Epilogue
“I cannae believe it,” Ailsa said, wiping her eyes.
Vaila shot her a sidelong look, even as she continued fussing with Eilidh’s hair.
Eilidh had noticed about ten minutes past that this fussing seemed designed to stop anyone from asking Vaila to do anything else, as her second eldest sister had not so much as applied a single pin to Eilidh’s coiffure.
“Ye have become rather weepy since becoming a mother, Ailsa,” Vaila said. “Does that happen to every woman? I’m nae going to do that.”
Ailsa didn’t answer in words; rather, she showed that she was not quite as soft as all that by whacking Vaila on the shoulder. It was playful, but not that playful, Eilidh noticed with a smile.
“Could ye nae curb your violence for one day?” Davina protested. Unlike Vaila, she was being remarkably helpful in winding flowers through Eilidh’s hair. “It’s Eilidh’s wedding day! The last Donaghey sister!”
“We have another sister,” Vaila protested, gesturing over to Mairi, who looked pleased at being included.
This time, Davina swatted her. “That’s why I said the last Donaghey sister,” she argued.
“Ye also said no violence,” Vaila muttered.
She caught Eilidh’s eye in the mirror and winked.
Eilidh hid her smile. This moment reminded her so much of many similar incidents as children—though back then, they had been playacting getting married, much to Vaila’s dismay, as she always wished to be playing soldiers.
But she had gotten overruled periodically, and it had always been like this.
Ailsa affected, even when it was just a game, Vaila teasing, and Davina trying to keep them all in line.
And, come to think of it, Eilidh often had been the one they’d dressed up like a little doll. She hadn’t liked it back then—too much sitting still, even though she’d enjoyed the part where she’d gotten to pretend to be a bride—but now she soaked in her sisters’ attention.
She wasn’t sorry at all when they were finally finished, however, because that meant that it was time.
Time for Ciaran to finally, finally become her husband.
It had taken a few weeks. There was still a war going on, after all, and Ciaran had needed to recover from his injuries before they could make the trip back to Buchanan lands.
Eilidh might have asked to be married at Castle Dubh-Gheal, but doing so would mean that Ailsa and wee Jamie couldn’t come, and she wouldn’t miss them on her wedding day for all the world.
Graham had spent those weeks playing chaperone with a competence and fervor that had amused and frustrated Eilidh in turn. Every time she’d tried to have a few moments alone with her betrothed, Graham would suddenly be there.
“What does he think is going to happen?” Eilidh had grumbled one evening while she and Ciaran had played a chaste—which was to say, boring—game of cards while Graham glowered at them from across the room.
Ciaran had raised sly brows. “I think ye ken what he thinks is going to happen. It’s precisely what would happen if I had time alone with ye,” he said with just enough of a suggestive edge that Eilidh had spent the rest of the night blushing.
They had been, in short, long weeks. But now the day was here. They would be man and wife, never to be torn asunder again.
She could barely believe how incredible he looked as she entered the chapel on Graham’s arm. She paused in her approach down the long center of the church, looking at all the clansfolk who had come out to celebrate her union.
And beyond them, Ciaran, dressed in Gunn tartan and wearing the blue ceremonial armband that she had given to him that fateful night at Castle Dubh-Gheal, his spine straight and steady as it always was. It was the smile on his face, though, that took her breath away.
It was really happening. Her fairy tale really was coming true at long last.
Tears pricked in her eyes as her brother pressed a kiss to her cheek before clapping Ciaran on the shoulder. “If ye hurt her, I’ll make ye regret it,” her brother told her groom not at all discreetly.
But Ciaran’s eyes were locked on hers, so Eilidh could clearly see in his expression how much, despite Graham’s words, his small gesture of approval meant to her.
“Ye look so grand,” she murmured to him as the priest waited to begin.
“Me?” Ciaran huffed a laugh. “Ye look so beautiful that I can scarcely look at ye.”
Despite his words, though, he did not look away from her for so much as a second while the priest read the prayers and guided them through the vows. Looking into the certainty in her husband’s gaze, Eilidh realized that she’d had it all wrong.
This wasn’t a happy ending. It was a happy beginning.
There was a raucous cheer when the priest pronounced them man and wife, and more than a few whistles and cries of encouragement when Ciaran finally kissed his bride.
