Page 68 of The Outlaw's Bride
Did Lachlann imagine it, or was there a quaver to the man’s voice. The madness was gone from his eyes. They now glittered. From the pain of his broken finger, or something else?
Adaira’s throat bobbed. “The heart decides,” she whispered. “It doesn’t care for feuds or reckoning.” She paused here, and father and daughter shared a long silent look.
Malcolm MacLeod’s face tensed, still fighting his outrage. “Morgan Fraser will crow over this … to know his son has wed a MacLeod.”
No, he won’t, Lachlann thought grimly.
Adaira shook her head. “Lachlann has broken with his father. We will leave Skye and start a new life elsewhere.”
MacLeod stared at her. His mouth tightened, a nerve flickering in his cheek.
When the clan-chief spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper, although there was a raw edge to it. “I’ve failed ye, lass. Ye look at me as if I’m a beast.”
Lachlann grew still as he watched. It was painful to see a proud man struggle so. He saw then that despite his foul temper and controlling ways, MacLeod did indeed love his daughters.
“Let us be then,” Adaira’s voice, although quiet, carried across the silent kirk. “Let me love whomever I choose.”
The priest stood a few feet away, his face ashen, while Rhona and Caitrin stood beside him, arms clasped around each other. The sisters’ faces were stricken.
A long pause stretched out.
“Da.” The pain in Adaira’s voice made Lachlann’s chest constrict. “Will ye give us yer blessing?”
Another silence fell, this one heavy with tension. Lachlann watched MacLeod’s face and witnessed the struggle there. The man was fighting a war within. Pride and anger against a fierce love for his youngest daughter.
The clan-chief closed his eyes and dropped his chin to his chest. His answer came in a whisper. “Aye, lass. I do.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Ten Lifetimes
LACHLANN HELD ADAIRA close and buried his face in her hair. “Promise me that ye will never take such a risk again.” His voice held a raw edge. “Ye could have been injured … or worse.”
Adaira squeezed her eyes shut. She buried her face in his chest, finding solace in the heat and strength of his body. “I promise,” she whispered back.
She hadn’t wanted to intervene. But as she’d watched her father draw his dirk, she’d known he meant to slay Lachlann. Initially, he’d wanted to take him prisoner again, which would have been bad enough. But she couldn’t bear the thought of seeing her father kill him.
Lachlann could hold his own, she’d seen that. Yet he didn’t possess her father’s murderous rage. Few withstood it.
She’d acted on instinct then.
Lachlann pulled back and hooked a finger under her chin, raising her face so that their gazes met. His mouth quirked. “So ye love me, Aingeal?”
Adaira huffed. “I was wondering when ye would bring that up.”
“So … it isn’t true then?”
They stood alone in the kirk. The others, including the priest, had left. Lachlann was watching her with a tender look that made a lump rise in Adaira’s throat.
“Of course it’s true,” she whispered. “Do ye think I’d say such a thing if I didn’t mean it?”
Lachlann smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “It was a difficult situation … desperation might have driven ye to it.”
Adaira swallowed, suddenly shy. “No,” she replied softly. “It just made me brave enough to say what was in my heart.”
They left the Duntulm village kirk and walked, hand-in-hand, through the crofters’ hamlet beyond. The nooning meal approached. The aroma of baking bread and stew wafted out of the cottages’ open doors.
Children, playing outdoors while their mothers readied the meal, called out to the couple.
