“It’s your wedding day,” Bella said. “It’s normal to feel as if you have a few butterflies fluttering around in your belly. Perhaps you would feel better if you lay down for a while?”
Helen shook her head, the means of escape suddenly coming to her. She stood up. “A spot of fresh air is all I need.”
“I shall go with you,” Lady Anna volunteered, overhearing the last part of their conversation.
“Nay, please,” Helen said quickly. “That isn’t necessary. I shall only be a short while.”
Bella came to her rescue a second time this morning. “Anna, weren’t you going to fetch some earrings …?”
The recently married young bride jumped to her feet, the soft roundness of her belly just visible beneath the folds of her gown. “That’s right. Thank you for reminding me. They will go perfectly with your eyes,” she said to Helen.
“Your dress will be ready for you to put on when you get back,” Christina said with a bright smile. The formidable MacLeod chief’s wife was easily one of the most beautiful women Helen had ever seen.
Helen felt a stab of guilt, seeing how eagerly everyone was looking forward to this wedding. Everyone but she.
Bella followed her to the door. “I’ve always enjoyed the path through the forest to the chapel,” she suggested. “I believe what you are looking for is there.” Their eyes met. The hint of compassion in the other woman’s eyes told her she’d guessed at least some of the truth. “I love them both,” the former Countess of Buchan finished quietly.
Helen nodded, understanding. No matter what happened, someone would be hurt.
But unlike Bella, Helen loved only one of them. She raced down the stairs and out of the tower into the frigid December morning. The thick blanket of icy mist had yet to lift from its moorings and hung like a silty sea of gray across the large courtyard.
Thankfully, no one remarked upon the oddity of seeing the bride make her escape out the gate mere hours before her wedding. Moments later, Helen found herself walking down the small, rocky rise upon which the castle sat and into the shadowy darkness of the forest to the south.
It was a short walk through the trees to the small chapel, which served the spiritual needs of the castle and the surrounding village. The stone building sat on a small rise in the middle of the small woodland. It was quiet as she approached. Eerily quiet. A whisper of trepidation slid down her spine.
She slowed, for the first time considering what she was doing. Her brothers would be furious. Her betrothed … angry? She didn’t know him well enough to guess his reaction. Her father, gone now for two years would have given her that look that he always did when she’d done something that seemed perfectly logical to her, but incomprehensible to him. It was the same look Will had perfected, often accompanied by some comment about her hair. As if red were some explanation for all the trouble she caused.
But it didn’t matter. She knew what she was doing. She was following her heart. What she should have done all those years ago.
The chapel was only a few feet away when she saw him. Her heart caught in a gasp in her throat. He sat with his back to her on a rock a few feet from the chapel door, staring at it as if he couldn’t decide whether to go in. The mere sight of him swelled her chest. If there was even the slightest chance that they might be able to find happiness, she had to seize that chance.
“Magnus.” Even saying his name invoked too much emotion, and the simple word came out as a strangled cry.
He turned and blinked once, as if not sure whether she were real or an apparition. The hardening of his jaw told her he’d figured it out. “You’re early.”
The sarcasm and flatness of his tone unsettled her. She searched his gaze for the man she remembered. But the warm, caramel depths of his eyes seemed hard and unfamiliar.
Ignoring the do-not-approach aura that seemed to radiate from him, she took a tentative step toward him. “I came to find you.”
He stood up. “Why? To rehash old memories?” He shook his head. “It would serve no purpose. Go back to the castle, Helen. Where you belong.”
That was just it. She didn’t belong anywhere. She never had. Only with him had she felt the possibility.
Helen searched for the slightest hint of anger, the slightest touch of pain. But his tone gave no hint of any emotion other than the vague sense of weariness she heard in her father’s voice when she’d done something “wayward.”
Three years was a long time. Perhaps the feelings he’d once had for her were gone. She felt a twinge of uncertainty but pushed it aside. This was Magnus. Calm, steadfast Magnus.
“I made a mistake,” she said softly.
If she’d hoped for any reaction to her words, she was to be disappointed. Taking a deep breath, she forged on. “I should have gone with you. I wanted to, but I couldn’t leave my family. My father was ill, and he needed me to help care for him. It was happening so fast.” She gazed up at him, pleading for understanding. “I was surprised—scared. You’d never mentioned marriage before. You’d barely even kissed me.”
His gaze pierced hers, his mouth a thin line. “What purpose does this serve, Helen? It is all in the past. You have no need of absolution from me. You owed me nothing.”
“I loved you.”
He stilled. “Obviously not enough.” The soft parry sent a blade right through her heart. He was right. She hadn’t trusted her feelings. Then. She’d been eighteen. She hadn’t known what she wanted. But she did now. She knew in her heart that he was the man who’d been meant for her. She’d been given a rare chance to have love, and she’d failed to grasp it. “I still—”
“That’s enough.” He crossed the distance between them in a few strides and grabbed her by the arms. The feel of his big hands on her was like a brand. For a moment, her heart had leapt, thinking that he’d snapped. That the calm indifference of his response had proved to be an act. But as he held her up so that her toes dragged on the ground, he looked perfectly in control. “Whatever you have to say, it’s too late.” He released her and took a step back. “For Christ’s sake, you are about to marry a man who is like a brother to me.”
