CHAPTER TWO
Upon hearing the somber clang of the chapel bell as it rang the hour, Laoghaire emerged from the keep. Sunset was only a few moments away.
Resigned to her fate, she pulled up the hood of her wool cloak to ward off the drizzling rain.
Dyed a deep shade of vermillion and lined with white ermine, the beautiful garment had been a parting gift from her brother.
She then lifted the hem of her silk kirtle and slowly began the descent down the long flight of stone stairs.
Since she didn’t bring a female attendant with her when she traveled from Skye, she was alone.
In truth, she preferred it that way. Earlier, the castle chatelaine, Dame Winifred, and her daughter, a widow named Melisande Jardin, had assisted her with bathing and dressing.
The two women were clearly highborn, for they chattered like magpies to one another in French, the language of the Lowland nobility.
Because Laoghaire didn’t speak French, she could not understand what was being said, though she intuited that most of it had to do with her upcoming nuptials to the earl.
She’d also been the subject of much whispering amongst the many servants she encountered, the earl maintaining a large household.
Again the chapel bell sonorously tolled.
It sounds like a death knell, Laoghaire thought with no small amount of trepidation as her breath caught in her throat.
Not for the first time, she tried to calm her nerves by reminding herself that the Earl of Angus was aged, and because of that he could not live forever.
Soon enough I shall be set free.
Although how aged the earl was remained to be seen, Laoghaire having yet to set eyes upon her betrothed husband.
The man clearly could not be bothered with such formalities.
I am nothing more than his fourth brood mare.
The earl had gone through so many wives, had so many marriages, that what others deemed a holy sacrament had become commonplace to him.
A blessing in disguise, she supposed. Hopefully, once his seed took root, he would forget about her entirely.
When she reached the bottom of the stairs, four menservants stood at the ready, holding a canopy aloft. Each of them wore a black patch on their tunic that was emblazoned with a red rampant lion. Diarmid, attired in his best plaid, stood beneath the canopy waiting for her.
“Laoghaire, there is something verra important that I must—”
“I have no mind to hear it,” she said over the top of his voice, emphasizing the rebuff with a brusque wave of the hand.
The two of them had not spoken since their arrival several hours ago.
After spending the last week in Diarmid’s constant company, she’d been glad for the respite.
“I’ve had enough of yer carping and endless exhortations. ”
“Nonetheless, ’tis vital that ye—”
“Silence!”
At hearing her stern rebuke, the two menservants holding the front end of the canopy peered worriedly over their shoulders at her.
“If ye wish me to go through with this ceremony, cousin, I bid ye be quiet,” Laoghaire continued, her nerves frayed from the many days of strenuous travel.
At that moment she felt as though she were traipsing along a steep precipice, mere inches from the edge.
She needed the silence to collect herself, so that she could buttress her inner resolve and perform this horrendous act that her king had commanded.
His cheeks flushed with heated color, Diarmid opened his mouth to speak, only to clamp his jaw shut in the next instant.
“We may now proceed,” Laoghaire said to the menservants.
“Yes, milady,” one of the canopy bearers replied in a deferential tone of voice.
With that, they made their way at a slow, measured pace, the chapel located on the other side of the bailey.
Laoghaire assumed that her cousin had intended to upbraid her again for the earlier clash with Sir Galen.
She readily acknowledged that she made a mistake in engaging the knight in verbal combat.
But Diarmid had nothing to fear on that account.
Henceforth, she would be the very picture of ladylike prudence, a model of womanly grace and decorum.
As the chapel came into sight, Laoghaire took a deep, stabilizing breath before she silently recited a quick prayer.
Lord God, bless the pathway on which I have been ordered to follow, for it is not one of my choosing.
Moreover, it was a path from which there could be no turning back; the Bruce’s marital edict must be obeyed.
But, oh, how she wished her future could unfold as she envisioned it, and not as the king had decreed that it must.
All too soon the entourage came to a halt outside the chapel doors. On each side of the arched doorway there was a pair of elaborately carved columns, the entrance a flagrant display of the earl’s vast wealth.
