Chapter 17 #2
A touch to Robina’s shoulder startled her. Turning, she found Wat beside her.
“I’ll take you to the dais, Robby,” he said with his warm smile. “After all, someone in the family must give you to that devil, so I’ve appointed myself. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Only if giving me away means you’ll feel obliged to ignore my shouts for aid if he brutalizes me,” she replied lightly. Wat’s very presence had eased her tension.
With a direct look and no sign of humor, he said firmly, “You know you can rely on me if ever you need me, lass.”
“I do, sir, and I thank you. You don’t think he’s a devil, either, I know.”
His grin flashed then. “Whether he is, is not, or may become so, I’ll back you against him anytime, cousin.”
Noting that Dev watched them with a frown, she felt deep satisfaction rather than concern to see it. She smiled at Wat and said, “I think we’d best begin, sir, don’t you?”
Hearing his soft chuckle, knowing he’d also seen Dev’s frown, she rested a hand on Wat’s extended forearm and went with him happily to meet her fate.
Dev watched Robby and Wat approach the dais with her three bride-maidens behind them. Bella walked alone. Jannie and Fiona followed her, side by side.
Although he’d never thought that he was capable of jealousy or understood exactly how the emotion manifested itself, he’d recognized it the instant Wat touched Robby’s shoulder with only that beautiful, doubtless sensuous, golden silk between his flesh and hers.
To touch her in such a way before Dev could was practically a hanging offense.
He wanted to give Wat all he deserved for taking such a liberty.
“A groom usually greets his bride with a smile, my son,” the priest said dulcetly.
“Ye should smile at her, Dev,” Benjy muttered. “Our Beany is gey beautiful, I think. I ha’ never seen her in such a splendid gown before.”
“Nor have I,” Dev said. Catching Robby’s eye and detecting a distinct twinkle, he collected his wits. The last thing he wanted on this day of days was to hear her tease him for jealousy that she must easily have perceived.
Nevertheless, having recognized it, he knew he would likely feel it often, because Benjy was right.
With her tawny waves unbound, flowing over her shoulders to her waist as they did, she was more than beautiful, and she was about to be his.
A wave of masculine pride and responsibility surged through him.
Ormiston, shifting weight, made a slight sound with his shoe. That it drew Dev’s notice told him how quiet the hall was. The sea of visitors, servants, tenants, and other guests seemed to hold its breath as Robby and her attendants stepped onto the dais.
Eyes downcast, she approached Dev, watching her step and managing her skirt. The priest stepped forward when she reached her place. Her long, dark lashes flickered then. When she looked up at Dev, his breath stopped in his throat.
Her cheeks were rosy, her mossy eyes limpid. When her lips parted invitingly, he felt his body stir.
“Face me now, my son,” Father Hubert murmured.
Dev obeyed and, seconds later, gave thanks that he had only to repeat what the priest said. His wits had abandoned him. His single thought was that Robby was nearly his, in a loose silken gown that blatantly invited sex.
His body stirred again, and he prayed that he wouldn’t spend himself before the ceremony ended. The words were a mere buzz, because under the silky golden surface that screamed for his touch, his bride wore at most a thin shift and, irrelevantly, a pair of flimsy silk slippers.
“Have you a ring, my son?”
Startled, Dev took from Benjy’s sweaty hand the ring that Lady Meg had given him the previous day and handed it to the priest. Then, warily, he watched Robby’s reaction.
While the priest blessed the ring and then slipped it onto her ring finger, she looked at it and then at Dev, her eyes wide and sparkling. “Where—?”
The priest interrupted her. “Prithee, my children, face your guests.”
Hearing him through echoes of Robby’s delight and his own gratitude to Lady Meg for her gift, Dev obeyed, tucking Robby’s left hand into the crook of his right elbow.
“My lords, my ladies, and all who bless this wedding by your presence, I present Sir David and Lady Ormiston. You may now express your approval and prepare to feast their happiness. And you, Sir David, may kiss your lady bride.”
Dev heard that plainly and willingly obeyed.
“Take care that you don’t have this dress off me,” Robby protested, her lips moving warmly against his. “I’ve feared it might fall off ever since I put it on.”
“I don’t want that either, my love,” he murmured.
“What did you call me?”
“You heard me.”
He hugged her closer and saw that some of the ribbons so flimsily linking the aglets at the back of her bodice had nearly freed themselves.
Tugging gently at the worst offender until he could grasp both ends between his first finger and thumb, he managed to tighten it a bit. He saw then that he’d guessed right about her shift being thin. It looked as if it, too, were silk.
