Page 15 of Beyond Dreams

But then a flurry of motion and sound interrupted her shock and relief.

Hugh and Wedast both surged forward, Hugh grabbing at her arm and hissing something at her, close to her ear. She winced and closed her eyes, bending her face away from him. She was hauled up against him while he continued to berate her at the same time Wedast thrust himself between the man of her dreams and Holly, thrusting his finger in her face, murmuring something harshly.

Oh, crap. She wasn’t supposed to speak, she just recalled, as herbrothersboth snarled at her at once.

A screech of noise sounded, the hiss of metal, the sound repeated over and over as swords were drawn all around. Holly opened her eyes, realizing that just as Hugh had her arm locked in his grip so too a hand now was clasped around his throat, the fingers tight enough that the flesh of Hugh’s neck bulged around the strong hand. Slowly, he released Holly, his hand falling away from her arm. The hand clenching Hugh’s neck belonged to the man of her dreams and was only loosened when Holly was freed and Wedast had moved away as well.

The man of her dreams—holy crap! What was happening here?—growled something at Hugh, his lips curled with a frightening fury, before he gave a shove with his hand that sent Hugh backward a full step.

The man she thought was her groom had moved as well, so that now he and the man of her dreams basically formed a protective wall in front of her, essentially between her and those pretending to be her brothers.

She was so confused. From his right flank, Holly stared at the man of her dreams. Nothing should surprise her anymore, but this most certainly did.What was he doing here? How was he real? My God, but he’s magnificent.

Up close and in real life—such as this was presently—he was so vividly detailed and...real. And so much more vibrantly drawn, large and looming with a ferocious energy fairly oozing from him that Holly felt the heat of him though they didn’t touch, hadn’t touched at all.

“I don’t understand any of this,” she bemoaned quietly while he and her groom and the MacHeth brothers engaged in a heated exchange, hollering forcefully at each other in their language.

Only a foot or so separated those four men. A round little man Holly hadn’t seen before tried to worm his way between, holding up a thin and small leather book and wearing what looked like a priest’s clothes so that she assumed he was the preacher, come to marry them.

The man of her dreams abandoned his browbeating of the MacHeths and turned his feral gaze on her.

He was fascinating for how wild and savage he was. Up close, his mouth was gorgeous, chiseled hard above his steel-like square chin, beneath eyes as cold as green crystals. Though she’d not once thought of his age when he’d come to her dreams, she realized now he was possibly older than she’d thought, maybe thirty-five or more. Still, for the life of her she could not explain why so much hope rose inside her at the sight of him, at him beinghere, in the flesh, with her. At herwedding!

And then he spoke. And hope lost a bit of its excitement.

“Why the hell do you sound so bluidy English?” He demanded frigidly in a rough and deep voice, exactly as it had been in her dreams. “Who are you?”

“I-I...” she began, darting glances between him and the man she’d noticed first, the one who looked a little like the man of her dreams, whom she’d truly thought was the MacQuillan, her intended groom. “Who areyou?” She decided she needed to know first. Only belatedly did it dawn on her that he’d spoken English to her. Fantastically, his voice sounded exactly as it had in her dreams, deep and rich, except that now it was tinged with a thick Scots’ accent, not at all displeasing to her ear.

His face answered before he did. A muscle twitched high in his cheek as he clamped his lips together. The dark slashes that were his brows veed over his eyes, the pupils of his eyes dilated, darkening the orbs to onyx.

But Holly did not flinch in the face of his renewed fury. She’d seen this look a hundred times before.

“If you be Ceri MacHeth,” he ground out, barely moving his mouth, “then I am your bluidy groom. Now you tell me what the hell is going on that I’m to be saddled with a bluidy English speaking wife.” He stabbed her with his gaze, studying her intently, spearing her with the mistrust gleaned from his frosty gaze.

“Settle, Duncan,” advised the man who Holly had originally supposed was to be her husband. He clapped the real Duncan MacQuillan on the front of his shoulder, facing behind him, keeping an eye on the MacHeths.

“Too long with the nuns.”

Holly breathed again, not having known she’d held her breath under the probing scrutiny of Duncan MacQuillan. She turned, mostly to escape her husband-to-be’s unrelenting glower, and saw Sidheag sidling up next to her.

“Wiped from her memory all the pretty Scots sounds and words, those guid sisters did,” Sidheag said with a falsely bright smile aimed at the MacQuillan. “It’ll come back to her,” she predicted, which was, of course, wholly impossible.

Holly might learn their Gaelic, but she would not ever recall something she’d not known.

While Duncan MacQuillan considered this, seeming to test its plausibility, a woman appeared at his side and whispered something to him, which darkened his frown once more. Though the woman aimed her words at Duncan, her eyes were on Holly, and with about as much charity as Duncan’s gaze.

The woman was older, maybe forty, but not unattractive, dressed in a damask gown of red silk with a silver braided rope belt. Holly thought she might be wearing lipstick and overdone blush, her lips and cheeks unnaturally, unpleasantly bright red. It had never occurred to her that they’d had cosmetics in the middle ages. She was forced to refocus when Duncan barked anew at her.

“And what is this? Our reception, so offensive for what it lacks,” snapped Duncan MacQuillan. He tossed a thumb over her shoulder. “And this hall, without the simplest accoutrement to say a wedding was expected to take place this very day.”

“Your bride was only summoned home from the convent at Dryburgh days ago, laird,” said Sidheag, in what Holly supposed was her best simpering voice. “Too long Hewgill House has been without a woman’s touch.”

“Who are you andwhydo you keep interrupting?” Griped the red-faced woman with barely concealed superiority.

Holly supposed the question was not unwarranted, given that Sidheag did in fact appear as a homeless person with her ragged clothes, unkempt hair, and dirty hands, which contrasted dramatically with the finery of the woman’s costume and the delicacy of her upswept hair.

“Naught but the lass’ auld mither-sister,” replied Sidheag sweetly.

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