Chapter Thirteen

A good while later, perhaps an hour or more, Lucian watched as Melissa again dipped her spoon into the pewter bowl that held her Atholl Brose. If ever he was proud to be Scottish, her delight in the traditional dessert underscored his pride in his homeland.

She hadn’t said a word since telling him how good it was, and her bowl was now almost empty.

“Would you like more?” He smiled at her. “I am sure Dod will be more than pleased to see you enjoy a second portion.”

She blinked, her spoon poised halfway to her mouth. “Am I so obvious?”

“Aye, delightfully so.” He chuckled. “Shall I signal for the serving lass?”

“No.” She shook her head, looking embarrassed. “I have eaten more than ever in my life.”

“But you enjoyed every bite?”

“I did.” She glanced again at the peat fire and this time a crease appeared in her brow. “You didn’t say how weddings are done here. Have you arranged for a parson to marry us?” she asked, looking back at him. “I know at Gretna Green-”

“Dod Swanney was an anvil-priest there for years,” he told her. “When his father passed and he came back home to run the inn, he decided to offer the same service, only he calls the marriages a ‘Scottish Night.’”

“Because he includes such a feast and a special bedchamber?”

“Aye, among other reasons as you’ll soon see.”

Pushing back his chair, he stood and came around to help her from hers. He also glanced at the nearest open window, glad to see that the night’s fierce wind would make their wedding a fine and gloriously Scottish one, indeed.

Leaving that surprise for her to discover, he offered her his arm.

“I saw Dod nip out from behind the bar a short while ago,” he said. “He’ll be waiting for us with the two required witnesses. If you’re ready, we’ll join them.”

She glanced about the taproom, her gaze also lighting over the small, dark-paneled nook-and-cranny rooms nearest their table. “Is there a chapel somewhere?”

“Of sorts, aye.” Lucian smiled. “Leastways, the one here is surely as sacred a place as any kirk we could have visited.”

“So there isn’t a chapel?”

“Dinnae ask so many questions.”

“I am to be surprised.” She tugged on his arm. “Is that it?”

“Are you complaining?” He glanced at her, then at a nearby table. “No’ even wed and she’s fussing at me.”

The men sitting there grinned. “A right beauty, though!” one declared.

“So she is,” Lucian agreed, leading her past the other tables, the long length of the bar, and then all the way back to the rear of the taproom where a half-hidden door claimed pride of place beside the stairs up to the inn’s guest rooms.

He set his hand on the door latch, but rather than opening the door, he caught her gaze, again wondering for perhaps the thousandth time since meeting her, how he had ever managed without her? And what he’d done to have such a prize come into his life. He didn’t know, but he made a silent vow to make her as happy – and to keep her that way for all her days.

“See here, lass,” he said, knowing he could never let her go, but also unable not to give her the chance. “Here in Scotland, we need only to declare ourselves to before two witnesses to be wed. Dod’s presence isn’t even needed. No’ really.

“But once the words are spoken, they are set in stone.” He cupped her chin, looked deep into her eyes. “We will be legally bound, man and wife.”

To his relief, she smiled. “You think I do not want that? After all we’ve been through?”

“I would have you aware that you will always be safe, and welcome, at Lyongate. I have vowed to protect you, and that stands whether you leave this inn as my bride or as a lovely young woman about to journey to my home and spend time there.

“See you, some of the honor that often thwarted the Highlanders of old, still runs in my veins,” he added, releasing her chin and again reaching for the latch. “I must be sure that when you step out this door, you do so no’ just of your own free will, but because you want to be my wife. The choice is yours.”

“I chose in London. I would not be here otherwise.”

She leaned in to kiss him. A soft, sweet kiss in full view of any of the inn’s patrons who might have been watching, and Lucian figured that would be about everyone.

When a great cheer went up, shaking the rafters, he knew they’d all been straining their ears as well.

He didn’t care.

He did think he caught her say that she loved him, but the din of shouted well-wishes, stomping feet, and the slapping of hands on the tables, drowned out the words.

