Chapter 8
The next morning came before Ava could even blink. And before she could blink some more, she was in front of a mirror, preparing for a wedding.
A part of her still hoped, at least to some extent, that all of this was a dream. That in a few minutes or even now, she would wake up in her room back in Fraser Castle and tell Isobel about the utter nightmare she had where she had almost married her brother.
But she knew that wasn’t happening, because this was too real to be a dream, and she had no choice but to go through with it.
Isobel stood behind her, fastening the last laces of her wedding gown as carefully as she could.
The room held the small, intimate noises of dressing, linen shifting, a box lid being set aside, the faint clink of pins. It should have felt peaceful. Instead, it felt fragile, as though one wrong word might split the whole morning open.
Isobel exhaled. “She would have hated missing this, ye ken. Millie wasnae one to miss out on whatever scandal she could set her eyes on.”
Ava looked at her reflection, then down at her hands folded too tightly in her lap. “Yer sister is perfectly fine where she is. I am certain she wouldnae do anything to betray her calling.”
“But she would have been here all the same. Her brother is getting married.”
That coaxed the smallest smile from Ava. “Aye, she would have.”
Isobel adjusted the fall of Ava’s gown one final time and came around to face her. Her eyes were bright, though whether from worry, lack of sleep, or emotion, Ava could not tell.
“Ye are beautiful,” she complimented.
Ava let out a faint breath. “That sounds ominously like something said before a sacrifice.”
“Ava.”
“I ken,” she said softly. “Forgive me.”
A knock sounded at the door. Before either of them could answer, it opened, and her father stepped inside.
Everything within her shifted at once.
Rory Fraser usually filled a room not only with his size—though he had that too—but also with the warmth of his presence. This morning, however, he came in more carefully than usual, as though he knew the question he carried might bruise if set down badly.
He looked at her for a long moment.
“Well,” he said, his voice gentler than she had expected, “there is me lass.”
The words nearly undid her.
She was doing this.
She was really doing this.
Why in God’s name was she doing this?!
Isobel moved aside at once, giving him her spot without being asked. He came to stand before Ava and rested one broad hand on her shoulder.
“How are ye feeling, lass?”
The care in his voice was so obvious that lying would have been impossible anyway.
Ava opened her mouth to offer something light and failed before the first word formed. Her throat tightened.
Her father’s face softened further, and that finished what little strength she had left for pretense.
“Yer mother would be proud to see ye today,” he said quietly.
That cracked something open inside her.
“Would she, though?” she asked, her voice cracking on the words. “I’m about to marry a man who wants nothing to do with me. A man who wants this marriage just for the sake of convenience and nothing else. If she were alive, I doubt she would even want to witness this.”
Silence followed, and a while after, Ava broke it. She was preparing to arrive at the altar anyway. It wouldn’t hurt to make all her grievances known now, especially to her father and best friend. The truth, she had found, never stopped at one sentence. It came out in waves and waves.
“He doesnae want love,” she continued. “He doesnae want closeness. He wants a wife the way a man wants a lock on a door, something useful and fixed in place, and I am meant to stand before everyone and smile as though that is enough. I daenae even ken what place I will have in his life beyond what he requires of me, and yet today I am to bind meself to him before God as if none of that matters.”
Her father’s hand tightened on her shoulder, his own way of showing that he had always been there for her and would always be.
Ava looked down, ashamed now of the tears pressing hot behind her eyes. “I can bear fear better than this. It is the coldness of it I cannae bear. The uncertainty. Please forgive me. I daenae ken where all of this is coming from.”
No one interrupted her. Even Isobel stayed still, her face contorted in grief and guilt and something like helpless love.
Then Rory bent a little so she could not avoid his eyes.
“Ava,” he said, his voice carrying the full steadiness of the love she was familiar with. “Ye have never lacked courage, and ye have never been one to go meekly where yer heart says nay. If this isnae yer choice after all, then there is still time. Say the word, and I will take ye back home.”
The room went very quiet.
This was it. The open door. This was the opportunity Ava had scrambled to find when she tried to hop over the wall.
It was being offered to her by her father on a silver platter.
It was as legitimate as it could get. She could use this opportunity and head back home.
She didn’t need to look back or tie herself into a marriage with a man like Ciaran.
She would no longer have to deal with his smirks or sharp tongue. She wouldn’t have to see that scar around his neck again or the way his white shirts always clung to his skin. She wouldn’t have to deal with those deep green eyes and that long dark hair.
Christ. She wouldn’t see those anymore. Not ever.
She stared at her father.
For one suspended moment, she felt the shape of his offer. Home. Safety. Escape. Bruce underfoot in the corridor. Her father’s hall. The life she had come from. She could have it. He meant it. There was no duty in his face stronger than love.
And with that realization came another.
If she left now, the wound would remain exactly where it was. The silence. The distance. The unanswered hardness of the man she was about to marry.
