Chapter Fourteen #3
There was a lump in Lucy’s throat. She most certainly was not that, but the words were a sweet gloss over a marriage that was born of necessity. She nodded, slipping her hand into the crook of his elbow and drawing closer to his side.
Together they stepped into the cool shadowed interior of the kirk.
Lucy stopped dead. The church was packed, every pew taken with the people from the town dressed in their Sunday best, carrying flowers, smiling.
Her breath caught in her throat. “This is for you,” she whispered to Robert.
“And for you,” he said, and Lucy felt the tears prick the back of her eyes again.
The service seemed very short. Isobel and Iain McLain were witnesses. Jack and Mairi studiously ignored each other throughout. Lucy remembered little of what was said, though she remembered making her vows and Robert making his, his voice strong and steady, his hand holding hers.
Afterward it seemed that the entire town escorted them back to the inn, the children running along beside them throwing flowers beneath their feet, the pipes playing, the crowds cheering, the streets alive and loud.
Robert’s people were in the mood to make merry.
They had brought food to celebrate at the wedding feast, chicken, eggs, potatoes, cheeses and delicious bannocks with rich butter.
Lucy and Robert were escorted to the high table.
The press of guests was so great that the two of them were squashed together on the long settle.
Lucy could feel the hard length of Robert’s thigh pressed against hers; oddly it seemed impossible to ignore it.
She took a gulp of wine to steady herself and felt instead the heat bloom in her cheeks.
“That’s better,” Mairi said approvingly. She was seated a little way down the table next to Jack Rutherford, whom she was ignoring with great deliberation. “You looked as pale as a corpse before.”
It was hardly a felicitous description for a bride, Lucy thought, but it was fairly accurate.
Despite the mildness of the day and the huge open fire that blazed in the grate, her hands were frozen and she felt cold and scared.
She looked at him. Robert. Her husband. Her mind simply could not accept the fact.
Too much had happened, too fast, for her to be able to understand it.
The change between her life a mere week before and her life now was huge, a chasm she did not know how to bridge.
Robert was talking to Iain McLain, and as she watched he emptied his tankard of ale and one of the potboys ran to refill it. Sensing her gaze, Robert turned to smile at her and leaned closer so that his words were for her alone.
“You’ve nothing to fear,” he said softly, and Lucy blushed that he had read her doubts of him in her eyes.
He touched her cheek briefly, a comforting gesture, before pulling her plate toward her.
There was roast chicken and it smelled delicious, but when she had tried a mouthful it had tasted like ashes.
“Eat,” he said. “It tastes good and you have barely touched it.”
She tried. It still stuck in her throat, but another glass of wine helped.
Gradually she could feel her tense muscles unlocking.
She started to relax. She drank more wine, nibbled on the food and chatted to Mairi and to Isobel.
The tables were pushed back and the fiddlers struck up, first a slow, evocative piece that sounded almost like a lament and then suddenly shifting into a dance that was fast and furious, with whoops and wild shouts of glee.
The hall came alive with whirling figures.
Lucy joined Robert in a country dance. She was spun down the line from hand to hand until, panting and flushed, her hair tumbling about her face, she came back to the start and into Robert’s arms again.
He kissed her there and then in front of everyone, and the crowd roared its approval.
The music shifted into a dance called the Bride’s Reel and Lucy danced until she was breathless.
A few dances later the door of the hall burst open and the guizers came in, outlandish figures in straw suits, pointed hats and masks that hid their faces. Immediately the guests burst into rowdy applause and the music spun louder and wilder.
“I do hope that isn’t cousin Wilfred lurking under one of those fetching straw bales,” Lucy murmured.
One of the guizers was bowing to her, holding out a hand for her to join him in the dance.
Everyone laughed and applauded when she got up to join him.
She had no idea of the steps, but by now it scarcely seemed to matter.
Seven of the Findon men performed a sword dance and then Lucy danced with Robert again and then with Jack and soon she was spinning through an endless succession of dances as the pipes and the fiddles beat out the rhythm and her head rang with music and laughter.
Then, suddenly, the door crashed open. A man stood there, travel-stained in the torchlight, his face set in lines of great weariness. He staggered into the room.
