Chapter 7

The morning of the wedding dawned bright and clear following the recent storms.

Isobel opened her eyes as a ray of sunshine fell across her pillow. She stared out at the bright blue sky, wondering how she had reached this point so quickly.

The work on the castle was continuing around her—battlements and walls repaired in the blink of an eye, the towering structure seeming to grow more quickly every day she looked at it.

A tentative knock sounded at her door before her maids entered to prepare her for the day. The bustling movement pulled her away from her thoughts and fears, and allowed her to become absorbed in the mundane.

It was only as they finished seeing to the many layers of her undergarments for the wedding that Nora and her sisters entered.

Isobel gave Nora a grateful smile as her sister carried in her arms many bundles of wild lavender. The scent wafted into the room, bringing her much comfort as her nerves fluttered in her belly.

Emma, in her usual authoritative manner, dismissed the maids as her sisters bustled around Isobel.

Isobel could not quite believe that, come the evening, she would be a wife to a laird. If someone had told her this would be her fate only a month before, she would have laughed.

Lydia, who had been fussing with the many layers of her underskirts, tutted quietly. At the sound, Emma turned around, her eyes narrowing.

"Isobel, what is this?" Lydia asked reproachfully, standing up behind her sister, her hand feeling gently along Isobel's hip, where she had concealed the dirk in a sheath on her thigh.

"Isobel," Emma said wearily as Lydia lifted the skirt for her other sisters to see the knife.

"I have it for me protection!" Isobel protested as Emma untied the sheath and removed it.

"Today is yer wedding day, Isobel. Ye cannae take a dirk to yer wedding."

"And why nae? I can think of nay better place to have one," Isobel added irritably.

All three of her sisters were smiling amongst themselves, and she didn't appreciate their teasing.

Isobel groaned as Lydia, who had been looking around the room with interest, pulled her bow and quiver of arrows from beneath the bed with a cry of triumph.

Emma put her hands on her hips, looking at Isobel in exasperation as Nora snorted into her hand with quiet glee.

"I cannae do it," Nora wheezed, her shoulders shaking with mirth. "I may give birth right now if ye keep makin' me laugh, Isobel. I do love ye for the things ye prize above all else."

She held her hand over her swollen belly, laughing so hard that she had to take a seat in the corner of the room until the fit subsided.

"I may need them," Isobel said, watching in dismay as Lydia handed over her precious arrows to Emma. "Give those back to me."

"Nae on yer life, Lady Isobel. Today, at least, ye are a lady, and I'll nae have ye murderin' the guests."

Emma took the arrows, the bow, and the dirk out of the room, ignoring her sister's cries of protest.

Isobel crossed her arms over her chest, sulking as she lamented the loss of her weapons. She felt naked without them.

A gentle tap on the door had them all turning, to find a manservant standing in the doorway. Nora hurriedly threw a shawl over Isobel's underclothes as he bowed low, enquiring where he should leave the Laird's trunk.

Isobel shook her head. "Next door, if ye please. Thank ye."

She had already had to redirect several of her own trunks from another, larger room in the castle, where the servants kept assuming they were sleeping. She had rejected that suite, however, as she had discovered it was overrun with rats.

These rooms were modest in comparison to the kind a laird and lady should occupy, but at least they were dry and free of rodents.

"Ye can leave it in his rooms," Isobel repeated, as the man continued to hover awkwardly. She looked at the single trunk that had been placed outside the door. "Is that all there is?"

"Aye, M'Lady. Just this. We shall place it next door, ye say?"

"Aye." Isobel nodded, and then the manservant departed.

As she watched him go, her mind wandered to the night that would follow the wedding. What would her husband's expectations of her be? Her mind was filled with the dark promise of his words on the day of the tournament—that she would beg him to touch her.

She thought of his large, strong hands, his wide muscular chest, arousal coursing through her body even as she did so.

Hurriedly, she cleared her throat, looking desperately for a distraction.

She turned to her sisters. "What kind of man has only one trunk of clothes?"

"A pirate," Lydia replied solemnly, and the mood in the room darkened instantly at her words.

Isobel was reminded all over again of the bargain she had made and the dangers that lay in the shadows around them.

