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In superhuman strength of will, he disentangled from her.
“Tonight, witch.” He promised. “We will have our second wedding night.” His fingers fished the tartan as he wrapped it around himself.
“Two wedding nights with the same man?” Those calamitous lips breathed a chortle. “I will call it lucky.”
“And I will call the wait torturous.” Especially because the ‘torture’ showed quite obviously. Worsened by her eager attention.
“We can surely spare a half-hour.” Mahogany irises rose from his lower abdomen, sedate, to his stare in a feather caress.
“Do not tempt me, Aileen.” He tied the tartan. “If the McKendrick bears find me here, I may get… crippled.”
“That would be disastrous.” She agreed.
He left the chamber without a look at her. Which would prove even more disastrous.
~.~.~
“I said tell Father Munro to take it out!” She repeated to Drostan not for the first time.
They stood just outside the manor’s chapel waiting for the priest to ready himself. Father Munro presided in the village since the end of last century.
Thankfully, the Scottish proceedings for weddings were simple and uncomplicated which made it possible for them to marry in a matter of hours. The speediness also attracted English couples, eloping or not, to go to Gretna Greens and tie the knot.
“You want him to change a millenary wedding vow?” He grumbled as he smiled to the closest kin to attend the simple ceremony and the rushed feast which would follow it.
“I cannot promise to obey if I will not fulfil it.” She hissed, becoming annoyed.
A myriad of green and black tartans and kilts milled around in a crisp autumn outcast day. Many women wore English style dresses, lending a colourful note to the greyish backdrop. Not Aileen, though. She had opted for the Scottish white underdress and her clan’s plaid spencer and headdress. She liked it against the McDougal’s in their aborted wedding at his manor.
“Cross your fingers behind your back.” He teased.
“Do not be childish.” She reprimanded her eldest brother.
He sighed helpless. “Alright. Only because we are finally marrying you off now.” A playful glint in his old-whisky eyes.
“You, brute.” She teased back.
All laugh fled from her when she devised the groom in the chapel. Monumentally imposing, he stood there, formally attired in his plaid, shirt, hose, shoes. It hit her she was marrying one of the most powerful men in the Highlands and, possibly, Scotland, sealing an alliance a century and a half overdue. An alliance which would influence the whole clans’ network for decades to come.
And she did not give a damn.
The giant mesmerized her uniquely for being him. He, who woke up beside her this morning. He, whose skin she liberally revelled in while he slept. He, who maddened her as the devil and sated her as a warrior. He, for whom her feelings entangled so obscure, she did not discern their complexity. Or even the complex man about to become her husband.
A cold wave flipped her insides.
Husband. The McDougal would be her husband in less than an hour.
And the sole thing that came to her mind was when they would be alone again. When they would be able to touch and kiss and sweat and give. Or take pleasure. Snuggle and talk small nothings as his attentive beacons burned her inside and out. Turned her inside out.
“Done.” Drostan came behind her. “He did not approve it, but I promised a substantial contribution to his parish.”
That must have sweetened the man of the cloth.
“Thank you, Drostan.” She said heartily.
Her father, in formal tartan, took her hand and placed it on his arm. The time had come. “Ready?”
A shuddered breath escaped her when she answered. “Ready.”
