
“...pains me just to look at him.”
“Have you ever seen anyone so wicked?”
“All her grandfather’s doing, this. Brann was right to distrust the old man.”
I scanned the crowd in a vain attempt to see who harbored such feelings, who among us still sided with Brann. But the sea of solemn faces packed into every corner and crevice of the room was blurred and unfamiliar.
Ian turned us to face the hall, and a hush spread quickly over those assembled.
“MacDonalds and Campbells have a long history of foul blood between them,” Ian began, in a loud voice. “My own hatred for the Campbells has run strong and with good reason. My father was betrayed by them and then killed by the English. Collin MacDonald, whom many of you remember was recently sold to the English by your own laird.”
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