The blasphemy, the small hint of emotion, urged her on. She moved closer to him—much closer—and put her hand on his arm, feeling a jolt of awareness as the muscles leapt at her touch. She looked up into the handsome face that had haunted her dreams, locking her gaze on his. “And it means nothing to you?” She moved her hand to cover his heart; beneath the hard shield she felt the thump against her palm. “It doesn’t bother you here.”
He looked down at her completely still and achingly silent, his expression unreadable. She looked for a sign that it mattered. Instinctively, her gaze went to the small muscle below his jaw. But beneath the shadow of dark stubble, there was no tic to betray him. He was perfectly controlled—as always.
Carefully, he extracted himself from her touch, setting her away from him. “You are embarrassing us both, Helen.”
She sucked in her breath, feeling the knife of shame cut through her heart.
He looked into her eyes and said, “I feel nothing.”
He turned on his heel and left her standing there, watching as her chance for happiness slipped silently away. This time she could not delude herself that he would come back for her.
Two
Helen didn’t know how long she stood there in the woods, frozen with heartbreak. Of course it was too late. What could she have been thinking?
By the time she returned to the castle, the women were in a mild panic. Bella took one look at her face and took charge.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked quietly.
Helen stared numbly at her. No. Yes. She didn’t care. What difference did it make?
She must have nodded because she soon found herself gowned, perfumed, and coiffed, with a circlet of gold upon her head, retracing the steps she’d taken only hours before.
Only once did she falter. As her brother Will, now the Earl of Sutherland, l
ed her to the place where her betrothed waited for her outside the chapel door, she took in the crowd that had gathered to stand witness to the ceremony. There, in the front, standing beside a handful of other warriors, she saw him. Magnus had his back to her. The once familiar form was broader, more muscular, and much more formidable, but she would know him anywhere.
Disappointment sank like a stone to her gut. His presence did away with any lingering doubt she might have had that this mattered to him—that she mattered to him.
“Is everything all right, Helen?”
She blinked up at her eldest brother. “You stopped,” Will pointed out.
“I …”
Every instinct clamored stop, do not do this.
“She’s fine.” Kenneth had come behind them. “Come, sister, your betrothed is waiting.”
Though he said it gently, there was a look in his eyes that cautioned her against doing something “wayward.” It was too late to change her mind.
For once, he and Magnus were in accord.
Swallowing through the hot ball of longing and regret that seemed lodged in her lungs, Helen nodded. When her brothers stepped forward, she moved along with them.
If her hand trembled as her brother placed it in her betrothed’s, she did not notice. In a trance, she stood to the left of William—as women had been formed from the left side of Adam—and faced the church door. As was tradition, the first part of the ceremony would be conducted outside, with the final blessing to take place inside the chapel before the altar.
Thus it was that she was married to William Gordon in the same place she’d made a fool of herself earlier, with the man she’d thrown herself at not five feet away.
She was aware of Magnus the entire time, a solid, dark presence, hovering on the periphery of her vision, as she responded to the vows that would bind her to another man forever. He did not move, did not voice an objection when the priest asked if anyone knew of any reason this couple should not be married (had she really hoped he would?), and did not once look in her direction.
With William’s betrothal ring firmly on her finger, she followed the priest inside the dark chapel and knelt beside William as the marriage was solemnized before God. When it was over, William kissed her lightly on her dry lips, took her hand, and led her out of the chapel as his wife to a roar of cheers.
She barely noticed. It was almost as if she weren’t there. The pale, serene figure standing beside him wasn’t her. The shy smiles and murmured pleasantries in reply to the storm of congratulations heaped upon her did not come from her. That woman was a stranger.
It was as if part of her had died. The part with hopes and dreams. The part that thought everything would work out in the end. What was left was a shell of the woman she’d been before. In her place was the woman who did what was expected. The woman who sat beside her new husband throughout the long wedding feast and pretended that her heart had not broken. Who ate from among the endless platters of food and jugs wine and celebrated with the rest of the clansmen in the Great Hall of Dunstaffnage Castle.
She fooled them all.
“It’s about time.”
Helen turned to the king, who’d spoken. As in the morning, she’d been given the seat of honor to his right. Robert the Bruce, who’d won his crown on a battlefield, cut an impressive figure. Dark-haired and sharp-featured, he would have been considered handsome even if he were not a king and one of the greatest knights in Christendom. “About time for what, Sire?”
He smiled at her. “It seems your wedding feast is a great success. Everyone is having fun.”
William, who was on her right, must have overheard. He leaned forward and grinned. “Highlanders know how to celebrate as well as they know how to fight.”
Bruce laughed. “Aye, that they do.” He nodded toward a table to the right. “I’ve just never seen that Highlander do that kind of celebrating.”
Helen was smiling as she turned in the direction of his gaze. But the smile froze in a mask of horror. She could feel every ounce of blood drain from her face as pain stabbed like a knife of fire through her chest, claiming her breath.
