Chapter 13
The priest’s words were still echoing through the hall when Connor started to feel the first prick of impatience.
A moment ago, he had stood beside Violet with the vows between them, the priest before them, and every witness quiet enough to hear the fire settle in the fireplace. Now the stillness broke into murmurs, soft blessings, shifting feet, and the first stir of people preparing to come forward.
Violet was his wife.
The word landed with more force than it had any right to.
He had used it before to irritate her, to test her, to make the arrangement real enough that she would stop treating it as an argument she might still win.
Now it was no longer a strategy they could implement.
It was law. A fact. A title every person in the hall and the entire village would use when they looked at her.
Lady Moore.
Violet stood beside him, composed enough to fool most people.
Connor had stopped being most people days ago, though.
He studied her like a wound that wouldn’t leave him alone, so he could see every single twitch, subtle or otherwise.
He watched as her hand tightened once on her skirt and then relaxed.
Her chin remained lifted, but her breathing quickened as the first guests stepped forward. She knew what came after the vows. Every bride knew. Every witness in the hall expected some sign that the marriage had sealed more than a bargain.
A kiss.
The dreaded moment.
Connor looked at her mouth before he could stop himself. He wanted it. That was the biggest truth in the room.
He wanted the taste of her again, the startled heat she had given him in the training yard, the moment when her fingers had traveled up his shirt and she had forgotten to pretend he did not affect her. Every witness in the hall would think he had the right now.
He looked away from her mouth and offered his arm.
“Come, wife,” he said quietly.
Her lashes fluttered at the word.
She set her hand on his sleeve because the congregation was watching, and because she knew how to use courtesy when it suited her.
“That sounded far too comfortable on yer tongue,” she murmured.
“It is a short word.”
“Short words can be dangerous.”
He almost smiled. It would have been poorly timed, and the hall was already too interested in them.
He guided her forward, with his hand light on her back, once the first elder approached.
The touch was careful and firm enough to lead her through the crowd, but also gentle enough not to push her into a conversation she didn’t want to be a part of.
He felt the stiffness in her spine all the same and the slight jolt when someone called her Lady Moore.
“May the marriage bring peace to Clan Moore, me Laird,” the elder said, bowing his head.
“That is the purpose,” Connor replied.
Beside him, Violet dipped her head and smiled with a grace sharp enough to cut. “Thank ye.” Her voice was steady, but her hand, still resting on his sleeve, was not.
More guests approached, and before Connor knew it, they were surrounded.
A tenant’s wife offered blessings for the baby, and a cousin from a nearby village spoke of the castle as a stronghold. One of the older men clapped Connor on the shoulder and wisely removed his hand when Connor looked at him.
Violet answered each congratulation with polite words and careful eyes. Every time they said her new title, her fingers shifted against his sleeve.
Connor leaned closer, enough for only her to hear. “I daenae think ye wanted a kiss. Did ye, wife?”
Her shoulders tensed. He felt it under his hand before she managed to hide it. She turned her head slightly, not fully toward him, because too many eyes were still on them. After taking one breath, she gently shook her head.
“I thought so,” he said. “Since ye have been actively avoiding me since the last one.”
Her lips parted. “I wasnae…”
He looked down at her, the glint in his eyes saying nothing more than Daenae do that.
Violet exhaled through her nose, and her fingers relaxed a fraction against his sleeve, then tightened again.
“Maybe I was.” Her voice dropped. “I am sorry.”
Connor blinked at the words, the noise of the crowd fading into the background.
He had expected denial, irritation, or some clever evasion about how she was only trying to be a sensible woman who avoided him near the training yard.
He had not expected an apology. Not from Violet, and definitely not here, where guests brushed close enough to steal fragments of their breath and words.
He turned slightly, blocking her from the next approaching couple.
“I am sorry too,” he murmured.
Her eyes lifted to his. “For the kiss?”
“Nay.” He held her gaze, knowing he should have left the answer there and not trusting himself to do it. “For making it impossible for ye to pretend it didnae happen.”
The color rose in her face at once, and he suppressed a smile.
Good. It was nice to know he was not the only one still haunted by that kiss.
