Chapter Seven
Victor translated everything that had
happened. Lachlan dinna ken whether he should admire the wench’s
bravery for saving a family or admonish her o’er his knee when at
last she came to him. The only thing he understood in truth was he
would get no rest until Veronica was safely on the boat, her only
companion the open sea.
“There’s something I should probably tell
you,” Victor said quietly. He turned to look at Lachlan, his
demeanor nervous.
“Aye?”
“Well the thing of it is…”
The laird would have rolled his eyes were he
given to such mannerisms. “What is this aboot?” he rumbled out
instead. “Just say it.”
Victor inhaled deeply and all but tripped
o’er his words. “I-know-you-want-my-sister-as-your-wife,” he
rushed out, “but-I-can’t-just-give-her-to-you.”
Lachlan stilled. His dark gaze narrowed. He
wanted to throttle the mon where he sat, but decided such a deed
would mayhap set his intended against him. His muscles tensed
instead as he fisted and unfisted his hands at his sides. “What?”
he ground out. He glared at Finn and Ramsay who had the gall to
look amused.
“I…It…It just doesn’t work like that in the
future!”
His gaze went back to Victor. “Then you will
make it work.”
“I can try, but women aren’t subject to the
orders of men in our day.”
He stood there, dumbfounded. He had expected
tears from Veronica on their wedding eve and mayhap some pleading
and sobbing, but had always assumed she would be biddable and see
to her duty. That she had no notion she even had a duty to fulfill
had never occurred to him.
“But how can that be?” Ramsay asked. The
blond-haired, blue-eyed bastard still looked well humored. “How
does anyone take a bride in your future?”
“’Tis a good question, that!” Lachlan could
scarce believe Victor’s words, yet the mon didn’t possess a
deceitful bone in his body. He had proven that much. “Do couples
not wed in your future?”
“Well, yes, couples wed, but—”
“Then how?” Lachlan barked.
“They fall in love and decide to get
married.”
Victor’s bedchamber grew so quiet the laird
swore he would have heard it had one straw of hay fallen from the
bed on the far side of the chamber. He frowned at Victor when
Ramsay and Finn began sniggering under their breath. Romantic love
was for the poems of those traveling troubadours at court, not
warlords. Lachlan was accustomed to battling and reaving, not
making wenches swoon with affection for him. He’d known the beds of
many a wench in his day, but he’d asked for the hearts of exactly
none.
“What ode shall you craft for her?” Finn
asked, laughing.
“Mayhap something aboot taking in your shaft
if she’s not daft?” This from Ramsay.
Lachlan grunted at their amusement. He was
the laird of Clan Gunn, not some feeble court dandy. “Or mayhap I
shall serve her your heads on a platter as a dowry!” Given her
fighting capabilities, ‘twould mayhap impress her. “Now quit with
your jesting, the deuce of you!”
“You!” Lachlan barked, pointing at Victor.
“You will teach me your tongue and you will tell me all her
secrets. I would know everything aboot her.”
“I—well I can try…”
“No trying, just do as I command you to
do.”
“Yes, of course. It’s just, well…”
“Aye?”
“My sister isn’t like the women from this
time. She’s very strong and extremely independent.”
And yet still she expected to be wooed. The
laird growled, irritated. Romantic love? Odes and foppishness?
‘Twas unbelievable, this. Yet still he desired the wench. He had to
be more than just obsessed. Or mayhap she was driving him daft in
truth.