And so the very next day, in the church where her sisters had been wed, Fiona and Alasdair were married. Rather to the disappointment of the local folk, there were no brawls, no sudden deaths, no ferrets dashing about, no spectacular leaks in the roof, or anything, really, to liven up what was, after all, just another wedding.

Of interest was only the fact that immediately after Fiona and her foreign laird were leg-shackled, her cousin and his uncle were also married, and although Dame Isobel twice sobbed loudly enough to drown out the groom’s responses, nothing else untoward occurred.

The feast that followed was also sadly unremarkable. There was no shouting, no cursing, no overturned tables, no fights among the dogs for scraps.

Altogether a dull affair, said the locals.

Fiona, however, wasn’t the least bit sorry everything had gone so smoothly. There were a few surprises here and there, but agreeable ones. Father, for one, was positively mellow. He had given a toast so eloquent and sentimental that she’d had to borrow Isobel’s handkerchief with which to dry her cheeks. And Mother had made a comment of stunning perspicacity.

“I told you, Fiona dear, that you’d find someone you like!” she said complacently.

Further stunning those assembled, Father had nodded sagely, and then planted a loud kiss on Mother’s lips.

Wonders will never cease, thought Fiona, and turned her gaze from Mother’s astonished, but pleased countenance, to look across the table at Alasdair. They smiled at each other.

There was another surprise in store.

When the musicians began to play the lively, lilting “Largo Fairy”—not well, but with enthusiasm—Alasdair came to her and said:

“Will you dance with me, lass? I’ve not yet had that pleasure.”

Fiona demurred. “Oh, Alasdair, I don’t—I haven’t—the last time I tried was so long ago, and I tripped over my own feet, and forgot the steps, and really I was just terrible at it . . .” She trailed off, and for his ears alone she added softly, “I’m afraid.”

He took her hand in his. “It seems to me that a woman who saved my life from the Dalwhinnies, and who kept herself alive and well when kidnapped by a band of desperate ruffians—to mention only two examples of your courage—need not fear a reel. But fear, I know, isn’t always a rational thing.” He lifted her hand to his lips, and kissed it. “If you wish, I’ll teach you. If you trip, I’ll catch you. And if you prefer not to, I won’t persist.”

Fiona took a deep breath. The fiddles and the flutes did sound awfully inviting. Plenty of other people were already dancing —among them Isobel and Duff, and he so light on his feet it was a gladsome thing to observe. Everyone was having so much fun, and she—

She had been thinking about slipping away, to make sure Duff’s things had all been moved into Isobel’s bedchamber, and that Alasdair’s had been brought into hers, and that a maid would be sure to bring up a hot cup of tea for Mother at bedtime, and also—

But no. She could do all that later, or not at all. Everything would work out just fine. And meanwhile, the dancing looked like so much fun. And wasn’t it time that she allowed a little more fun into her life? Perhaps she and Alasdair could nip in there, inconspicuously—

“Yes,” she said to him bravely. “Yes, I will.”

And then he smiled, and led her into the dance.

They passed their first night together in her cold, draughty bedchamber. Her bed was really too small for them both. But Fiona and Alasdair noticed neither the cold nor the size of the bed. They were intent on each other, whether it was to rediscover, or to discover, each other it was impossible to tell. It didn’t matter. A second chance had been given them—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that together they had created this second chance—and they were both determined to make the most of it. Their lovemaking was by turns fierce and tender, raw and achingly sweet.

It wasn’t until the deepest dark of night was just beginning to yield to soft intimations of morning that they lay at rest, entwined, at their ease, utterly content.

“Now that,” said Fiona with a purr in her voice, “is what I call a proper wedding night.”

He kissed her ear. “Aye. Better this time around.”

“Indeed. It makes me wonder what our third wedding night would be like.”

“I don’t think we’d survive it.”

She laughed, and snuggled her head a little more cozily into that wonderful hollow between Alasdair’s shoulder and his neck. How good he felt, and smelled, and tasted. And how tired she was. But in a nice way. She yawned, and lifted a hand—happily conscious of the rings upon it—to cover her mouth.

“Alasdair.”

“Aye, Fiona?”

“I’ve just had the strangest thought.”

“Tell me it.”

“It suddenly occurred to me that the discovery of that second decree, which seemed so dreadful at the time, actually helped bring us together again. Doesn’t it seem that way?”