His fingers itched to stroke the gown and all that it concealed.
Sitting beside Dev for the wedding feast, Robina waited for the servers to move to others at the table before she said, “How did you come by my mother’s wedding ring?”
“You remember it, then. Lady Meg didn’t know if you would.”
She held out her hand to look at the narrow gold band and the round amethyst nestled in it, feeling again her joy at recognizing the ring when the priest had taken it from Dev.
Memories of her mother flooded through her when the priest touched it to her left thumb, index finger, and middle finger, saying, “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit…” Then, slipping it onto her ring finger, he’d said, “Amen.”
It had felt as if her mother were blessing their marriage.
“Of course, I remember it,” she said. “Before Mam, it was my Granddame Gledstanes’s ring and her granddame’s before her. But what had Lady Meg to do with it?”
“Your father gave it to her before he died and said that, although it is a Gledstanes ring, your mother wanted you to have it on your wedding day. Rab had agreed, too.”
A wary look in his eyes suggested something left unsaid, but she smiled. “Thank you for letting me have it as my wedding ring. It was a wonderful surprise.”
“What else are you thinking, lass?” he asked. “I keep expecting you to add ‘but.’ ”
Searching his expression and finding only curiosity, she said frankly, “I did wonder if you’d liefer have given me one that marked me as your possession.”
To her relief, he chuckled. “And I worried that you’d expect a ring of mine. I’ll think of many ways to demonstrate that you’re mine, sweetheart, I promise you.”
That promise, the endearment that accompanied it, and the warm way he looked at her sent unfamiliar heat pulsing through her. She felt it from her head, to her heart, to her toes, in places and ways that she had never known before Dev came into her life.
Men who had brought instruments began to play them. Others sang, and in no time, the lower hall became increasingly rowdy.
She saw Dev turn to Wat and Wat gesture to Sym Elliot. Sym got up and gestured to Benjy, who followed him from the dais with a grin. Soon, Jock and other Coklaw and Rankilburn men began quietly moving through the hall forming a path of sorts from the dais to the archway.
“Time to go upstairs, lass,” Dev murmured in her ear. “Whilst our men can still maintain control.”
“Nay, my lad,” Wat said sternly and loudly enough for Robina to hear him as he put a hand to Dev’s shoulder. “Her ladyship’s bride-maidens and the other ladies will attend her. You will stay with us until she’s ready for you.”
“Just who is in charge of this place?” Dev demanded.
Grinning, Wat said, “You are, just as soon as the ladies have had time to prepare your bride for you. Meantime, we’ll keep you busy. Have some more wine, laddie, but don’t overdo it. You’re joining my family, so you must perform well tonight.”
Since Dev’s own men had joined them and showed no sign of aiding him, he submitted to the inevitable, wistfully watching Robby leave the hall.
Even with men lining the pathway, she’d already lost most of the ribbons from her gown. He saw her clap a hand to her bodice as if fearing that it, too, would vanish. However, she escaped without further embarrassment.
The singing and music continued, and the songs grew rowdier and more profane until Dev laughed as loudly as anyone.
Then Wat drew his attention to Sym in the archway, gesturing.
“Time to claim your bride,” Wat said cheerfully. “We’ll come along to see you suitably prepared for her.”
“I’d rather prepare myself, thanks,” Dev growled.
“Aye, sure, but ’tis our ancient duty to serve you.”
“You’re enjoying this too much. I missed your wedding, so…”
“Nearly everyone missed it,” Wat said. “I’d have recommended something similar to you, too, had you given me warning.”
Given no say in his doom from then on, Dev reached his bedchamber wearing no more than a grimace. He’d retained a grip on only a tattered shirt that he thought was his.
A grinning Sym stood guard at the door.
When Wat raised his eyebrows, Sym nodded. “The other ladies ha’ gone up, sir, and Father Hubert blessed the bed. Herself told him God would forgive his doing it afore her ladyship undressed. I needna tell ye that he said the blessing right quick after that.”
“Wise man,” Wat said. After a brisk double rap on the door, he lifted the latch and pushed it open. “In you go,” he said to Dev. “See that you do credit to your sex, or reap the cost forevermore.”
Laughter and jeers from the men below them echoed through the stairwell. Then Wat and Sym gave Dev a push and, to Dev’s deep relief, shut the door after him.
The uproar that had accompanied him up the stairs continued.
Bolting the door, he prayed that no one would test the strength of that bolt.