Ava drew a long breath. When she spoke again, her voice still trembled a little, but the panic had left it. “I daenae want to flee.”
Her father watched her closely.
“I want him to answer me,” she said. “Properly. Before I stand beside him. I want truth from him, and compromise, and the courage to say aloud what he means to build with me. I cannae walk to those vows with silence sitting between us like a third witness.”
Something in Rory’s expression changed then. Not relief exactly, but recognition.
“I was hoping ye would say that,” he admitted, his voice softer. “This is a challenge, and I ken ye never back down from a challenge.”
Ava rose before her nerves could return and reclaim her. Isobel called her name, but she was already moving toward the door.
She was still flushed and standing on the edge of possibly the largest moment of her life, but she was no longer bracing herself merely to endure it.
She was going to him.
Ava pushed into his chamber without waiting to be announced, breathing too fast from anger, nerves, and the speed with which she had crossed the passageway. The door clicked shut behind her.
Ciaran, who had turned at the sound with the clear intent to rebuke the interruption, stopped short the instant he saw her. His gaze moved over her at once, not slowly, but fully enough to make heat rise straight into her face.
For one brief moment, neither spoke. Then he gave that smirk again, with a dryness that might have been composure or self-defense.
“It is bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding.”
Ava leaned back against the door. “It might be even worse luck if he doesnae speak to her and she decides to run away.”
His eyebrows arched, and at that very moment, the air felt smaller and hotter.
Ava was suddenly mortifyingly aware of herself in the gown meant for him and the bright red heat in her cheeks. She had just stormed into his private chamber on the morning of their wedding like a woman half mad.
None of these facts made her retreat.
“I ken I shouldnae have come like this,” she allowed. “But ye have avoided me all week, and I am done letting ye hide as though that changes what ye are asking of me.”
His expression lost its trace of wryness. “Ava.”
“Nay.” She stepped closer before her courage could desert her. “Ye daenae get to look grave and expect that to silence me. From where I stand, yer silence has meant only one thing—that ye mean to take me into marriage while giving as little of yerself as possible.”
He watched her without interrupting, and that somehow made the words come harder and cleaner.
“Ye call it a marriage of convenience,” she continued, “but ye cannae call it that if it is convenient to only one of us.”
She saw from his stillness that her words had landed hard. She could see how they struck him, especially in the faint twitch of his mouth and the fact that for once he did not answer with some cold, practical sentence as he always had.
At last, he took a step closer, his gaze steady. “I may nae satisfy all of yer conditions, but I will meet most of them, if ye promise to honor mine as well.”
The relief that washed over her was so sudden, it nearly weakened her knees. It showed in her face before she could master it, because something in his tone had changed.
“All right.” A little breath of laughter escaped her before she could stop it. “That seems fair enough. Though after we have had our first bairn, I may nae need anyone else to keep me company. Ye must understand, me father spoiled his daughters.”
A smirk touched his mouth, real enough to startle her. “And ye want me to worship ye as well?”
A red hue crept up her face. Surely, he did not mean… He couldn’t possibly mean—
“What, ye are suddenly at a loss for words?” He took another step closer, the distance between them too thin for a portrait to slide through.
Ava tried to smile and mask her nervousness, but it didn’t work. “Well, maybe nae worship me exactly…”
The falter at the end betrayed her. She heard it, and she knew he did as well. Something flickered across his face, and he closed the space between them.
All at once, the room felt too small to hold the two of them properly. Ava forgot whatever she had meant to say next.
His hand came up, slow enough that she could have moved away, and settled on the side of her neck. The touch was light, but the shock of his gesture shot through her like heat.
He leaned in, close enough that his breath brushed her lips.
“Ye daenae like being worshipped?” he asked.
“I daenae… think I…” she stuttered.
“I think that ye would find the opposite equally enjoyable, me Lady.”
Ava stared at him. Every thought she had brought into the room seemed to scatter at once. His hand was warm, and his body was near enough that she could feel him against her. Her own breath had grown shallow.
“The opposite of worship?” She hated how breathless she sounded. “Do ye mean being ordered about?”
His thumb shifted once against her skin. “Ye would be surprised how… exciting it could be.”
The words settled low in her belly, and so did the look in his eyes.
Ava did not know who moved first, only that the remaining inches between them began to vanish with shocking ease. Her lips parted when his gaze dropped to them. The whole world seemed to narrow to nothing but the warmth and air between them.
Then, a sharp knock sounded at the door, and they both went still.
A maid’s voice came through the wood, bright with excitement. “Me Laird, me Lady, the ceremony will start shortly.”
Reality rushed back all at once, thin and absurd.
Ciaran stepped back first. Ava’s skin still burned where his hand had been.
Neither spoke immediately.
“Are ye ready?” he asked, his voice just as gentle.
Ava swallowed, staring at the path to the door. “Aye,” she responded, her voice clear.
Maybe, just maybe, there was hope for this marriage after all.