Amanda Scott (36 page)

MORE FROM AMANDA SCOTT,
“A TRUE MISTRESS OF
THE SCOTTISH ROMANCE
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Lady’s Choice

Available in mass market Summer 2006.

*Romantic Times BOOKclub Magazine

Chapter 1

Glenelg, the Scottish Highlands, April 14, 1380

W
here is Sir Hugo?” nineteen-year-old Lady Sorcha Macleod demanded impatiently as she gazed down at the sparkling waters of the Sound of Sleat, the passageway that lay between the Isle of Skye and Glenelg.

Her younger sister, Lady Sidony, said calmly, “You cannot know that Sir Hugo ever received your message, Sorcha. The messenger has not returned, and even if Sir Hugo did receive it, you cannot know that he will come for her or that, if he does, he will arrive in a boat. He could as easily ride here from Lothian, through Glen Shiel, or from some other direction. He might even be in Caithness instead.”

“Faith, Sidony, I don’t care how the man arrives, just so he does,” Sorcha said grimly. “But if he does not show his face soon, he will be too late.”

“It is too bad that the Lord of the Isles had to die when he did,” Sidony said with a sigh. “Adela ought to have been able to enjoy as fine and merry a wedding as everyone else has had, but this one will be dreadfully dull, I fear, and I still do not understand why Father agreed to hold the ceremony here instead of at Chalamine. The feast will be at the castle, after all, and everyone else was married there.”

“Not everyone,” Sorcha reminded her. “Isobel married at Duart Castle on the Isle of Mull, remember?”

“Yes, but Cristina, Maura, and Kate were all married at home, and I hope that you and I will be, too, if Father ever finds anyone who wants to marry us.”

Sorcha shrugged. “I don’t want someone Father chooses, but at least today the sun is shining, and the wee kirk of Glenelg is a pretty site. Lord Pompous felt strongly that Adela should marry him on the kirk porch here, since Father has no priest of his own at Chalamine. And Lord Pompous is to be her husband, after all, unless Sir Hugo arrives in time to put a stop to all this.”

“I do not know why you are so sure that he would want to,” Sidony said, pushing a stray strand of her fair hair out of her face. As children, the two girls had looked enough alike to be twins with their fine, silky soft, white-blond curls, but as years passed, although Sidony’s waist-long hair retained its silky fineness and a soft wave, Sorcha’s had darkened to amber gold and retained only its curls. To her frequent chagrin, living so near the sea, they tended to frizz in mist or rain.

Semiconsciously mirroring her sister’s gesture, Sorcha tucked an errant curl under her coif as Sidony said, “Adela seems content enough with her wedding.”

“Faugh,” Sorcha retorted rudely, abandoning concern about her hair. “Adela would marry anyone who would have her if only to be rid of the responsibility of managing Father’s household and us, especially now that he seems intent upon marrying the widow Lady Clendenin. But Hugo is the man who holds Adela’s heart. I’m sure of it, and I am persuaded that he cares deeply for her, too.”

“But they have met only twice,” Sidony protested. “Once here in Glenelg and once at Orkney.

“Aye, well, it only takes once,” Sorcha said with more confidence than one might expect from a young woman who had never met a man she wanted to marry, or had an offer.

“Do you think so?” Sidony asked doubtfully. “She said they quarreled the first time they met, and the second time, she emptied a basin of holy water over his head.”

Sorcha had not taken her eyes off the Sound, and instead of replying, she exclaimed, “Three boats are coming!” Then, with mixed disappointment and concern, she added, “If I don’t mistake that banner, Lord Pompous has arrived.”

“You should not call him that,” Sidony chided gently.

“Pooh,” Sorcha said. “Ardelve is as pompous a man as I have ever met, and far too old for Adela. Why he must be nearly our father’s age, though Adela is but four-and-twenty. Sir Hugo is of a much more appropriate age to marry her. She is sacrificing herself, just to get away from Chalamine.”

“She is nearly
five-and-twenty,” Sidony said. “And Father said he had quite despaired of ever seeing her marry. In truth, you and I are old for wedding,” she added with a sigh. “Not that I am sure I’d want to, even if anyone wanted me.”

“Don’t be a noddy,” Sorcha said, affectionately patting her shoulder. “You are never sure about anything. Depend on it, if ever you do marry, it will be because Father commands you to do so. If you had to make up your own mind, your would-be bridegroom would likely die of old age, waiting to take you to wife.”

