Chapter 6
Near sunset a week later, voices calling Fiona’s name from the bailey outside her window stole her attention from the book she was reading in her chamber.
She hurried out into the great hall where Mary and Lia greeted her.
“There’s a birlinn approaching our beach,” they chorused, both wearing expectant expressions.
“It must be him,” Mary said, at the same time Lia said, “Yer husband has come back for ye. Laird Ross!”
Fiona snorted at that, though her blood suddenly raced through her veins, making her light-headed. “I ken his name,” she said, glad to see that with time to think it over, Lia had accepted Fiona’s new status. “How close is it? Could it be someone else?”
“’Twill be here soon,” Lia added. “I dinna ken how long it takes, but it has to be soon if we can see it.”
Mary grinned at Fiona’s question. “No’ eager to see him, then? Hoping for a MacBean to rescue ye? I dinna think Da has told them yet about yer wedding.”
Fiona sank onto a nearby bench and leaned forward, elbows on knees.
Was she? Her husband had treated her with respect and deference.
He was a handsome man, and a laird. Still, all she had to do was admit faking the virgin’s blood on the sheet and her marriage to Erik Ross could be annulled.
She could marry the MacBean, a man she’d been betrothed to for most of her life, though she’d never met him.
That fact seemed incredibly unfortunate at the moment.
Keep the man she had or risk joining with a man who’d never bothered to make himself known to her. It should be a simple decision. Why was she fretting now?
She’d spent the last two days unpacking, then repacking, deciding to stay at Rose, then readying herself to say goodbye to Rose forever.
Debating with herself whether her wisest course would be to take a horse and ride back to Inverness like Hamish had done.
Yet, she’d also waited with anticipation for Erik’s return, worrying that he would change his mind and not come for her.
How embarrassing would that be? She didn’t want to find out.
But hiding out in Inverness was out of the question.
As Mary had told her, the Rose would find her.
He would not tolerate the embarrassment of having the woman he’d forced into marriage flee to town to escape it, not after she displayed what he thought was her virgin’s blood on a sheet.
And she could not do that to Rose, to her friends, or to their allies.
But deep in the darkest part of the nights that she’d spent without her husband, she had feared that Erik might.
The news of the approaching birlinn gave her some comfort.
So why was her belly suddenly churning? Perhaps because his arrival made the quandary she’d been wrestling with for the last week immediate, not something she could continue to toy with, leaning first one way and then another.
Go with him and make the marriage real, or reveal her ruse, annul it, and stay at Rose.
Marry the mysterious MacBean, or, ignoring Mary’s warning that Rose would find her, return to the house in Inverness that Arabella had left to her—assuming it still stood and hadn’t been taken over by squatters or burned to the ground.
Mary must have sensed her uncertainty by her posture, or the lack of eager anticipation on her face. She sank down next to her on the bench and waved Lia away. Lia surprised Fiona by complying.
“All right,” Mary said when Lia was out of earshot. “Out with it. What fashes ye?”
“What doesna?” She told Mary what she’d been thinking about her options, the MacBean, the house in Inverness, the fear that Erik wouldn’t come for her and she’d never be able to show her face in Rose again, all of it.
“’Twill soon be resolved, ye ken that, right? He’s nearly here. He is coming for ye. That means he wants ye. Why else would he sail across the Moray Firth to Rose?”
“Out fishing and got blown off course? Forgot which side of the firth Ross controls?” Fiona straightened and slapped her knees. “Mayhap ’tis no’ him. But if it is, what will I say to him?”
“Ye will think of something.”
“Right now, I can only think of all the ways this could go wrong.”
“Stop that this instant,” Mary chided. “Ye have choices, aye, but they are all good ones. Well, mayhap no’ the MacBean,” she added with a grin.
For Mary’s sake, Fiona forced a chuckle. “Aye. He could be 70 years old with hair growing out of his ears.”
Mary shuddered. “Or much younger than ye. He coulda been an infant when the betrothal was signed.”
“Dear God, that might be worse. I’d be more mother than wife.”
“Or ye could accept what ye have begun with Erik Ross, who, to my eye, is a fine-looking man.”
“One of the best I’ve ever seen, aye.”
Mary cut her a glance out of the corner of her eye. “Any smart lass would think so.”
“I’ll be the envy of all.” Fiona was jesting, trying to build up her confidence, but she also suspected it was true.
Mary grinned, then sobered, her gaze still on the approaching ship. “He seems to care for ye.”
