Page 23 of Promised to the Wicked Laird

The chapel erupted around them, a roar of approval, boots stamping against stone, someone striking up a drum somewhere near the back. But Fearchar heard none of it clearly, he was too caught up in the warmth of her mouth against his, in the way her free hand had come up to the front of his tunic, holding on rather than pulling away.

When he finally drew back, just enough to breathe, he kept his forehead close to hers, close enough that his next words reached no ear but her own beneath the noise of the celebrating hall.

"I remember our other kiss being a good deal more passionate than that."

Nandag's eyes flew open, and color flooded up her throat and into her cheeks.

"Fearchar."

"I'm simply making an observation, wife."

"Ye're making a spectacle, is what ye're daeing, and half this hall is watching ye dae it."

"Let them watch." He straightened, though he kept her hand firm in his, the cord still looped loose around their joined wrists before Father Lennox stepped forward to untie it. "I've waited seven years tae kiss ye and now I get tae dae it properly in front of witnesses. I'll nae apologize fer enjoying it."

"Ye could at least pretend tae have some decorum."

"I could." His mouth curved, unrepentant. "But then I'd have nothing tae hold over ye."

Nandag's mouth twitched, caught somewhere between a scowl and the smile she was clearly fighting to keep off her face. She turned quickly toward her father before Fearchar could enjoy the sight of it winning out, accepting Alasdair's embrace and the old man's murmured blessing against her temple, her cheeks still flushed pink beneath the circlet.

Around them, the hall surged into motion, clansmen and Farquharsons alike crowding forward with congratulations.

Duncan clapping Fearchar hard across the shoulder with a grin too wide for the solemn occasion, Mairi appearing at Nandag's elbow already dabbing at her own eyes with the corner of her sleeve, and somewhere beneath all of it, Fearchar caught Nandag glancing back at him once, quickly, her color still high, before she was swept away into the crush of well-wishers.

He let her go, watching her disappear into the crowd of green and blue plaid, and found his own chest doing something he hadn't planned for and wasn't entirely certain how to name, watching his wife laugh at something Mairi said to her, watching her steal one more glance back toward him across the crowded chapel floor.

Near the doors, half-lost in the shadow of a pillar, Malcolm stood apart from the celebration entirely, arms crossed, his face carved from the same stone as the walls around him, watching the newly wed pair with an expression that held nothing of joy in it at all.

CHAPTER NINE

The hall had been decked out for Mòrag's wedding not two days past, and nobody had troubled to change a single garland of it before pressing the same trestle tables back into service. Fearchar found something almost fitting in that, watching servants carry out the venison Cook had roasted for one wedding and never gotten to serve, setting it down now in honor of another.

He took a cup of ale from a passing tray and let himself lean back against a pillar near the edge of the hall, content for the moment to simply watch his wife work the room.

Nandag moved through the crowd without hurry, stopping at every table she passed, and Fearchar found himself tracking the shape of it rather than the words, though he caught enough of those too.

"Ye lost yer roof in the spring floods, did ye nae?" she asked an older woman near the hearth, crouching slightly to bring herself level with the woman's seat. "I'll have someone send timber up from the southern stores this week. There's nay reason ye should be patching thatch with straw through another winter."

"Ye neednae trouble yerself, me lady, on yer own wedding day."

"It's nay trouble. It's the reason I'm meant tae be sitting at that High Table at all." Nandag squeezed the woman's hand and moved on before the thanks could turn into a fuss.

At the next table, a younger man with his arm in a sling from the courtyard fighting tried to rise as she approached, and she pressed him back down with a firm hand on his shoulder before he'd gotten halfway up.

"Sit. I'll nae have ye tearing that wound open fer the sake of manners."

"Ye're too kind, me lady."

"I'm too practical. Sit."

He laughed, low and easy, and sat.

Fearchar took a slow pull of his ale and watched the pattern repeat itself, table after table. Nandag never lingering long enough to be tedious about it, never so brisk she seemed cold, thanking a Farquharson elder for standing his ground during the fighting, comforting a young mother whose husband had taken a wound protecting the west gate, laughing at something a child.

"She's good at that," Duncan said, appearing at his elbow with his own cup in hand.

"She is."