No matter.

As far as he was concerned, she’d said them. And he’d prove to her how much she meant to him later, after their Scottish Night, when they went abovestairs to their room.

Just now, he opened the inn’s rear door and took her with him outside into the cold and windy night, leaving the warmth of the One-Eyed Hare’s taproom for the small but no less impressive circle of standing stones that Dod Swanney used as the ‘chapel’ for his marriage ceremonies.

Modest as the stone circle was, all things considered, it also dated back into the true mists of time, and, as such, had surely been used in the same way at one point or other in Scotland’s long history.

Dod Swanney figured so, anyway.

Lucian agreed.

Above all, he appreciated the endless stretch of the rolling moorland and hills that opened up at the back of the stones. On occasion, during stays at the Hare, he would’ve sworn he could stand inside the circle and see clear to Lyongate.

That wasn’t so, he knew.

But that it seemed possible was something he credited to stone’s magic. Just as he supposed a similarly ancient power caused the heavens to appear so near. The impression was strong, the glittering stretch of stars seeming close enough for a soul to reach out and grab great, greedy handfuls.

He’d tried to do so as a wee lad when his father once brought him here for a night’s stay on a journey to York. Of course, he hadn’t been able to snatch a single star, but he had made memories, and he’d loved the Hare ever since.

The place had magic.

And it still did if the look of wonder on Melissa’s face said anything.

She stood with one hand holding her hair against the wind and her eyes rounded as she glanced about, taking in everything from the tall, bent, and age-pitted stones, to Dod in his kilt-and-cloak in the circle’s center. She then looked out at the rolling moors and the light mist that curled across the heather and rocks there.

Tipping back her head, she lifted her gaze to the dazzle of the Scottish night sky, so black and velvety, yet alight with more stars than anywhere else he’d ever been, or could imagine.

One of the inn’s serving girls and Dod’s own wife, Annie, also waited within the circle of stones.

The women were to witness their declaration of marital intent. And so, it seemed, did the whole of the inn, patron and staff alike. They were all filing out the Hare’s rear door, gathering round to watch him make Miss Melissa Tandy of Cheltenham in England, his lady wife, the new mistress of Lyongate Hall.

~*~

“He looks like a wizard.”

Sure of it, Melissa gripped Lucian’s arm as they stood at the edge of the stone circle. The stones glittered and glimmered in the starlight and just enough equally luminous mist rolled across the ground to lend a truly enchanted touch to the ancient site.

But it was Dod Swanney, the innkeeper, who startled her most.

For an eye-blink, she’d have sworn his kilt and cloak shone silver like the circle’s stones, and – she gulped – that his eyes did, as well.

Lucian slid an arm around her, drawing her close.

“He is no’ sorcerer, sweeting.” He spoke above her ear, his voice soft and low so that no one else would hear. “If anything, Dod is a man who honors the past. The old ones valued this place and held sacred rites here. He finds it a fitting spot to marry those who agree.”

“And you do?”

“I wouldn’t be a Highlander if I didn’t.” He kissed her cheek and straightened. “This is the Scotland I wanted you to see first on crossing the border.” He gestured to the shimmering stones, the wild moorland and great hills, and then looked up at the starry heavens. “No’ that far from your fair and manicured England, but a different world entirely.”

“It truly is.” She shivered, but in a good way. “I do believe there is magic here.”

“Then come,” he said, taking her by the hand and leading her into the stones. “Dod will bless our union and then we’ll make magic of our own.”

~*~

And so it came that they joined the innkeeper who now stood in the center of the standing stones in his guise as an erstwhile Gretna Green anvil priest.

His ‘anvil’ was the large recumbent stone, a slab-like stone set on its side at the circle’s center. Two upright stones flanked it, these framing the night’s crescent moon as they’d done for several thousand years, Melissa knew.

A length of beribboned heather rope waited atop the recumbent stone and after greeting Lucian and Melissa, the innkeeper waited as they extended their arms and then he wrapped the rope loosely around their wrists.