But when the Laird of Clan Gunn knelt again before Graham and repeated the vow of fealty that he’d made privately back at Castle Dubh-Gheal, this time for all gathered to see, a respectful hush fell over the crowd.
“I, Ciaran Gunn, pledge my sword, my life, and my blood and that of my clan to Clan Donaghey,” his voice solemn yet serene.
Eilidh watched her husband vow to support her family forevermore and felt a rush of love overcome her so intensely that she didn’t know if she’d ever recover from it.
Not that she wanted to.
When all was said and done, Graham let out the first true grin that Eilidh had seen from him in weeks. Apparently he had been as eager to formalize the union between Ciaran and Eilidh as the couple themselves.
Well, not quite as eager, Eilidh reconsidered as Ciaran slipped his warm hand into hers.
“All right then,” Graham called, looking carefree enough that Eilidh was reminded of the boy he’d been before he’d gone away. “Enough of the solemn stuff, eh? Let’s show our bride and groom how we celebrate in the Highlands, shall we?”
This, of course, was met with the greatest cheer of all.
The feast that had been laid out in the Great Hall was rich with music and wine.
Anyone who knew how to play an instrument took a turn, and there were scarcely any moments when at least half the room wasn’t dancing.
Eilidh danced with Ciaran until they were both breathless, laughing with dizzy joy every time her husband growled at someone who so much as looked as though he planned to ask Eilidh to dance.
He made allowances for Graham and Ewan, though reluctantly. And after each dance, Ciaran claimed several more for himself.
When Eilidh’s feet simply could not take another step, she leaned back against her husband in a corner of the room, watching the revelry.
Davina was pink-cheeked with laughter over something Arran had just said, and Vaila was entertaining Ailsa and Ewan with some story while James looked on indulgently.
Lady Kirsty bustled over to them, all energy and clapping hands.
“Oh, I have never been so happy in all my days!” she declared, kissing Eilidh loudly on both cheeks, then offering the same treatment to Ciaran.
Ciaran looked disgruntled, though Eilidh felt him relax when she just laughed at his aunt’s antics. She felt that Kirsty was a kindred spirit and was endlessly charmed by the woman’s spirit.
“It would take a lass as fine as ye to tame my wayward nephew,” she praised Eilidh, clasping their hands together. “And ye, my lad.” She turned to Ciaran. “I have never been so proud of ye. I wish ye all the happiness in the world.”
She had thrown them both winks after that and gone off to dance with a grizzled old warrior who seemed unable to believe his luck at earning the attentions of the vivacious woman.
“She’s a madwoman, I swear,” Ciaran grumbled against her back.
Eilidh smiled. “She’s your family. Which means that she’s my family, too. So I shall love her for all that she is.”
His arms tightened around her in love and thanks.
They waited a little while after that before they slipped away. Eilidh needed a moment to take it all in, this scene of her family’s happiness in spite of the wretchedness they had suffered this past year.
But she was impatient for her husband, too, and it didn’t take long for her to tug him gently out the rear door and along a passageway that would take them up to her bedchamber.
“Ye cannae know how pleased I am to have a room that isnae a sickroom,” Ciaran commented as they closed the door behind them. He put his hands to her waist and turned her until she was pressed against the hard wood of the door.
“Och, aye?” Eilidh teased as he kissed down her throat. “Is that why ye married me, then? For the accommodations?”
He nipped lightly at her. “I married ye because ye are perfect,” he corrected. “Because ye make me feel hopeful for the first time in a verra long time. Because there isnae a world in which I could live without ye and not spend every day lamenting that most of my heart was missing.”
Eilidh was nearly overcome by emotion at this, and then he pulled back and grinned at her.
“But the accommodations dinnae hurt,” he teased.
She kissed his grin away.
They didn’t stop kissing one another after that, not for any longer than it took to remove this item of clothing or that one.
Eilidh decided that she needed to kiss every inch of him, every fading bruise and scar, just to remind herself that he was still there.
Just to remind him that there was more to life than pain.
He let her explore for a while, let her trail her fingers over the bulging muscles of his arms, over the ridges of his abdomen and down the slope of his back.
“I have plans for ye,” he told her, grasping her around the middle and pulling her bodily to him—bare skin against bare skin, all the way down to their feet—before toppling her back against the soft bedding.
She let herself be toppled then preened under his adoring gaze as he looked her over.