Page 117 of The Tempting of Thomas Carrick
Catriona glanced at the Cynster by her side. They’d been married for nearly three decades, and the magic was still there, as was the love. For them, for all those like them, love was the great leveler between the sexes—the critical element required to make a marriage work.
As they moved on through the crowd, Catriona heard Lucilla laugh. She glanced across and saw her daughter look up at the man she had taken to her bed—the man that, Lady-chosen or not, Lucilla had brought to her side, and together they had bound themselves with love and passion.
They had the right foundation; Catriona had no doubt they would thrive.
Richard leaned close and whispered in her ear, “One down, four to go.”
Catriona smiled. “Time enough for the others. Today is all Lucilla and Thomas’s.”
And yet…through the crowd, Catriona glimpsed a head of pale blond ringlets at the far side of the lawn.
Niniver Carrick. Thomas’s cousin had given Thomas and Lucilla a female deerhound as a wedding gift; no one was quite sure where she had got the elegant brindle-coated animal, as most had thought the Carrick kennel sold and dispersed. Marcus, meanwhile, had given Thomas and Lucilla a male deerhound from the line he was breeding. There hadn’t been any collusion; the match was simply a happy coincidence.
In Catriona’s world, happy coincidences were often signs.
Thomas and Lucilla had, for reasons not even they could explain, wanted the deerhounds at the church. Niniver had offered to hold them. As Marcus had stood as one of Thomas’s groomsmen, the offer had been welcomed.
But that now left Niniver holding the young pups on leashes to one side of the lawn, out of the crush of the crowd, yet a potent magnet for every one of the many children, Cynster and local alike, who was there.
Niniver was a quiet, reclusive beauty. Catriona doubted that Niniver liked crowds, yet she was surrounded by a veritable army, all demanding and questioning…
Marcus must have realized the same thing. He arrived, and moving around to stand beside Niniver, he wisely made no move to take the leashes from her, but started to intercept the questions—and the children, both those who knew him and those who did not, responded to his presence and focused on him, allowing Niniver to breathe.
Even from a distance, Catriona could see the relief in Niniver, in the loosening of her muscles, in the lines of her face. In the grateful glance she threw Marcus, even though he didn’t notice.
Catriona watched for a minute more, then—satisfied that all was well on that front, too—moved on.
“But how fast can they run?” Eleven-year-old Persephone Cynster stood at the rear of the crowd of children and directed her question not at Marcus but at the blond goddess beside him. “Faster than a horse?”
“For a time.” Niniver looked down at the shaggy head she was stroking; the pups were fretting, wanting to run and leap—initially on all the nice friendly people in their Sunday best.
“They can run faster than horses for a short way.” Marcus stepped in before Persephone, with the unflinching confidence of her heritage, could further interrogate Niniver. “But they can’t keep that pace up for long—nowhere near as long as a horse can run.”
He could see that Persephone—intrigued by the fact that it was a girl who had control of the dogs—wanted to pursue Niniver, but Niniver was there, where he knew she truly didn’t want to be, partly because of him, and he wouldn’t have her badgered. Appealing with a look to several of the local boys, who were crouched as close as they could get to the dogs, he invited a question—and they obliged with alacrity. Most were, he noted, Carrick clansmen.
Given the interest shining in their eyes, he had to wonder from whom Niniver had got Eir, the female she’d given Thomas and Lucilla. Marcus would have sworn the hound was a purebred from the old Carrick line, and Thomas had mentioned that breeding was still going on somewhere on the Carrick estate—hehadn’t been surprised to see Niniver arrive at the door with the squirming bundle under her arm.
Thomas would know, or could guess, from whom she’d got the dog; Marcus made a mental note to pick his new brother-in-law’s brain.
He glanced over the crowd at his twin and her new husband and found himself grinning. He would ask, but maybe not tonight.
“No,” he replied to the next question. “Their coats are never flat and smooth.”
And, speaking of smooth, he gave thanks that, thus far, the crowd and the width of Thomas’s shoulders had blocked Sebastian, Michael, and Christopher from noticing where he’d gone. If any of the three sighted Niniver, they’d be over to lend a hand in a flash, but situated as they had been at the front of the church, they hadn’t known she was there, at the rear holding the dogs, and she’d come out ahead of the rest of the congregation. Thus far, she was safe.
While he knew none of his cousins would intentionally do anything to hurt or harm Niniver, he was also convinced that them not noticing her would be best all around for everyone.
He wasn’t sure how he would screen her from them at the wedding breakfast in the Great Hall, but he would worry about that later.
Right now, he had children to deflect, and Niniver to protect from their constant encroachment. He pointed to three little boys who’d been sidling nearer. “Back. We don’t want to startle the dogs.”
Or Niniver; she was jumpy enough as it was. He could all but feel her nervous tension.
He wished he could do something to ease it, but the best he could do was keep the children amused and that weight, at least, off her shoulders.
In the middle of the crowd, grasping the distraction created by Antonia Rawlings joining their group, Thomas dipped his head toward Lucilla’s. “Have you seen Manachan?”
She looked around. “No. And I have been looking.”
