Page 97 of Sweet Home Highlander
Both men were walking her down the aisle, the Montgomery laird spearing Niall with a scowl of pure warning, while the Frenchman wore his usual smirking grin. For the first time in weeks, he wasn’t inclined to punch it off his face. He was too worried about his brother-in-law. Brandt was married to Niall’s sister Sorcha, and she had never forgiven him for eloping the first time, which meant that he was already on the laird’s bad side. Not to mention the fact that he had practically ruined the man’s sister with their first sham of a marriage. He had much to make up for. But then his gaze caught his bride’s and everything else ceased to matter.
Niall’s heart threatened to burst in his chest when he saw her smiling at him, unabashed joy in her eyes, glistening with unshed tears. Aisla carried herself with regal poise and unswerving pride, her steps certain and eager. Her gown, fashioned of creamy white lace and silk, billowed behind her, and Niall saw the distinct wink of topaz gemstones, sewn into the bodice and hem, as the sunlight hit them at just the right angle. Ivory elbow length gloves covered her arms, the bracelet she’d bought in the village clasped on her left wrist. She fairly glowed, she did. She was so, so beautiful…and she was his.
“Ye want to make her happy?” Ronan murmured, Niall having forgotten him and everyone else in the chapel. “Looks like ye’ve got a good start.”
She reached the altar, and when both Brandt and Leclerc peeled off from her side, Niall stepped forward to take her hand, his heart no longer drumming madly. There was nothing to be nervous about, at all, so long as she was by his side.
“Ye’re the most perfect thing in this world,” he told her, to which Aisla only laughed and shook her head.
“I’ve got a belly the size of Hamish’s,” she replied as the congregation took their seats and the harpist concluded.
He eyed her abdomen, which had, indeed, started to show a wonderful roundness. Niall wanted to place his palm against the swell, as he usually did, but resisted.
“Nonsense,” he whispered. “Ye’ve got a few more months before ye match his belly.”
She laughed, her eyes still twinkling and damp, and as the priest began to speak, Niall felt utterly bound to her. They’d come so far, each of them growing for a time in separate directions. But they’d found each other again, and he knew with the deepest conviction of his soul, that this time, they’d continue to grow together.
When the priest called for the rings to be exchanged, Aisla slipped a silver and bronze ceilidh band onto his ring finger.
“It belonged to my uncle, my mother’s first husband, the Duke of Glenross. He was her first and only love,” she explained. “As you are mine.”
Niall glanced out at the Montgomerys filling the pews, and caught Aisla’s mother’s tearful eyes. Lady Catriona smiled and nodded once, and when Brandt took his mother’s hand in his, Niall felt the laird’s equal approval. His sister Sorcha sat at her husband’s side, her pride and affection toward Niall unmistakable. His throat felt tight. Of his three sisters, Sorcha was the one he was closest to, and not because of the scarring on her face that she’d sustained from a wolf as a child, but because she’d always looked out for him. Perhaps because they were connected by tragedy—she used to be betrothed to the man who’d brutally taken Niall’s hand. Apart from Aisla, she was the strongest woman he knew.
He turned to Ronan then, who handed him a small wooden box. He removed the lid, and took out the ring he’d spent the better half of the last month crafting in his studio. He’d started the piece when she’d left and finished it in earnest over the last few weeks. When he took Aisla’s hand and slipped it on her finger, she gasped in wonder, and he knew it had been worth the effort.
“Oh, Niall,” she said, gently touching her fingertips to the intricately carved ring: two separate pieces of cairngorm topaz, one a darker shade of amber, and the other a clear gold, chiseled and cut into the shape of two hands, each one intertwined and clasping the other at the wrist. He’d chosen hands instead of the more traditional heart for a reason.
“It’s no’ just our hearts that are linked now,” he told her. “But our lives. Our families.” And ignoring his earlier resistance to putting his palm on her stomach, did so now. “Our future children. Ye’re my partner, Aisla. And finally, my wife.”
Her tears fell, unhindered, and yet she smiled so brightly, she was nearly as blinding as the sun.
“How I love you, Niall,” she said, throwing her arms around him and kissing him.
He laughed against her lips, as the priest politely coughed. Aisla quickly composed herself, though Niall saw the spark of mischief in her sly grin.
“I think we should finish the ceremony, don’t ye?” he whispered. She gave a pert nod, her adoring and eager gaze still locked on him.
The sooner he could get back to calling her “wife,” the better.
…
The reception at Tarbendale wore on into the evening, and Aisla was starting to feel the ache of exhaustion in the small of her back. She was only about three months into her pregnancy, and was still worried for the babe, but at the same time something felt different. She didn’t know how to explain the odd confidence she had that this child would be born hale and healthy. Perhaps it was her own peace of mind with Niall, or the fact that the foundation of their marriage was stronger this time.
But as she sat at the head of the long table in Tarben Castle’s great hall, platters of meat and puddings and sweets piled high around her, her eyes heavy and sleepy as she watched her husband dancing with her sister-in-law Sorcha, Aisla felt complete and utter serenity.
“Don’t you look like the cat that got the mouse,” Julien said from where he sat beside her, nursing a goblet of wine.
“I wouldnae let my brother hear ye likening him to a mouse,” Makenna said from Aisla’s other side. The three of them were watching the festivities, which included in the far corner of the great hall, a man juggling daggers.
“Excellent advice, my lady,” Julien replied, leaning slightly forward to look at Makenna. “Would you care for a dance?”
“I’ve already told ye nae three times,” she said. “Ye’re either stubborn or dumb as an ox.”
“If you’re trying to dissuade me from wanting to dance with you, it won’t work. I’m used to insults from this one,” he said, patting Aisla on the arm.
She swatted at him, laughing. “Please dance with him, Makenna. He’s making me miserable with all his wretched pissing and moaning like an old woman.”
Julien pushed back his chair. “See what I have to put up with?”
