Page 14 of Beyond Dreams

And then what little din there was quieted all at once as there was movement in the shadows at the top of the stairs. This was followed by a collective lowering of shoulders and gazes and more than one sound of dissatisfaction when the figure stepped forward, shown to be only an old woman, another peasant, dressed shabbily in ragged wool.

Duncan sighed out his own disappointment, having expected he would finally be able to lay eyes on his bride. And he might have dismissed the hag out of hand, meant to, but that she paused there at the top of the stairs and from a distance of more than twenty yards, looked directly at Duncan. Her deliberate gaze surprised him but only because she hadn’t seemed to search out the groom but had looked first and only at him. Not much alarmed Duncan, but her shrewd dark eyes briefly did.

The crone grabbed onto the worn banister and slowly made her way down the stairs. The small crowd, only slightly more than half of them MacHeths by Duncan’s estimation, parted as she shuffled across the hall. She sent one more wily gaze toward Duncan before settling on Hugh’s far side, close to Graeme. The MacHeth chief exchanged a look with her, and the hag gave an almost imperceptible nod to answer whatever question had been wordlessly posed in the exchange.

It was a full minute later before another figure appeared at the second floor landing.

And Duncan was nearly floored at the sight that greeted his searching eyes. He widened his stance to accommodate a sudden feeling of unsteadiness. Though he’d never been one to have his head turned merely by a pretty face, only a man made of stone would not have appreciated how bonny was this woman.

His bride.

Jesu,but she was uncommonly lovely. Sleek and slender, gowned in ivory and bride’s blue, she floated down the stairs, elegant and soft featured, with her light brown hair hanging in loose waves around her shoulders. The gown clung to her graceful curves, highlighting to distraction her ample bosom, so much of that flawless flesh pushed above the low neckline. Her hand landed lightly on the railing, her fingers skimming downward as a caress as she moved. Her eyes were brown, wide and round and fringed heavily with lashes even darker. They dominated a face that was not milky white but subtly sun-kissed and were perfect beneath her winged brows and above a lovely, plump mouth. Brown hair and brown eyes should have been ordinary, Duncan thought, but they were not on this glorious creature. Her beauty was not glaring but understated, wrought by the purity of her features and the candor he glimpsed in those large eyes.

All the truth was there in her eyes, he realized as she drew closer. While she feigned being at ease, skimming her hand lightly over the railing as she descended the stairs, moving with unconscious grace, keeping her chin elevated to highlight fortitude, her eyes gave away her anxiety, wide and unblinking as they were. She looked quite young, or the frozen expression in her pretty brown eyes made her seem so.

It struck him as odd that she wore no veil and carried no bouquet. Aside from the apparent high quality of her gown, she was otherwise adorned for her wedding as was the hall—not at all. But Duncan did not linger over these oddities, being too captivated by both his bride’s beauty and then the fact that she actually did arrive; nothing quite seemed as it should be in accordance with the festival of a wedding, nothing at all since he’d stepped foot inside Hewgill House.

He swept his gaze over all of her, finding her petite—relative to his own great height—but with curves that any breathing and seeing man would be hard-pressed to ignore. Her arms were slender and her wrists dainty. The gown caressed her body with adoration, flowing devotedly over her fine hips and causing her breasts to jut forward most enticingly, the pale rounded flesh rising above the daring décolletage no doubt garnering much of the assembly’s attention. Her unbound hair lay over her shoulders and swayed against her chest, not quite long enough to conceal her charms.

Duncan dragged his gaze from Ceri MacHeth, following where went her brown-eyed gaze since it wasn’t on him, finding it settled with all that apprehension on Graeme. A plausible error, he allowed, as his cousin did stand closer to Hugh MacHeth and the cleric at the moment and might have been mistaken as her groom.

As she moved off the bottom step and now strode forward, Duncan finally moved, separating himself from the crowd, stepping into the lane created by the parted wedding guests, directly in her path.

Her nervous gaze was forced away from Graeme and transferred to him.

Her eyes widened and her pretty mouth opened while all the color drained from her face.

Not quite the reaction he’d had wished for from his bride, had he considered such a thing. Her reaction was so...palpable, so stunned, Duncan actually stepped forward more, thinking she was about to swoon. He checked himself midstride when her stark astonishment evolved into what could only be imagined as a dawning delight, even as shock was still the foremost emotion attached to her appraisal of him.

She choked out a joy-filled burst of breath, though this too was tinged with disbelief.

“You? What are you—?” She stammered and then smiled outright at him, the effect instant and beauteous, nearly stopping Duncan’s heart. “Oh... oh, thank God it’s you,” she said.

Chapter Five

Feeling a bit likea deer caught in the headlights, Holly stopped moving, though she did still gawk with great expectation at the man of her dreams, who’d somehow come to her fake medieval wedding.

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