The noise in the hall swelled further as two footmen opened the doors to the Great Hall, where music started playing. That gave him an excuse to lean into her ear so that she could hear.
“I’ve been dreaming about that kiss every single night.”
Violet went still, and her lips parted before she remembered herself. Her hand tightened so hard on his sleeve that he felt the pressure through the fabric.
“Ye cannae imagine what it has done to me,” he murmured.
He did not give her the chance to answer. That was the only mercy he trusted himself to offer. He released her, let his hand fall away, and turned as another guest came forward with a raised cup and a wide grin.
“Me Laird,” the man greeted. “A fine day for the clan.”
Connor accepted the blessing with a nod. “See that ye remember it tomorrow when the ale has settled in ye.”
The man laughed and moved on, dragging another guest into his cheer.
Violet stood beside Connor, smiling where required, but he felt the confession burning through her silence as clearly as if his hand still rested on her back.
Hannah appeared near the edge of the gathering, watching Violet. Aiden stood beside her, speaking to one of the older men, but his attention often returned to Violet.
Yes, let her have them near. Connor had taken enough from her. The least he could do was give her space in a crowded room.
The musicians in the Great Hall struck more lively notes, and the crowd shifted in that direction. The servants moved ahead with plates, the smell of roasted meat, warm bread, ale, and spiced broth wafting through the passage.
“I need to talk to me sister,” Violet said, stepping towards Hannah before the words could fully escape her mouth.
Connor said nothing and let her go anyway.
She did not look back. Then, just before Hannah reached for her hand, her gaze cut briefly to him across the room.
She still looked flushed and struck by his confession. She was his wife now in name, but it was nowhere near the way he wanted to have her. Every inch of her.
The hunger he had dragged with him into the wedding lingered in his loins, and he hated that it could have this much effect on him.
He watched anyway as she joined her sister, hoping they would discuss how he had spared her the fluster of the kiss.
Perhaps she would tell her about his dream as well. It was hard to know.
The music drifted up to the rafters, bright and quick, with a fiddle setting the pace while a drum marked the beat beneath it.
Violet watched as servants moved between tables with cups of ale and wine while men in corners lifted their cups in a toast. She stood beside Hannah and accepted it all with her teeth bare and white.
“Blessings upon ye, Lady Moore,” an older woman said, dipping her head.
Violet smiled. “Thank ye.”
Lady Moore.
The name landed hard every time. It did not matter that she had heard it already after the vows.
Here, in the din of the cèilidh, with half the clan watching how she stood, smiled, breathed, and held her hands, it became less like a title and more like a garment someone had fastened too tightly around her ribs.
A man she did not know raised his cup from the end of a nearby table. “To the Laird and his Lady.”
Several voices answered, and Violet gently lowered her head in response.
She did not look toward Connor, but then, that was the usual mistake, wasn’t it? Refusing to look made him larger in the room.
Hannah stood close enough by her side to keep her steady without fussing. One hand rested lightly on the back of a chair while her face remained composed. Violet, however, could feel the weight of her attention.
“Ye are smiling like yer teeth are in a beauty contest,” Hannah muttered.
Violet smiled at a passing guest. “What can I say? I like to show them off.”
“Please. The only reason ye can show them off now is that ye spent more time inside than out.”
Violet almost laughed and caught it in time. Laughter would loosen too much. The whole day had been held together by pins, fabric, breath, and the stubborn refusal to think about Connor leaning close to her after the vows.
“I’ve been dreaming about that kiss every single night.”
Her fingers tightened around the cup a servant had handed her earlier, which she had still not drunk from.
Nay. Nae now.
A servant approached and leaned close to Hannah. She listened, nodded, then turned to Violet. “Moira says John has settled.”
Violet’s shoulders lowered before she could stop them. “Good.”
“Ye see?” Hannah said gently. “One person in this castle has some sense.”
“John is a baby. He has nothing,” Violet responded, lifting her cup and pretending to look anywhere.
At the musicians, perhaps, or at the elders who came together to talk in hushed tones. Even at the door. She should look anywhere. Anywhere but at him.
Her gaze betrayed her anyway.