Here it is, he had thought fatalistically.She was hidin’ the fact that she’s repelled by me scars. She finds me too beastly and cannae bear to kiss me.
It had hurt as well as angered him. But still, he had kept his temper and asked her what was wrong. Her shy response had taken him completely by surprise and crushed his assumptions.
“I’d like to be wooed a little. Courted. If we could have five dates, five times when we spend time together, go out and do somethin’, then we wouldnae be strangers anymore. It would make me feel better. And after that, I promise I’ll give meself to ye.”
He had breathed a sigh of relief. It was not about his scars, after all!
Now, he smiled to himself, thinking about her. She was infuriating, yes. And she had complicated thingsunnecessarily, in his view.But her eyes had told him she was in earnest, that she needed time to get to know him.
And after bein’ away for a year, I figure I owe her that much.But how the hell do ye court yer wife?
Zander’s voice broke into his thoughts. Edan saw he had finished his porridge and was now leaning forward with his elbows on the table, his expression filled with worry.
“Edan, I can see ye have somethin’ on yer mind. Is it the council? Because if it is, I can deal with them for ye if ye want to spend more time with yer wife.”
“Are ye jokin’?” Edan replied, mustering a smile for his friend. “I appreciate the offer, man, but I’m lookin’ forward to givin’ those traitorous bastards a piece of me mind. Besides, if I let ye loose on them, they’ll nae leave the council chamber alive, and, unfortunately, I still need them.”
“But I can see how weary ye are,” Zander said, looking at him dubiously. “And it doesnae look to me like the sort of tiredness of a man who’s just had his weddin’ night.”
Edan grinned. “And what does that look like, exactly? Do ye ken how nosy ye are? A man’s weddin’ night is his own concern. Ye should mind yer own business.”
“Ye are me business. I’m worried about ye, ’tis all.”
Edan pushed his plate aside and sat back in his chair, looking back at Zander’s concerned expression. “As it happens, I didnaeget much sleep last night if that’s what ye’re gettin’ at,” he finally admitted.
“Ach, I kenned it! But why did ye nae sleep? Was it because of yer—” Zander began, but Edan cut him off by suddenly getting to his feet.
“’Tis almost time for the meetin’,” he said. “Come on, let’s go.”
Zander got up, and they left the hall together, heading to the council chamber. As they passed the table where the brave councilors who had stayed were finishing their meals, they turned their heads in unison, bestowing black glares of deep disapproval upon them.
6
The council members of Clan Aberfeld were an august lot, gray-haired and balding, with seamed faces. Many of them had served Edan’s father faithfully for years. Collectively, they were wise, noble men, clever and respectable. They were hard men, many of them veterans of fierce battles, a walking repository of valuable experience and knowledge.
Yet, they sat before Edan’s scalding tirade in silence, their heads bowed in shame, like naughty choir boys being reprimanded by the minister for some collective transgression. He began with a glowering stare around the table, subduing them. When he was satisfied they looked scared enough, in a voice that shook the rafters, he unleashed a tidal wave of invective upon them which was deeply insulting but exactly described what he thought of them.
After that, he changed gear and hammered them relentlessly for about twenty minutes, letting his pent-up fury flow over themin a steady stream so that they would never forget it and never repeat what they had tried to do behind his back.
“I’ve never had the misfortune to come across such a bunch of ungrateful, back-stabbing, disloyal bastards as ye lot. I look around this table and I want to puke me guts out. I feel a fool for trustin’ ye. Me own council. I went away believin’ I’d left the clan in trustworthy hands. Now, I see how wrong I was.”
Silence, cowed expressions, and guilty glances met his blazing eyes as they swept across the heads of his advisors.
“After risking me life ten times over on the battlefield in support of one of our closest allies, what do I come home to? Treachery, disloyalty of the worst sort. Instead of waitin’ for me return or tryin’ to find out if I was alive, ye cold-bloodedly decided I was dead. It didnae take ye long to consign me to me grave, did it? Twelve months, that’s all. One year, and ye had me dead and buried.”
He paused for breath as well as effect before continuing. “But they say every cloud has a silver lining. I suppose this little escapade of yers has at least shown me I cannae trust a single one of ye.”
His voice rose to a new height of fury. “But do ye ken the worst thing of all yer plottin’ behind me back to replace me?” He stared at them one by one. As he planned, no one dared reply to the rhetorical question. “The thing that makes me want to rip yer heads off and stick them out there on the castle gate on pikes?”
The silence was so thick that it could have been cut with a knife and sold at the market for sixpence a pound.
“I’ll tell ye, shall I? Me wife! Lady Aberfeld. Ye didnae protect me wife.” He slammed his fists on the table, making it shake, and the councilmen jumped. “In fact, instead of protectin’ her while I was away, as I trusted ye to do, ye tried to use her to carry out yer scheme to replace me by forcin’ her into a marriage she didnae want with yer new favorite laird! Well, let me remind all of ye, so ye dinnae make the same mistake again. She’s married tome!”
He banged his fists on the table again. “She’smewife, yer Laird’s wife!” Bang! “She’s nae some bloody bargainin’ chip ye can for yer own convenience.” Bang! Bang! Bang!
He let that sink in.
“When I think of what that lass has been through because of ye, ye treasonous bunch, bringin’ yer snivelin’, wee dog into me castle to propose to her, why, ye’re lucky I didnae bite yer heads off with me teeth. Ye must have been very disappointed when I turned up alive and kickin’. Aye, I’m lookin’ at ye, Findlay Pearson.”