No sooner did they arrive than two attendants—attired as the others with a cloth badge bearing the earl’s heraldic symbol—stepped out of the shadows of the chapel where they’d been standing sentry and proceeded to open the heavy, iron-banded doors.
Although it was customary for wedding vows to be exchanged at the chapel doors, due to the foul weather, the vows were to take place inside the sanctuary.
Long moments passed as Laoghaire stared at the entryway, her throat tightening with an emotion that was foreign to her: unadulterated fear. So great was her fear that she was completely immobilized, her limbs seized by a strange paralysis.
Feeling Diarmid gently nudge her forward, Laoghaire commanded her legs to move. As she forced herself to step across the threshold, she felt very much like a condemned woman being led to the gallows.
Once she crossed the threshold, Diarmid reached over and wordlessly removed her cloak.
After the ermine-lined garment was lifted from her shoulders, Laoghaire nervously smoothed a hand over her kirtle.
Her sister-in-law Yvette had spent weeks making the beautiful gown, which was intricately embroidered with costly gold thread.
Laoghaire had never worn so splendid a garment.
Yet given that her life was about to change dramatically—and not for the better she suspected—sackcloth and ashes might have been more appropriate attire.
Without thinking, she put a hand to the golden torc that she wore around her neck.
Despite being dressed in the Lowland fashion, she’d deliberately adorned herself with the torc, so that Angus and his Anglo-Norman retainers would know that she had no intention of abandoning her Celtic heritage.
The torc had been in her family for generations and had been worn by her mother on her wedding day.
Since her mother died when Laoghaire was but three years of age, she could only wonder what she would think of her only daughter becoming a countess, a member of the Lowland nobility.
Again, Diarmid urged her forward, Laoghaire permitting him to escort her to the altar.
A priest, wearing a black robe and chasuble, awaited her arrival.
Standing before him, with his back turned to Laoghaire, was the Earl of Angus.
Like the priest, he was garbed entirely in black.
No one else was present, save for an unfamiliar man and woman who were seated on one of the plain wooden benches that lined either side of the aisle.
Laoghaire had taken only a few steps when she was suddenly overcome with a burst of queasiness, no doubt attributable to the fact that she’d been unable to eat earlier in the day due to her nervousness.
Terrified that she might lose the contents of her stomach—and make a complete spectacle of herself—she kept her head bent as she continued to walk toward the altar, her gaze directed at the stone floor.
Not only was she nauseated, her sense of dread was now so great that she could not bring herself to even look at the groom.
The thought of being intimately touched by a man old enough to be her grandfather—who no doubt had the thickly veined and spotted hands of a graybeard—was absolutely repugnant.
He is aged. He cannot live forever. Silently she repeated the affirmation, over and over, as though it were a protective incantation.
When she finally reached the altar, Diarmid stepped aside, leaving her to stand beside the earl.
Keeping her gaze assiduously fixed upon the altar, Laoghaire gasped softly when Angus suddenly took hold of her right hand.
Her head still bent, she cast a sidelong glance at their conjoined hands.
Startled by the fact that the earl’s hand was surprisingly virile-looking for so aged a man—the large bronzed hand appearing strong enough to wield a heavy sword—she raised her head and peered at her betrothed.
Thunderstruck to see Sir Galen de Ogilvy standing beside her, Laoghaire forcefully yanked her hand free.
“What is this black-hearted knave doing here?” she demanded to know, nearly choking on the fury that instantly roiled within her.
“I am here to wed you,” the knight had the audacity to reply. “And once that happens, I shall be your lord and master.”
“And if you ever again dare to call me a knave, I will beat you soundly,” Galen threatened in a lowered voice. “And none will gainsay the punishment as it will be my right as your husband.”
A right that I will take great delight in exercising, Galen thought while he stared at the gloriously beautiful Highland maid.
Garbed in a vivid shade of indigo blue—one that precisely matched the color of her eyes—Laoghaire MacKinnon put him in mind of an ancient pagan queen.
Not only were her flaming red locks unbound, she wore all manner of strange, heathenish gold jewelry, including an ornate headband, a torc that bore the carved head of a snarling wolf on each end, and a golden cuff on both of her wrists.