“He treats me well.”
“And he’ll protect ye.”
“With all those muscles, how could he do anything else?”
Mary choked on a laugh, then turned to her and took her hand. “See, how can ye think to do anything but keep him? And he’ll soon be here. If yer heart kens his, ye will feel it as soon as yer eyes meet.”
“I pray ye are right, my friend.”
“Aren’t I always? Now, go freshen up. Lia is also right. ’Twillna be long before he arrives. He’ll want to see ye straightaway.”
Fiona clasped Mary’s warm hands in her cold ones. “Thank ye, Mary. For this, and for spending so much time showing me how to be a clan’s Lady. Ye make it look easy, but I ken ’tisna.”
“Dinna be daft. Ye’ll be well. They’re going to love ye.”
“As long as Erik comes to do so, I canna ask for more than that.”
An hour later, Mary fetched Fiona from her chamber. “They’re on the beach headed this way,” she said. “’Tis time for ye to come down to greet yer husband. Are ye ready?”
Fiona nodded. “I am. I’ve thought about yer advice. I owe him the chance to see me, speak to me, and convince me we are doing what is best for both of us.”
“I think ye already ken the answer to that, but if hearing it from him gives ye more confidence, then by all means.” She gestured out the door.
Fiona left her chamber ahead of Mary, trusting her to close the door and follow. In the bailey, they waited, side by side, Fiona grateful for her friend’s comforting presence.
When Erik rode through the gate, his gaze went straight to her and he smiled. He was so handsome, so beautiful, sitting high and powerful on his horse, that her knees went weak.
“Ye can do this,” Mary said softly next to her ear. “Go to him.”
Fiona nodded and stepped forward as Erik swung down from his mount and approached her.
“My beautiful wife,” he greeted her, as his gaze searched her face. “I’m so glad to see ye waiting here for me. Does that mean all is well with ye? And us?”
“My handsome laird,” she answered him, summoning a smile and meeting his deep blue gaze with her own. “I am so glad to see ye come for me. Aye, I think all is well.” And she did. As he had done before, Erik had seduced her with his eyes, and his very presence had chased away her doubts.
He took her in his arms then, holding her close.
The scent of horse and sea blended with his own very male scent, and Fiona inhaled deeply, wanting to absorb it, and him, into herself.
His gaze met hers when she looked up at him, then his head descended and he claimed her mouth in a gentle, welcoming kiss.
“I’ve missed ye, Fiona,” he told her when he broke the kiss.
“And I ye,” she said, though the words were too little, too trite, for their reunion. “We have unfinished business.”
“Aye, we do.” His gaze darkened and his smile heated, but he released her and took her hand to move them toward where Mary waited on the steps into the keep.
“Be welcome to Rose, Laird Ross and yer men,” Mary told him.
His men? Fiona glanced around. Five of them. She hadn’t even noticed. Mary, adept at reading her expression, grinned at her, then stepped up to open the keep’s door.
“Ye will want to greet Laird Rose,” Mary said, correctly reading the situation, “before ye take yer wife upstairs.”
Fiona’s face heated. She knew what Mary hinted at. Fiona hadn’t told her where the blood came from on the sheet, but as many times as an annulment came up in conversation, she suspected Mary knew what she had done. She wanted to be truly and fully wed to Erik before she left Rose.
“I do wish to thank him for his hospitality for my wife and myself this evening,” Erik told her as they entered the keep. “And a meal for my men. If Fiona is agreeable and the firth is calm, we will leave Rose in the morning.”
So soon! She shouldn’t be surprised. Erik would be eager to return home with her, to begin their marriage and his control of his clan with a wife at his side.
He’d made no secret of his belief that she would strengthen him there.
So she gave him the answer he expected. “I am ready. If Lady Moray is amenable and gives us smooth passage, we will sail on the morrow.”
All Erik wanted was to get Fiona alone in their chamber. He’d thought of nothing but her the entire way across the firth. Lucky for him, the weather was fine, and his men were expert sailors, because his mind was not on their journey, but on its end.
She was even more beautiful that he remembered. A warm, lush armful, scented with sweet herbs and honey along with the gentle alluring scent that was all her own. Each breath he took, each kiss on her soft lips, drove him nearer to madness. He had to stop.
He was grateful that Mary had invited them immediately into the keep to speak to her father. That centered him on what he had to take care of first. Before he could concentrate on his bride, his duty as the Ross laird was to greet the Rose chief.