“That
is his lordship,” Sidony said, too accustomed to her more decisive sister’s scornful opinion of her habit of indecision to take offense. “Moreover, I can see the wedding party coming over the hill. Do you not think we had better hasten to meet them if we want Adela to carry this bouquet we gathered for her?”

“Aye, sure, and we’ve flowers for her chaplet, too, don’t forget,” Sorcha replied as they hurried to greet the small party of riders.

Lady Adela Macleod felt almost completely at peace as her wedding party approached the village. For the first time in too many years she was responsible for no one and nothing except to be in a certain place at a certain time and to say what the priest, a Macleod cousin of her father’s from Lewis, told her to say.

The feeling was a heady one, and as she rode alongside her father, Macleod of Glenelg, toward the little hilltop kirk, the silence enveloping them was nearly as heady. But for a tiny tickle at the back of her mind, all was well.

The small group of smiling villagers and friends clustered near the kirk steps was quiet. Even her usually talkative aunt, Lady Euphemia Macleod, riding in her boxy, sheepskin-lined sidesaddle between two gillies mounted on ponies as placid as her own, remained unnaturally silent. At fifty, the whip-slim Lady Euphemia disliked riding and doubtless focused all her energy on keeping the boat-on-waves motion of her cumbersome saddle from tossing her to the ground.

The rest of the party consisted of Adela’s father, her older sister Maura, Maura’s husband and three children, and the few castle servants that had remained behind to prepare for the wedding feast. Other than the villagers, they were the only wedding guests, for the simple reason that, MacDonald of the Isles having died recently, nearly everyone else in the Highlands and Isles was preparing for the installation, in two days’ time, of the second Lord of the Isles.

Adela, too, rode sideways but with nothing between her and her favorite bay gelding except a dark-blue velvet caparison to protect her skirts. One of her younger sisters, Kate, had embroidered the caparison with branches of Macleod of Glenelg’s green juniper and sent it to her especially for the occasion.

Like all six of her sisters, Adela preferred to ride astride, but she had known better than to suggest doing such a thing in the splendid new sky-blue silk gown her father had given her for her wedding. Blue to keep her always true, he had said, citing from an ancient rhyme and having refused her favorite color due to his strong belief that to wear pink for her wedding would sink her good fortune.

She could see her two youngest sisters watching from the hillside near the kirk and realized how glad she was that they had gone on ahead. She had suggested that they gather flowers there for her bouquet and chaplet, because the grassy hillside always produced a plethora of bright wildflowers, and because she wanted as little fuss as possible while she prepared for her wedding.

Her ever-superstitious father had disapproved of her not gathering her own flowers, a task he believed would bring her good luck, but once he had taken note of the day’s brightness, his strictures had ended. However, he no sooner saw Sorcha and Sidony than he sighed and said, “I hope ye mean to make Ardelve a good wife, lass.”

“I will, sir,” Adela said. “I have always done my duty.”

“Aye, ‘tis true, but I’d feel that much better if ye’d done all ye could to bring good fortune upon yourself.”

“It is a splendid day,” Adela reminded him. Casting a swift, oblique glance his way, she added gently, “Yesterday was not as beautiful.”

“Nay,” he agreed. “It were cursed wi’ a gey thick mist from dawn’s light till nigh onto suppertime. ‘Tis fortunate that when we arranged the settlements and all I succeeded in persuading Ardelve to put off your ceremony until today.”

“Why do you believe Friday is such a bad day to wed, sir?” she asked. “Aunt Euphemia said many people believe it to be the best day of the week, because of being dedicated to Freya, the Norse goddess of love. She said the notion that Friday is unlucky arose only during this century.”

“Aye, well, whatever our wise Euphemia may say, and however kind she were to journey here from Lochbuie for your wedding, everyone kens that when a Friday falls on the thirteenth o’ the month, it brings gey bad luck,” Macleod said firmly. “Sakes, lass, I’d no allow any o’ me daughters to wed on such a bleak day!”

“But I do not think everyone does know that,” Adela persisted quietly. “Ardelve did not, for one. At least . . .” She fell silent, deciding that she would be wiser not to repeat what Lord Ardelve had said.

“Aye, I ken fine that the man thought changing the day he’d decided on were a right foolish notion o’ mine,” Macleod said, unabashed. “Still, he agreed to it, and as ye see, the Almighty saw fit to bless the day I picked for ye wi’ sunshine.”

