Page 43 of Highlander's Secret Heiress
Shona smiled. “Thank ye, Mistress,” she said. “Now, shall we dae your hair?”
Now was the part of any celebration that Alyth hated. She had always wondered why it was that women had to be squeezed into corsets, have their faces painted, and their hair twisted into plaits, curls and coils. As well as that, they needed to bedeck themselves with enough jewellery to sink a battleship!
Men had to do none of these absurd things, and they seemed to be perfectly content. There was nothing like a handsome man in a kilt, especially if his name was Lachlan Carrick; he needed no adornment of any kind.
Alyth thought of his beautiful blue-green eyes, and her throat began to choke with tears. She remembered the cry he made when he came to his climax, the way he laid his head on her shoulder afterwards, the feel of his silky chestnut hair. Those times would never return, and all she would have of him would be beautiful memories to sustain her in the years to come.
How she wished there was a way to record those recollections so that she could look back on them and relive them! Yet, there was no good yearning for the impossible, she realised.
Alyth’s wedding dress was not new. In fact, it had belonged to one of her aunts, who had left it in the castle by mistake. It was very old-fashioned indeed, perhaps twenty years out of date, and she screwed her face up as she looked at herself in the mirror. Her reflection was not pleasing.
The garment was made of layers of pale grey velvet with an underskirt of white lace. It had puffed sleeves trimmed with more lace, and Alyth thought it was the fussiest, most overdecorated dress she had ever seen. However, she had chosen it on purpose, since she had no wish to appear attractive for Laird Robertson.
Just as she stood up, there was a heavy banging on the door and a Robertson guard barged in without invitation. He looked rather disappointed to see Alyth standing looking in the mirror fully dressed; perhaps he had been expecting to surprise her in a half-naked state.
“The Laird wants ye in the chapel, Milady,” the man said with a perfunctory bow.
“Tell the Laird, he can wait till I am ready,” Alyth replied in a pompous tone.
The guard frowned, nodded and retreated.
She turned to Shona. “Well, I suppose I am as prepared as I’m ever going to be,” she said, sighing.
“It willnae be as bad as ye think, Mistress,” Shona said soothingly.
“Oh, god, Shona, I hope you’re right,” Alyth said fervently, wiping a tear from her eye. “Because I feel as though I am walking into hell itself.”
Laird Colin MacAdams was standing at the back of the castle chapel at Cairnloch, waiting for his daughter to arrive so that he could give her away to her new husband. Give her away—it sounded as though she was a commodity, something to trade, instead of the most important person in his life. Was he trading her? Yes, but for a noble cause—peace.
Robertson was strong, and his soldiers were ruthless. However, that was not what worried him; it was James Robertson himself, whom he knew to have a streak of cruelty running right through him, and now he was handing Alyth over to his dubious care.
Care? He did not have a caring bone in his body.
Just then, he saw Alyth coming into the chapel with a fully armed guard on each side of her and her maid a few steps behind. He knew at once that she had not had much choice over her own dress; it was fussy, frilly, years out of date and did nothing to flatter her at all.
He swallowed nervously and smiled at her, holding out his arm, “You look lovely,” he lied. “I am very proud to be your father, Alyth.”
Alyth linked her arm with the Laird’s, but she did not return his smile, merely gave him an ice-cold stare in response. “Thank you,” she said coldly. “Now, let me tell you something, Father. I was planning to run away from everything, but then, I could not just leave you alone. I thought I could count on you, but you betrayed me, selling me away. Now let us get this farce over with.”
She squared her shoulders and tilted her chin, then began to walk down the aisle, feeling utterly ridiculous and embarrassed in the hideous dress. As she did so, she saw the leering, skeletal face of Laird Robertson, looking as though he were anticipating the prospect of devouring her like a favourite treat.
If only Lachlan was standing in Robertson’s place, she thought sadly. He would be dressed in his clan tartan great kilt, with the plaid over his shoulder sporting the clan crest. He would be wearing a snow-white shirt under his plain woollen jacket, but she would still be able to see the breadth of his shoulders and his strong, muscular calves. She knew that their wedding night would have been glorious.
And his face—his sculpted, masculine face with its square jaw and full lips. Alyth knew he would be smiling at her, his eyes shining with love. She was certain that she would be walking, not into paradise—she was a realist after all, but into a happy future with the man she loved. Instead, she was marching into hell with a monster.
When her father put her hand into Robertson’s icy cold one, Alyth gave him such a venomous look that he took a step backwards as if she had given him a physical blow. Then he walked away to sit in the front pew.
The ceremony was very sparsely attended, since Laird Robertson had wanted to organise the ceremony in great haste so that it could not be stopped or interrupted. Alyth doubted that any of the guests actually wanted to be there at all.
They were mostly men who traded with the Laird and their wives. However, Alyth was glad there were not more people there to witness her disgrace because she felt dirty, as if even standing beside Robertson was staining her with his filthy character.
“You look wonderful in that dress,” he whispered. Alyth was just about to thank him, merely for the sake of politeness, when he said, “But I am sure you will look even better without it. I cannot wait to make you mine—you should feel the same.”
Alyth looked into his leering dark eyes and felt like spitting at him. She wished she had brought a knife with her because then she could have cheerfully put an end to Robertson’s miserable life and smiled while doing it.
Damn the consequences!she thought.Anything is better than living with him.
The minister, Reverend Morrison, was late, which was very unlike him. He had been serving the village of Cairnloch for over twenty years—for all Alyth’s life. In fact, he had baptised Alyth when she was only eight months old, and she had an enormous affection for him.