“Angus Lucian Duncan Forbes MacRae, Black Lyon and Laird of Lyongate Hall,” he said, his strong voice lifted so all could hear. “Do you, before me, Annie Swanney and Meg Shaw” – he glanced at his wife and the serving lass – “and all these other witnesses, declare your honest and freely-given intent to take Lady Melissa Tandy as your only and honored wife, looking out for her all her days and siring and caring for her children?

“Will you keep yourself only unto her, loving her throughout this life and into the world beyond?” He paused then, his glance lifting to the great, night-darkened hills to the north. “Will you give her a safe and joyous home, look after her in illness and good health, and showing her even more strength in times of trouble?

“All this, you must willingly agree to do.” He paused again, his gaze on Lucian. “Is this your wish?”

“It is,” Lucian declared, and glanced at her. “I make these vows and shall keep them.”

Dod Sweeny nodded, then looked to Melissa, repeating the same words, though when he paused, his gaze turned to the south and he asked her to declare her desire to put her homeland behind her and journey north with Lucian, wanting to hear her state that she would live freely and gladly with her husband, eagerly making her home at his side, without regret or complaint, and staying there always, devoted to him and the family they would have together.

Melissa listened to the innkeeper’s every word, her heart pounding so hard that she was amazed she could hear him.

The wind was also quickening, racing off the hills and moors to chill the air even more and make the mist shiver and drift like billowing curtains of silvered gossamer silk.

Even so, she caught everything Dod Swanney said and nodded her agreement when required, then she turned her gaze to Lucian, barely seeing him now through the tears stinging her eyes.

“Yes, I am here willingly,” she said, lifting her voice, just as the innkeeper and Lucian had done. “Before all here, in particular, my new husband, I declare that I desire nothing greater than to walk through life at his side.

“Bearing his children, tending and loving his home” – she smiled at him then, not caring that her voice cracked – “and loving him until the end of my days, and into eternity.”

“So it shall be.” The innkeeper stepped forward and lifted the ends of the heather rope, swiftly tossing it around their waists and then pulling tight, drawing them against each other for the wedding kiss.

This they did without his instruction.

After all, they’d had enough practice on the journey north.

And as Lucian bracketed her face, kissing her long, deep, and with so much enthusiasm that the onlookers around the circle’s edge cheered, Dod Swanney yanked the heather rope from them and returned it to the stone.

The deed done, he folded his arms and nodded once, a huge smile on his bearded face.

“It is done!” he called out, his deep voice carried by the cold, night wind. “Free ale and meat pies for all to celebrate,” he added, earning more cheers.

Lucian and Melissa kept kissing, much to the amusement of everyone.

“Ho, lad!” The innkeeper clapped a hand on Lucian’s shoulder. “‘Tis done,” he said, smiling. “You’re married and no man can doubt it.” He stepped back and glanced at the recumbent stone and the heather rope. “If they try, the ancients will let them know otherwise.”

“That, I believe.” Lucian returned the man’s smile and then took a small bag of coins from beneath his jacket and thrust the pouch into the innkeeper’s hand.

“Serve everyone a round or two of your best whisky and as much of your fine Atholl Brose as your kitchen can yet supply at this hour,” he said, reaching for Melissa’s hand. “My bride and I will go straight to our room.

“I’m sure you understand?” Lucian threw a glance at the back of the inn, his gaze on a candlelit window at the far corner of the top floor. “We’ll no’ be down for breakfast. We’ll see you when we do.”

“It could be late,” Melissa added, earning a chuckle from the smiling innkeeper.

“As well it should be,” he declared, tossing Lucian’s coin pouch in the air and catching it as quickly. “I see I needn’t be wishing you a guid night. Looks like it will be a grand one.”

“I will make certain of it,” Lucian agreed.

And then the three of them followed everyone back into the Hare’s taproom, though they parted ways at the foot of the stairs. Lucian and Melissa climbed the steps, leaving the inn’s staff and patrons, now wedding celebrants, to make merry on their own.