Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The handfasting took place beneath clear skies three weeks later. That day brought with it the first proper stretch of sun the glen had seen since the rains that had nearly cost Alba everything.
The Castle overflowed with banners in both MacLaren blue and MacGregor green, strung along the courtyard walls in a compromise neither had fully agreed to, but both had somehow ended up pleased with.
Music drifted from every corner. Pipes near the Gate, a fiddle somewhere by the kitchens, a boy with a drum who kept losing the rhythm and starting over with unshaken confidence.
Alba stood just inside the Keep’s entrance a while longer than she needed to, taking in the scene through the open doors before stepping out. The crowd, the color, the sheer scale of a day she had once assumed would never come for her twice in one lifetime.
Philomena adjusted the fall of her gown one final time, tugging a stray curl back into place with fingers gone soft despite herself.
“Ye look a proper Lady,” Philomena said, “for once nae covered in mud or blood.”
“Give it an hour.”
“Aye, well. Enjoy the hour ye have, then.”
Enough clansmen had gathered to empty half the Highlands, or so it seemed to Alba, standing at the edge of it all in a gown Margaret had spent two weeks fussing over.
Fergus stood beside Sebastian near the front of the gathered crowd, tugging at the collar of a formal doublet like it had personally wronged him.
"I daenae ken why a man cannae stand up for his friend in his own plaid," he muttered, shifting his weight for what had to be the tenth time in as many minutes. "This collar's trying to strangle me before yer vows are even said, and it isnae even me weddin'."
“Ye look distinguished,” Sebastian said, not bothering to hide his amusement.
“I look like a man bein’ punished for somethin’.”
“Ye are. Ye agreed to stand up here with me.”
“Aye, and I am regrettin’ it with every passin’ minute this collar remains fastened.”
Hamish appeared at Sebastian’s other side just long enough to clap a heavy hand against his shoulder, grinning beneath his beard in a way that promised no mercy whatsoever. “Never thought I’d live to see the day the Beast of Blackthorn standin’ still long enough to be wed.”
“Ye’ll live to see a great many things ye didnae expect, apparently.”
“Aye, seems so. Ye nervous?”
“Nay.”
“Liar.”
Sebastian did not dignify that with an answer, though the muscle working in his jaw said enough on its own.
Nearby, Margaret sat on a cushioned bench that Isobel had insisted on dragging out for her, heavily pregnant and glowing.
Lily sat in her lap, small fingers tangled in the ribbon at her mother’s collar, while Isobel fussed over them both with a fan she had conjure from nowhere despite the mild weather.
“Sit still, both of ye!” Isobel said, adjusting Lily’s grip before the girl could tug the ribbon free entirely. “Yer mother’s about to burst as it is without ye pullin’ her apart at the seams first.”
“I am nae about to burst!” Margaret said, shifting Lily’s weight with a wince that rather undercut the claim. “I have weeks yet.”
“Ye said that a fortnight ago as well.”
“And I was right a fortnight ago.”
A cluster of arriving guests near the Gate drew Isobel's eye, and she pressed the fan into Margaret's free hand before rising. "Alasdair will want me at his side to greet them properly. I'll nae be far."
Brian stood just behind them, practically vibrating through the whole affair, unable to keep still for longer than a breath at a time.
He tugged at Philomena’s sleeve every few minutes to ask some new question—when would Alba come out, was Sebastian nervous, did handfasting mean they would finally stop arguing about which Hall smelled worse—until Philomena finally crouched down to his level with the long-suffering patience of a woman who had spent years managing exactly this kind of energy.
“If ye ask me one more question, lad, I will put ye to work carryin’ chairs instead of watchin’ the ceremony.”
“But I only wanted to ken if—”
“One more question.”
Brian clamped his mouth shut, though his whole body still hummed with barely contained excitement, bouncing lightly on his heels as he craned his neck toward the Keep’s entrance for any sign of movement.
“Do ye think Sebastian’s more nervous than ye are?” Brian asked, tugging at Philomena’s sleeve for what had to be the fifth time.
“I couldnae say, lad. Why daenae ye go find out for yerself.”
“Truly?”
“Aye, go on. Just daenae trip over yer own boots on the way.”
Brian took off across the courtyard at a dead sprint before Philomena had finished the sentence, weaving between skirts and cups of whisky. Of course, with that much energy, how would he have once considered that six-year-olds weren’t meant to interrupt a Laird before his own wedding?