She became distracted, however, when Emma came back into the room with her wedding gown. Nora and Lydia both exclaimed as she entered with it, all eyes on the deep forest green of the fabric. To Isobel, it looked like the woods and fields that she loved so much. Patterns of golden leaves had been sewn into the fabric.

It is exactly the shade of his eyes.

She touched it reverently as her sisters cooed and fussed over it. Isobel ran her fingers along the seams before Emma lifted it high in the air, and all three of them pulled the dress over her head and down to the floor.

After much pulling and tweaking, which almost made Isobel set fire to the thing, she was finally ready.

Emma and Nora stood back and looked her over. Isobel was not accustomed to such attention and attempted to hide behind Lydia as they all laughed at her.

"Ye look so bonnie I could cry," Emma said, her voice a little choked up as she looked at Isobel. "Maither would be so proud of ye."

Isobel smiled, wondering what their mother would make of her future husband.

Suddenly, a more rapid knock sounded at the door, and Emma went to answer it. To Isobel's surprise, her sister admitted Hunter, who stood in his Highland trews, looking every bit the laird he was. He nodded at Isobel but said nothing more.

After a brief pause, all three of her sisters filed out as though a silent agreement had passed between them, leaving her and Hunter alone.

Isobel frowned at him. "Have ye come to return me dirk?" she asked. "Yer wife stole it from me."

He huffed out a laugh and shook his head. "Nay. I came to speak to ye, Isobel, nae arm ye for war."

She shrugged her shoulders as he approached and was surprised to see uncertainty on his face. Hunter was a man of few words, and it had taken them a while to see eye to eye.

When he had first come into their lives, abruptly choosing to marry Emma, he and Isobel almost came to blows. But they had formed a gentle friendship as of late that she treasured.

At that moment, however, he looked almost guilty.

"What is it, Hunter?"

He came to stand before her, his gentle eyes looking down at her with so much sadness that she felt a pang in her chest. She had never seen him look so sorrowful.

"I cannae help but feel if it werenae for me, ye wouldnae be standing here today. I willnae lie to ye and say ye dinnae look as bonnie as any lass I've ever seen, but I wish it wasnae so."

Isobel frowned at him. "I dinnae understand."

"Isobel, if it werenae for me, ye wouldnae have to marry Alex Bain."

She stepped back from him, shaking her head. "Whatever put that idea in yer head, Hunter?"

"Ye ken as well as I do that if I had been a better laird to yer people, I could have managed MacRoss and Clyde together, and ye'd never have had to strike that deal at all. Nay tournament would've been needed. Ye could've lived freely for a few more years until ye were ready to take a husband."

Isobel huffed at those words.

"Ye see?" he said, his voice almost desperate now. "Ye didnae wish to marry so soon. Both Emma and I ken that."

She took his warm hands in hers, squeezing them gently. "Hunter, I want ye to push these thoughts out of yer head and let the winds carry them away. I would have had to marry at some point. At least this time, it is of me own choosin'. I may nae have made any friends with the way I've reached me wedding day, or who I have chosen to marry, but it's me decision."

She let out a long breath, feeling a little lighter as she confessed the truth.

"Alex Bain may nae be the kind of man I ever thought I'd marry, but I didnae picture him in me mind either. Many lasses dream all their lives of the perfect laird to wed. Well, nae me. I would rather have a bit of the wild in me life."

Hunter's eyebrows, which had been furrowed and grim since he entered the room, rose at that, and he nodded.

"Besides," Isobel continued, "I could never be angry with ye. Against all odds, ye have saved our lives and looked after me sister as well as any man. And ye've given me a wee nephew who thankfully doesnae bear a lick of resemblance to his oafish faither."

Hunter chuckled softly, raising his eyes to the heavens in despair. "Ye are a brave lass, I'll give ye that," he said.

"Dinnae ever take it for granted though, Hunter Murray. Ye do wrong by me sister, and ye'll suddenly find a dirk at yer throat."

She let go of his hands with a playful smile as she made to leave the room, but Hunter pulled her back.

"If I cannae be with ye to ride out this storm every day, let me at least walk ye down the aisle on yer wedding day."

Isobel turned back to him, touched beyond belief that this quiet man would offer her such a thing.

"I'd be honored," she replied simply.

He offered her his arm, and she took it. "Nay, Isobel Knox. The honor is all mine."