“My lord!”
The fiddle music faded and spluttered to a halt.
The chatter and laughter died. Someone pushed the newcomer down onto the settle and he sank down gratefully.
Another man pressed a tankard into his hand and he drank it down in one gulp.
Lucy could feel a strange atmosphere in the room now, watchful and tense.
Conversation bubbled softly like a kettle coming to the boil. Everyone was waiting.
“My lord.” The man wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “I am Stuart McCall. I come from Golden Isle.”
Lucy felt Robert stiffen beside her and she glanced sharply at him.
He was very still now, his eyes cold, unsmiling.
She could feel the emotion in him, dark and turbulent.
There was anger there and something else, something that felt like pain.
She looked at his tight, set face and it was like looking at a stranger.
She did not understand, but she felt the Robert Methven she had thought she was starting to know slip away.
“You have come to wish me joy on my wedding, I hope,” Robert said. He drained his tankard. Lucy saw his throat move as he swallowed; saw the deliberate way he placed the empty glass on the table and raised his eyes to meet those of the newcomer. It was intimidating, but the man did not flinch.
“Aye, my lord,” McCall said. “And to ask for your help.”
There was something terrifying in Robert’s stillness. “My help?” he said softly.
“Aye, my lord,” McCall said again. “The people of Golden Isle are starving, my lord, and no laird has taken the trouble to visit us for ten years, since—”
Robert’s palm slapped down on the table, making Lucy jump. “You have a factor to take care of your needs,” he said, his voice hard and angry.
“Neil McTavish cares nothing for the isle,” McCall said steadily. “He has done nothing to help us whilst the crops fail and the ships no longer call to trade with us. He has failed to protect us from Wilfred Cardross.”
There was a hiss of indrawn breath around the room as Cardross’s name hung on the air. McCall looked up and looked Robert directly in the eye.
“You are the laird. It is your duty to help us.”
There was another rumble of debate around the room, quickly hushed as Robert looked around, his expression fierce.
“Are you accusing me of failing in my duty as laird?” he said, very softly.
This time the silence was deadly. Lucy, watching, feeling the tension in every cell of her body, could see the way that no man would meet his fellow’s eyes.
Oh, they respected Robert as laird well enough here in Findon.
She had learned that in only a few short days.
They trusted him, believed in him and knew him to be a strong man who would protect them.
But it seemed Golden Isle was his weakness.
It seemed he had washed his hands of the place.
McCall straightened up. His words echoed Lucy’s thoughts. “I hear you are a just and fair laird,” he said. “But you have cut Golden Isle loose from your protection. You have failed in your duty.”
Robert was on his feet, eyes blazing, his hand going to the hilt of his sword.
Jack Rutherford put out a quick hand to him. “Let’s step aside and talk about this, Rob,” he said quietly.
“Not on my wedding day,” Robert growled.
He sat down and gestured for his cup to be filled.
There was an ugly set to his mouth. The atmosphere in the room simmered on the edge of violence.
Lucy could sense all the complicated emotions in Robert; there was anger, but it was shaded by shame and, she was certain, pain.
She could feel Jack’s gaze on her. He was pleading with her silently to intervene. Either he overestimated her influence or he was desperate, probably the latter. Lucy could feel the tension in the air, feel everyone looking at her now.
She put her hand gently on Robert’s wrist. “My lord,” she said.
“I know better than most the danger posed by my cousin of Cardross and know as well that you would never let a single one of your clansmen come to hurt. I am ready to retire. Why do you not speak with these gentlemen and then come and join me?”
She saw the tension in Robert’s eyes ease slightly. She could still feel the reluctance in him. After a moment he took her hand in his, kissed her fingers and gave her a faint smile.
“As you wish, my lady.”
It felt as though the entire room released the breath it had been holding. Everyone stood as Lucy and Mairi left the room. There were a few smiles, a few nods to her and there was respect in every man’s eyes.
Isobel McLain led them up to the chamber Lucy had left only that morning on the way to the wedding. It had been tidied, and rose petals and herbs sprinkled over the bed, scenting the air with the sweetest of fragrances.