The Laird’s Dangerous Bargain - Extended Epilogue

The Laird’s Dangerous Bargain – Extended Epilogue

One month later, MacKay castle

The morning of the wedding, it rained.

Not the soft coastal drizzle that Lilian had grown up with, the kind that settled into your hair and your clothes and your bones without ever quite committing to being a storm. This was proper rain, coming in hard off the sea, rattling the castle windows and turning the courtyard below into something that resembled a very ambitious puddle.

Flora appeared in the doorway of the chamber, took one look at the rain hammering the windows, and set her tray down without a word.

“It’s raining,” Lilian said.

“I can see that.”

“On me wedding day.”

“Aye.” Flora began lifting the covers off the dishes, unbothered, rain not worthy of further comment as far as she was concerned. “Eat something. Ye’ll need it.”

Lilian looked at the window. The harbor below was barely visible through the grey curtain of it, the ships at anchor indistinct shapes in the mist. She thought about the clifftop, about crouching over a crack in the rock in the rain and finding white blooms there, small and stubborn and entirely untroubled by the weather.

Rain lilies. Things that appeared after everything had been difficult for a long time.

She turned from the window and sat down to eat.

Muire arrived an hour later,. She had a sprig of something green tucked behind her ear and a knowing look in her amber eyes that Lilian decided not to address.

“Ye look well,” Muire said, taking in the dress, the pinned hair, the expression Lilian was wearing. “Nervous?”

“Nay,” Lilian said.

Muire looked at her hands.

“Dinnae,” Lilian said.

“They’re shaking.”

“They’re nae shaking.”

“Lilian. They’re shaking.”

Lilian pressed them flat against the table. “That’s the cold.”

“It’s June.”

Flora made a sound from the corner, doing her best to suppress a laugh.

“I’m nae nervous,” Lilian said, to both of them. “I’m ready.” She looked at her hands, which had stilled. “I’ve been ready since I first saw him.” She paused. “I just didn’t know it then.”

Muire looked at her for a long moment, the herb sprig bobbing slightly as she tilted her head. Then she nodded once, satisfied, and went to help Flora with the veil.

***

Ewan had been dressed and ready for an hour before anyone came to find him.

He stood at the window of his study, looking out at the rain, and thought about the MacLeod negotiation that Lilian had handled with a skill that had left the MacLeod representative looking mildly stunned. His mind also wandered to the fact that in approximately two hours he was going to marry a woman who’d arrived on a sinking ship and had proceeded to take apart every excuse he’d ever made for living alone.

He was, if he was being honest with himself, deeply grateful for all of it.

Angus appeared in the doorway, looked him over once, and nodded. “Ye’ll dae,” he said.

“Thank ye,” Ewan said. “That’s very moving.”

“I thought so.” Angus came in and stood beside him at the window. They looked at the rain together for a moment. “She’s nae going tae bolt again, is she?”

“She’s nae going tae bolt.”

“Just checking. Last time she went out a window.”

“She went out the window tae protect me,” Ewan said. “Which I’ve been informed counts as romantic.”

“By whom?”

“Flora.”

Angus considered this. “Flora’s probably right.”

“Flora’s always right.” Ewan turned from the window. “Is everything ready?”

“The hall’s set. Tamhas is already seated, has been for twenty minutes. Sile has her sketchbook.” Angus paused. “I told her nae tae draw during the ceremony.”

“What did she say?”

“She said she’d be discreet.”

Ewan looked at him.

“She’s got a very small sketchbook,” Angus offered.

Ewan pressed his lips together and went to find Callum.

***

The Great Hall had been transformed.

Not beyond recognition, Lilian noted, as she stood at the far end of it waiting for the signal. It still looked like a MacKay hall, stone and timber and the smell of woodsmoke, the long table pushed back to clear the center, torches burning high despite the daylight. But someone, she suspected Flora with Muire’s enthusiastic assistance, had put white flowers along every surface, filling the hall with the kind of brightness the rain outside had decided not to provide. She looked at them and felt the corner of her mouth lift.

Rain lilies.

Every surface was covered in them.

She looked at Ewan across the length of the hall and found him already looking at her, which had been true with such consistency that she’d stopped being surprised by it and started simply accepting it as a feature of any room they were both in. He was standing at the far end in his plaid, dark hair scar and all, and he looked entirely certain of himself.

She walked toward him.

The hall was full, Angus and Callum and Gregor and the Council and the men who’d ridden north through the night and a great many other faces she’d been learning over the past month. She was aware of them the way she was aware of peripheral things during a negotiation, present but not the point. The point was the man at the end of the hall, watching her walk toward him with an expression that had nothing guarded in it.

She reached him.

“Ye’re late,” he said, low enough for only her to hear.

“Ye’ve been waiting four minutes,” she said.

“Three and a half.”

“Ye counted.”

“I always count.” His eyes moved over her face. “Ye look beautiful.”

She held his gaze. “I ken,” she said, and watched the real smile break across his face, warm and unguarded, and decided that was going straight into the collection of things she planned never to forget.