“Aye,” he said, thoughtfully. “It was a kind of impetus, wasn’t it? It helped each of us realize we wanted to fight. Fight to find each other again.”

Lovingly she pressed her lips to the warm, faintly salty skin of his neck. “How wonderful, and how mysterious.”

“Life is, I think, filled with mysteries.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “There’s so much we can’t know.”

“How Isobel came to read the Tome in the first place.”

“Why goldfinches arrived at Castle Tadgh,” Fiona said.

“Is there really a mysterious Greyman roaming the summit of Ben Macdui.”

“The reason dogs turn in a circle before lying down.”

“Why people like bad poetry,” said Alasdair.

“Will Monty let me have some roses in the spring.”

“The spices your cook put into the mutton stew.”

In the cozy dimness Fiona smiled. “That, I daresay, we’ll never know.”

“And may be better off not knowing.”

The edge of the thick wool blanket had slipped away from Fiona’s shoulder, and Alasdair brought it up again, tucking it securely around her.

“Thank you, dear heart,” said Fiona, drowsily, and yawned again. “Good night,” she said to him, “sweet dreams,” and then, as if it was the most natural thing in all the world, she gave a soft, happy sigh, closed her eyes, and fell deeply, deeply, asleep in his arms. And a minute or so after that, Alasdair had fallen asleep, too.

There were, in fact, so many things Alasdair and Fiona could not have known.

They didn’t know that on this night they had conceived a child, who would grace them with his presence some nine months later. They would call him James Amhuinn Gavin Penhallow—Amhuinn being the masculine version of Nairna. James would have the dark-red hair of his father, the changeable blue-gray eyes of his mother, and a merry laugh so contagious that you couldn’t help but laugh along with him.

They didn’t know that James would be joined by a little brother approximately two years later: Archibald Stuart Bruce Penhallow, known at once and forever as Archie, much beloved by James—and vice-versa.

Nor could they know that Duff would become so outraged by how Isobel had been cheated of her modest fortune that he became a dedicated student of the law-books, and would successfully bring her case through the tangled morass of the Edinburgh courts. But they did not live in the city, preferring, instead, to set up house in a charming cottage not far from Castle Tadgh, which very soon became a favorite haunt of the local children, who could rely on Isobel for a doll or a treat, and on Duff for a toy he’d whittled or a fascinating story he would tell. James and Archie would spend a lot of time there.

Further afield, Logan Munro would eventually marry again, to an amiable, attractive young lady whose chief interest in life was dressing in the height of fashion. If he wasn’t quite as good a husband to her as he was to Nairna, and if he thought of Fiona a little more often than he should, he at least managed to conceal this from his new wife reasonably well. And if he did kiss housemaids in the stairwell now and then—so fond of him as they were!—this too he did with admirable discretion.

Little Mairi MacIntyre, dainty, girlish, ethereally pretty, would receive several offers of matrimony, but confounded expectations by refusing them all. Instead she would become a passionate advocate for animal welfare in the Western Isles, spending most of her money on these endeavors, doing a great deal of good, and becoming yet more lovely as she aged.

Wynda Ramsay, who had run away from Castle Tadgh in the middle of the night, had gotten as far as Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, where in due course she would marry a rich old shopkeeper who would then oblige her by dying within a year of their marriage, leaving her his entire fortune. Wynda would then—at last—betake herself to London. She would promptly wed an impoverished viscount, thus fulfilling her long-held ambition of entering the ton. If she hadn’t quite made it to the upper echelons of Society, well, it was a beginning.

Her French never improved.

And what else lay in store for Fiona and Alasdair?

Immense happiness, and an appreciation for each other that would only continue to grow: love everlasting.

And in the meantime, some other things would become known to them.

For example, Shaw would give Fiona one of his retriever wolfhound puppies, who was, everyone agreed, the most engaging, the most adorable creature who ever lived (even with an incurable tendency to try and eat your shoes).

Alasdair, despite a lifetime of avowals to the contrary, would indeed go to England—with Fiona, of course—and to his surprise, he’d have a good time there on his visit. His Sassenach relatives, he would discover, weren’t at all what he’d been expecting.

The goldfinches would return, year after year, to Castle Tadgh.

And Monty would indeed bring Fiona roses in the spring, and for as long as they grew and bloomed.

His best roses.