In the midst of dancing clansmen and drunken revelers, Magnus sat on a bench with a serving maid in his lap. He had one big hand on her hip, holding her firmly against him, as the other gripped the back of her head and held her face to his. He was kissing her. Passionately. Every bit as passionately as Helen had longed to be kissed. The woman’s enormous breasts were crushed against his powerful chest. Helen couldn’t look away from her fingers. The way they dug into his wide, muscular shoulders as if she couldn’t get enough transfixed her.
The lash of pain that sliced through her was white hot, slicing the flesh from her bone. Nay, slicing was too clean. This pain was jagged, crudely wrought pain with little finesse.
“We might need to change his name, eh, Gordon?”
The king’s words snapped her out of her stupor. He obviously hadn’t noticed her reaction. She turned to her new husband. Perhaps, he hadn’t either—
She stopped. Their eyes met. One look at William’s face and she knew she’d not been so fortunate. He’d seen her reaction. His gaze shot to Magnus. She could see the fury in the white lines around his mouth.
Oh God, he knew.
When William answered the king, however, he hid his reaction with a tight smile. “Aye, I think you are right.” His gaze locked on hers. “I wonder what could have caused such a change.”
Her heart hammered in her chest. She tried to cover her anxiety with a question. “Name, Sire?” Her voice barely trembled.
The king smiled. “A wee jest,” he said, patting her hand. “That’s all. It isn’t much like our friend to uh … celebrate so enthusiastically. I’d begun to think we really might have one of the Templars hidden in our ranks,” he said with a mischievous wink to William.
It was rumored that Bruce had given sanctuary to many of the Templars when the order had been disbanded and excommunicated by the pope—the same pope who’d excommunicated Bruce for the killing of his rival John “The Red” Comyn before the altar of Greyfriars nearly three years ago.
“I always thought there was a woman,” William said slowly. His gaze pinned hers.
Me. Oh, God. Had Magnus avoided other women because of me?
“Well, if there was,” Bruce said, “I guess there isn’t anymore.” He chuckled and, thankfully, changed the subject.
With William temporarily engaged by Lady Anna on his other side, Helen ventured one more look in Magnus’s direction. The woman was still on his lap, but to her relief they were no longer locked in a passionate embrace.
He was looking at her. His gaze shifted away, but for one moment their eyes caught. And in that instant of connection, in that hard stab of pain, she knew the full horror of this day.
A muscle twitched under his eye. Something she’d seen only once before. And in that one small betrayal, she knew: He still cares for me. He lied.
But it was too late.
Dear God, what have I done?
Lady Isabella—Bella—set the comb down on the small table beside the bed. “You look very beautiful.”
“Your hair is exquisite,” Anna added. “The way it catches in the candlelight. It looks like liquid fire shimmering down your back.”
Not even the rare compliment about her hair could rouse her. Magnus had loved it, too, she remembered.
“William will think himself the luckiest man alive,” Christina said with a broad smile.
Helen doubted it. She wanted to thank them, but feared if she opened her mouth, she would “baa” like a lamb to the slaughter. Instead she nodded with a smile that she hoped they interpreted as shy and not panicked.
The women had escorted her from the feast to the chamber she would share with William to prepare her for her bridal night. She’d changed from her gown into the fine linen chemise that had been richly embroidered for the occasion, and her hair had been released from the intricate crown of braids and combed
until it was smooth and glossy.
She saw Bella exchange a look with Christina, who nodded. A moment later, Bella sat down beside her on the edge of the bed. “Your mother passed when you were a child, did she not?”
Helen’s brows drew across her nose. “Aye, not long after my first saint’s day. She died after giving birth to a stillborn babe.” She hated that she had no memories of her. Her father had said they were much alike. She felt a wave of sadness. Even after two years, the sadness of her father’s death still felt fresh. She missed him so much. Although he’d recovered from the lung ailment he’d been suffering from at the time Magnus had asked her to marry him, even with her help and Muriel’s considerable skill, they hadn’t been able to save him when it recurred six months later. “Why?”
Bella bit her lip. “How much do you know about what is to happen tonight?”
Helen blanched.
“There is nothing to be scared about,” Anna quickly assured her. “Congress with one’s husband can be quite …” She blushed adorably. “Nice.”
Christina gave her a bawdy grin. “It can also be quite wicked.”
Bella shot her a look that said she wasn’t helping. “What we mean is that it’s natural to be nervous. If you have any questions—”
“Nay,” Helen cut her off, unable to take any more of this. She didn’t want to think about what was to come. She wasn’t nervous because she didn’t know what was going to happen, she was nervous because she did. If there was a moment she’d dreaded more than the wedding, it was the bedding. And now she had even more cause for dread. William had barely spoken to her after discovering her secret. She knew he was angry but didn’t know how he would react. Would he confront her or pretend it hadn’t happened? “I know what happens between a man and a woman.”
Another unmaidenly curiosity that Muriel had finally been the one to alleviate a number of years ago.
Bella nodded. “Sometimes there is pain the first time.”