The ceremony was conducted by the clan’s elder, a man of considerable age and very little patience for lengthy proceedings, which suited both of them. The words were plain and direct and they said them to each other rather than to the room, which also them. When it came to the vows Ewan didn’t look at the elder or at the hall or at anything except her face, and she returned the courtesy, and the words they said were simple and meant and that was enough.

He put the ring on her finger. She felt the warmth of his hands around hers, steady as they always were, and looked up at him.

“Well,” she said quietly.

“Well,” he agreed.

***

The celebration lasted well into the night.

Ewan sat at the head of the table with Lilian beside him and watched his hall fill up with noise and warmth and the happiness of people who’d been through something hard and had come out the other side of it into something good. Angus was deep in conversation with Tamhas at the far end, which he hadn’t anticipated but probably should have. Sile had, in fact, been drawing during the ceremony, and was now showing the results to Callum. He was looking at the pages with an expression hovering between impressed and alarmed. She’d captured him in considerable detail from three different angles.

Gregor stopped behind his chair at some point in the evening and put a hand briefly on his shoulder though he said nothing. Ewan nodded. Gregor moved on. It was the most the old man had ever said to him about anything that mattered.

Lilian was watching the room, and he watched her do it, thinking about a woman who’d told him she had the sinking ship situation under control. She had been both right and wrong at the time.

“Ye’re staring,” she said, without turning.

“I’m watching.”

“Same thing.”

“Nae always.” He reached over and took her hand from the table, turning it over in his, the ring catching the firelight. “Are ye happy?” he asked.

She turned to look at him. The firelight caught the green of her eyes, the copper of her hair, and the faint line of the scar at her collarbone that had faded but hadn’t disappeared. In that moment, he thought, not for the first time, that she was the most striking woman he’d ever seen in any room.

“Aye,” she said. “I’m happy.” She looked at their joined hands. “Are ye?”

“Considerably,” he said.

She raised an eyebrow. “Just considerably?”

“Extraordinarily,” he said. “Is that better?”

“It’s more accurate.” She turned back to the room, but her hand stayed in his, her fingers curling around his. “Sile’s going tae try tae give ye the wedding portrait,” she said. “I’d prepare.”

“How bad is it?”

“She’s very talented.”

“That’s nae what I asked.”

“It’s very on point,” Lilian said, a small smile playing on her lips. “She captured the jawline particularly well.”

He looked at her and she looked at the room. The corner of her mouth gave up the fight entirely.

He pressed his lips together, looked at the ceiling, and thought about the challenge of being married to a woman who found him funny but refused to admit it.

He thought he could live with it.

***

It was past midnight when the hall began to empty.

Tamhas had been seen to bed an hour before, steady on his feet in a way he hadn’t been in years, color in his face and Muire’s arm through his and the expression of a proud father. Sile had fallen asleep in the corner with her sketchbook, and Callum had found a blanket from somewhere and draped it over her, trying very hard not to wake anyone up.

The fire had burned low. The candles were down to stubs. Lilian stood at the window of the Great Hall looking out at the harbor, the rain long since stopped, the sea below gone silver under a clear sky. Ewan came to stand beside her, close enough that their arms pressed together, and she leaned into it without thinking, the way she’d been leaning into him for weeks without thinking.

“The MacLeod response came this morning,” she said.

“I ken. I read it.”

“They accepted the revised terms.”

“They did.” He looked at her sideways. “Ye’re talking about trade routes on yer wedding night.”

“I’m talking about trade routes on our wedding night,” she said.

He looked at her for a long moment and she looked back at him. The hall was quiet around them and the harbor was silver below and everything that had happened to bring them there sat between them like something neither of them needed to name.

“The northern routes are ours,” she said. “The MacLeod terms give us control of the crossing fer the next ten years. Combined with the Fairfield contracts and the MacKay ports, we hold the western trade lanes.” She held his gaze. “All of them.”

He looked at her. “Ye worked that out before the ceremony.”

“I worked that out three days ago. I was simply waiting fer the right moment tae share it with ye.”

“And our wedding night seemed right.”

“Ye’re a laird,” she said. “I thought ye’d appreciate the strategic implications.”

He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, his fingers brushing her cheek. She felt it move through her the way she always did, all the way down. “I appreciate them,” he said. “I appreciate ye considerably more.”

“Considerably again,” she said.

“Extraordinarily,” he corrected. “I thought we’d established that.”

She smiled from somewhere deep. She turned back to the harbor, his hand finding hers at her side, and they stood together at the window while the last candles burned down and the sea went quietly about its business below.

She thought about Lochaline and the contract folded in her cloak and the father who’d sent her across the sea because he had no other move left. She thought about a man dropping from a birlinn onto a burning deck and telling her to stay behind him. She thought about all the instances between then and now, the clifftop and the kitchen and the locked room and the burning hall and the ring on her finger warm from his grip.

She pressed her thumb across it.

“Ewan,” she said.

“Aye.”

“I’d dae it all again,” she said. “The ship, the pirates, and the cage. All of it.” She looked at him. “Just so ye ken.”

He looked back at her, nothing held back, nothing performed, just him.

“So would I,” he said. “Every bit of it.”

Lilian MacKay stood at the window and thought that the numbers, for the first time in a very long time, added up exactly right.