Chapter 2 #2
“I came here tae fulfill an agreement,” she said clearly.
“Between me family and Clan Fraser. That agreement was made fer political reasons, nae romantic ones. If the clan needs this marriage tae proceed, then I’ll honor it.
” She met Ailean’s gaze directly. “I came here tae marry the Fraser laird. He is the Fraser laird.”
She saw it register on his face, that brief unguarded moment before the laird’s mask settled back into place.
“Practical,” Torcall observed. The word landed like a dismissal. “A minor landholder’s daughter, willing tae take whatever’s offered. How fortunate fer us all.”
The insult was quiet enough to deny. Lilias felt it land anyway.
“It’s more than many marriages start with,” she replied, keeping her voice even despite the heat rising in her chest. “And I suspect Laird Ailean is equally practical.”
“Practical,” Ailean repeated. The corner of his mouth twitched. His eyes held hers for a moment longer than necessary. “Aye, that’s one word fer it.”
“Then we’re agreed?” Gordon looked between them. “The marriage proceeds as planned?”
“As planned?” Lilias’s father frowned. “Surely we should wait until?—”
“Until what?” Gordon interrupted. “Until word spreads that our laird died and we abandoned the alliance? Until the Crown questions our stability? Nay. The ceremony was meant tae happen today. We finish what we started, show the clan we’re still standing. We turn tragedy intae transition.”
“Taeday,” Lilias echoed. The word sat strangely in her mouth. “Ye want us tae continue with the wedding today.”
“Unless ye object?” Ailean asked. His gaze was steady on hers, and she couldn’t read what lay behind it. “After what ye’ve been through, I’d understand if ye needed time.”
It was the first time anyone had thought about her needs. Not what the clan needed, not what the alliance required. What she needed. The unexpected gentleness of it caught her somewhere behind her ribs.
“Time willnae change the necessity.” She forced herself to meet his eyes. “If we’re daein’ this, we might as well finish it.”
The sun had set by the time they reconvened in the Great Hall.
Ailean stood before the priest for the second time that day and tried not to think about the fact that his brother’s dead body lay fifty feet away in the chapel.
The crowd was smaller, limited to clan elders and essential witnesses. The candles had been relit but the flower arrangements removed, leaving the space feeling stark. Functional. Like a transaction rather than a ceremony. Which, he reminded himself, was exactly what this was.
Lilias entered from the side door, still wearing the dress she’d worn that morning. Her dark hair had been repinned, and someone had given her a fresh plaid in Fraser colors to drape over her shoulders. The Fraser colors looked right on her, and he wished that observation hadn’t occurred to him.
She walked toward him with her spine straight and her chin lifted, looking far more composed than he felt.
He watched her cross the hall and thought about the stairwell, about the blade at her throat and the way she had gripped the intruder’s forearm with both hands and forced herself to breathe.
She hadn’t screamed. She hadn’t collapsed.
She had assessed the situation with the same quiet steadiness she brought to the council meeting.
She was beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with softness or delicacy, the kind of beauty that came with steel and sharp edges. She looked like the sort of woman who could survive Highland winters and navigate clan politics without breaking.
That was the most dangerous thing about her.
Attachment was dangerous. He knew that. After what happened to his mother, he had spent years making sure no woman would ever bear that risk for him.
And now here she was, walking toward him in Fraser colors, and he couldn’t stop watching her.
She reached his side and turned to face the priest. For a moment they stood in silence, two people bound by necessity rather than choice.
“Ready?” he asked quietly.
“Are ye?” She glanced at him sidelong, something sharp flashing in her expression that might have been challenge or dark humor.
“Nae remotely.”
“Good. That makes two of us.”
He almost smiled. He hadn’t expected that either.
The priest cleared his throat and began the ceremony.
The words were the same ones Ailean had heard that morning, but they felt heavier now, more real, weighted with everything the day had cost. When it came time for vows, Ailean spoke them clearly, watching Lilias’s face for any sign of hesitation.
She showed none.
Her voice was steady as she repeated the words that bound her to him, to this clan, to a future that was chosen for them.
He found himself listening to every word she spoke, searching for reluctance, for resentment, for the performance of a woman doing what she must. He didn’t find it. What he found unsettled him more.
When the priest pronounced them married, Ailean felt the weight of it settle over him like chains.
He was laird of Clan Fraser. He had a wife. His brother was dead.
Everything had changed in the span of a single day.
“Ye may kiss the bride,” the priest said.
Ailean turned to Lilias. She looked up at him with those sharp eyes, her expression carefully neutral.
He could see the tension in her shoulders, the way her hands gripped her skirts.
She was braver than he deserved, this woman who had walked into a stranger’s castle and been handed chaos and grief and a blade at her throat and had simply squared her shoulders and kept going.
“We dinnae have tae,” he said quietly. “Fer appearances, aye, but?—”
She rose onto her toes and pressed her lips to his.
The kiss was brief. Chaste. Witnessed by a room full of clan elders who expected nothing more.
But Ailean felt it everywhere, felt the warmth of her mouth and the way she steadied herself with one hand against his chest, felt the slight catch of her breath before she pulled back.
He stood very still, afraid that if he moved he would do something profoundly unwise.
“There,” she said. Her voice was composed. Her cheeks were not. “Now it’s official.”
He couldn’t quite manage a response.
The witnesses applauded politely as Gordon approached with congratulations, while Torcall watched from the back of the hall with the expression of a man recalculating. Lilias’s father embraced his daughter, whispering something Ailean couldn’t hear.
And through it all, Ailean kept thinking about that kiss, about the way Lilias had taken control of a moment he’d been prepared to let slip past, about the fact that she was his wife now, bound to him by law and witnesses.
About the fact he was in a great deal of trouble.
Lilias turned back to him as the witnesses began to disperse. “So,” she said. “What happens now, husband?”
The word sent an unexpected jolt through him. “Now we figure out how tae survive this thegither, wife.”
She studied his face for a long moment. Then, impossibly, she smiled. “Well. At least it willnae be boring.”
He watched her turn away to speak with her father and thought that boring was the very last word he would ever use for her.