Nearly every neighboring clan had answered the invitation, it seemed.
Lairds and Ladies filled every corner of the courtyard not already claimed by tables of food or barrels of whisky, renewing old alliances over shared cups and loud, easy laughter that carried across the stone walls.
Alasdair MacRae stood near the front, Isobel having rejoined him just as she'd promised, with her hand tucked firmly through his arm. The thin scar along his cheekbone from Kerr’s camp was nearly faded now, visible only when it caught the light between the quiet nods he exchanged with Lairds he had not spoken to in years.
Old rivalries seemed, for one clear afternoon at least, to have been set aside in favor of a good drink and better gossip.
John O’Connor stood near the Gate with a cup of whisky he had refilled twice already. He was trading old war stories with a MacKenzie soldier he had apparently fought beside years ago; some border skirmish neither man could quite agree on the details.
“It was the Northern Pass,” the MacKenzie man insisted.
“It was the Eastern Ford, and ye nearly drowned in it, if I recall correctly.”
“I did nae nearly drown!”
“Ye came out of that river looking like a half-dead salmon, man! I have the memory of it still.” A third soldier nearby snorted into his own cup, clearly enjoying the argument rather more than either man directly involved in the argument.
One arrival, however, drew more attention than the others.
A tall Highlander rode in alone through the Gates, his dark horse moving at an unhurried pace, the crowded courtyard parting easily to let him through.
He wore no colors Alba immediately recognized, dark and plain against the general finery of the gathered guests, and something in the way he carried himself—utterly unbothered by the attention he drew, utterly comfortable in his own solitary presence—made more than one head turn as he passed.
Conversation softened for a moment in a widening ring around him before the nearest men caught themselves and offered careful, respectful nods, the kind given to a man whose reputation preceded him by rather more than his actual words ever did.
“Didnae think he would come,” one clansman murmured to another, low enough that Alba only caught it because she happened to be standing close.
“Neither did I,” the second man admitted, watching the rider dismount near the stables with unhurried, deliberate movements. “He hasnae left his own lands in near on three years, by all accounts.”
Fergus glanced toward the newcomer, something between surprise and genuine delight crossing his face before he turned to elbow Sebastian in the ribs.
“Well, look at that,” he said. “The mighty Laird Hendry Anderson finally left his mires for yer weddin’, MacGregor. I’d nae have wagered coin on it.”
“The Hermit?” Sebastian asked, a slow smile spreading despite the formality of the moment, glancing toward the dark rider now handing his horse off to a stable boy who looked equal parts terrified and thrilled at the honor.
“Aye, that’s the one. He keeps to himself so thoroughly, half the Highlands have forgotten what his voice sounds like.”
“So it would seem he still has one, then.”
“So it would seem.”
More than one guest had already begun murmuring stories to their neighbors—a debt owed, an old alliance, a favor called in from further back than anyone in the courtyard could quite remember—though none of them seemed any closer to an actual answer than Alba herself.
The stranger, as if he had heard every word of it despite the distance, merely inclined his head in a brief, unreadable greeting toward the two of them before turning and disappearing into the thick of the crowd without another word, the hawk on his arm shifting its weight once and settling again.
Alba, standing close enough to have caught the whole exchange, turned to Margaret with open curiosity.
“Who is he?”
Margaret smiled, slow and entirely too knowing for Alba’s liking, shifting Lily higher on her lap. “A story for another day.”
* * *
The priest was an older man, silver-haired and sun-weathered, with a deep, steady voice that carried across the courtyard without needing to be raised.
He had married half the Highlands by now, or so Fergus claimed, and it showed in the unhurried way he moved through the ritual, unbothered by the crowd pressing close on every side or the restless shifting of a boy near the front who kept craning his neck for a better view.
Sebastian stood at the center of it all with Alba’s hand already resting in his, waiting for the moment the priest would bind them together in more than name.
She was radiant, and he found himself completely held by her face unable to break free long enough to properly attend to the man’s opening words.
“We are gathered here,” the priest began, lifting his voice just enough to carry over the last of the courtyard’s chatter, “beneath open sky, as our Fathers were gathered, and their Fathers before them, to witness the binding of Laird Sebastian MacGregor and Lady Alba MacLaren, that their two Houses might become one, and their two lives might become one also.”