Adela nodded, and when Macleod fell silent, she made no attempt to continue the conversation. The only sounds until they reached the hillside where the kirk stood were soft thuds of the horses’ hooves on the dirt path, cries of sea birds soaring overhead, and scattered twitters and chatters from nearby woodland.

Her sense of peace had not returned, however, and when she realized she was peering intently at each guest, she understood why. Sorcha had made it no secret that she expected Sir Hugo Robinson to arrive in time to put a stop to the wedding, and although Adela was certain that her younger sister was mistaken, she could not help wondering if he would, or how she would feel about it if he did.

Seeing no sign of that large, energetic, not to mention handsome, gentleman, she drew a long breath and released it. If she felt disappointment, she told herself it was only that he might have added some small measure of excitement to what was so far, despite the spring sunshine, rather a dull day.

As a gillie helped her dismount, Sorcha and Sidony came forward to arrange flowers in her chaplet, and to give her the bouquet they had gathered.

“These flowers are lovely,” she said, smiling. “So bright and cheerful.”

“Sorcha collected a basket of rose petals to strew along the path before you, too,” Sidony said, hugging Adela before they took their places ahead of her and Macleod signed to his piper to begin.

Adela sighed deeply again, took another quick glance around the small group of onlookers, and placed her hand on her father’s forearm when he offered it.

As the wedding party made its way solemnly up the path to the shallow porch of the kirk, Sorcha led the way and scattered her petals, wondering if the piper had mistaken Adela’s wedding for MacDonald’s funeral procession. The tune he had selected certainly seemed more appropriate for the solemn rite.

Behind the makeshift altar, the tall double doors stood shut and would not open to admit everyone for the nuptial Mass until the marriage rite was over. The priest, Wee Geordie Macleod of Lewis, stood sternly erect beside the altar with the bridegroom and chief groomsman to welcome the bride and her bride-maidens.

Calum Tolmie, Baron Ardelve, the bridegroom, was another of Macleod’s cousins. He held a vast tract of land on the north shore of Loch Alsh, was wealthy and amiable, and thus, according to Macleod, an excellent match for Adela.

Sorcha disagreed, thinking Sir Hugo a far more suitable choice, although admittedly, she had never laid eyes on that gentleman. She still cursed her bad luck in having missed the trip to the Orkneys the previous year to see the Prince of Orkney installed, for it had been then that the more fortunate Adela and their sister Isobel, having each met Sir Hugo Robison briefly, had met him again and come to know him better, and both had mentioned him more than once since then. But Isobel was happily married to Sir Hugo’s cousin, Sir Michael St. Clair (or Sinclair, as the family now spelled the name) of Roslin Castle in Lothian, so Sorcha had made up her mind that Adela should marry Sir Hugo.

Reaching the foot of the steps to the porch, Sorcha moved to the left and watched as Sidony moved to the right to make way for the bride and Macleod. He stopped on the lower of the two stone steps and let Adela proceed to the porch, where Ardelve took two steps forward to meet her in front of the altar.

Two low stools stood ready for the bridal couple to kneel upon, and as they did, the priest stepped before them and spread his arms wide.

The piper fell silent. A gull screamed overhead as if in protest.

Instead of the blessing or prayer that Sorcha expected to hear, Wee Geordie said in tones that carried to everyone assembled there, “Afore I pray to Almighty God, begging Him to ha’ the goodness to shine his face upon this couple and bless the union into which they be about to enter, I’m bound to ask if there be any amongst ye that ken just cause or impediment to prevent the aforesaid union from going forward. If ye do, speak now, or forever hold thy peace.”

As silence closed in around the altar, Sorcha turned her head to look at the crowd. Others, likewise, looked around at their neighbors. Then, a low rumbling sounded in the distance—almost, Sorcha thought, as if God Himself had grown impatient and were muttering to the priest to get on with it.

The thought made her smile, but when she realized that heads were still turning, and all turning now in the same direction, she collected her wits and followed those looks. Joy stirred when she saw four horsemen riding at speed from the thick woods at the south end of the hilltop.

Mouths gaped, and neighbor looked at neighbor.

She looked at Adela, expecting to see her own joy reflected in her sister’s expression, but although Adela, too, had heard the thundering hoofbeats and turned her head to look, she looked stunned.

Hearing more than one gasp from the small gathering, Sorcha smiled wider. Her neighbors and friends would talk of this day for years to come, she thought.