Chapter Four
“Fiona, ye’re breathtaking,” Esme exclaimed, clasping her hands over her heart. “Truly. Ye will be the most beautiful bride ever to grace the MacKenzie chapel.”
Fiona smiled, smoothing her hands down the thick lavender brocade of her surcote. “Moira did fine work on the alterations. It fits so well now.”
“She did, indeed,” Esme’s younger sister, Abby, said as she came closer to study the seams. “No matter how I try, I cannot match my stitches to Moira’s fine hand.
“Be gentle with yerself,” Fiona said. “Remember, Moira has been doing this sort of work her whole life. Ye’re but five and ten. Yer skills will improve with time.”
“And practice,” Esme said, looking pointedly at her sister.
Abby made a careless gesture with her hand. “Forget all that. Look at ye,” she beamed. “Ye’re the bride I’ve seen in my dreams. I can imagine ye now.” The young lass closed her eyes. “Yer long black curls are unbound and covered by a frosting of white lace. Yer beauty arrests everyone in the chapel. They are silent, reverent in their manner as they behold their lady.”
“Och, Abby, that is plenty,” Fiona said, shushing the younger woman. “The only one due any reverence in church is our Lord.”
“Aye, Lady Fiona is right. Yer praise, although well intended, is blasphemous,” Esme scolded.
“All right,” Abby said, rolling her eyes. “Forget what I said about reverence. I just think ye look beautiful, my lady, and I hope when I wed, I may look even half as beautiful as ye, although I can’t imagine that dream will ever come true. Not with this nose.”
“Yer nose is lovely,” Fiona insisted, patting Abby’s hand.
“Abby, I will send ye to the kitchens if ye start complaining about yer nose again,” Esme admonished.
Her sister shrugged. “The veil will cover my nose, so I needn’t imagine it away. I would wear exactly what you have on now, my lady. I would wish for everything to be the same, except I wouldn’t have Adam MacKenzie waiting for me at the altar.”
“Abby!” Esme scolded her wee sister before turning to look at Fiona. “I am so sorry, my lady.”
Fiona only smiled. “Ye needn’t be. Thankfully, ‘tis I who am marrying Adam and happily so.”
Esme nodded. “And why wouldn’t ye be? Adam MacKenzie is a fine man—young, handsome, and good.”
“He’s too good,” Abby added.
Esme rolled her eyes. “What does that even mean, child? Are ye suggesting our lady marry a wicked man?”
Abby’s eyes widened. “Nay, of course not.” Then a dreamy glow glazed over her eyes as she moved to the window. “But mayhap a good man with the heart of a rebel with rough, strong hands.”
“What do ye know about such things?” Esme exclaimed. “Listen to ye. If ye keep this up, I will tell da. He’ll have ye back on the farm so fast.”
Abby’s face went pale as she whirled around and gasped, “Ye wouldn’t?”
“Do not press me, or I’ll—”
“My dears, enough,” Fiona at last called out, silencing her maids. She was used to their bickering and had come to expect it from the sisters. Fiona was an only child and had never experienced the unique quality of a sibling relationship until her father had first brought Esme and Abby into the keep five years ago when Fiona turned thirteen. Esme had been fifteen at the time and Abby just eight.
“Listen to this one,” Esme said to Fiona, jerking her head at her younger sister. “With her affection for wicked men, she might have liked the MacLeod.”
Fiona grimaced. “Let us never speak of him, especially not while I am wearing my wedding clothes.” She turned and looked at her reflection in the mirror. A bride stared back. She smiled, thinking that in just three days, she would be traveling again to the MacKenzie stronghold, but this time to stay.
Adam MacKenzie was everything she could have dreamed in a husband. He was eight and ten, just like her. Despite his cursory training in weaponry and defense, he was slim and gentle. His soft hands were better suited at grasping a quill than a broad sword, which didn’t bother her in the least. He was also handsome with golden hair that hung smooth and straight to his shoulders. His eyes were green and sincere. His skin was smooth but for his neatly trimmed beard.
“Have ye ever kissed Adam,” Abby asked, interrupting Fiona’s reflections.
Fiona raised her brow at the younger woman who now sat on her bed with her knees tucked into her chest, wearing an eager expression.
Esme cocked a brow at Abby. “Ye know better than to ask such a question.” But then her features softened. “Och, who am I kidding? I’ve been dying to ask ye the same thing.” Esme sat next to Abby on the bed and looked at Fiona expectantly.
Fiona laughed at the pair, but their unwavering gazes told her they both wanted an answer. She felt her cheeks warm as she crossed to the high-backed chair near her bedside and sat on the edge. She leaned close and whispered, “Ye ken Adam is the perfect gentleman. But on several occasions, he has placed a flower in my hair. When he did so I felt his breath on my neck. And once, when he took me for a walk around the MacKenzie castle grounds, he pulled me into the herb garden and…”
“Aye,” the sisters said in unison as they leaned toward Fiona.
“He pressed a kiss to my cheek.”
“Is that all?” Abby complained.
“That is proper,” Esme said, looking pointedly at her sister.
“I’ve been kissed before,” Abby blurted. An instant later she covered her mouth with her hands.
“What are ye about?” Esme snapped. “Who did ye kiss?”
“I didn’t kiss him,” Abby insisted. “But a few days ago, I met a young man at market. He’s one of the stable hand’s cousins come to train here. Anyway, he asked me to talk while he cleaned one of the stalls. He listened to me chatter on, and I was nervous, so I talked even more than normal. And when he was done, he washed his hands, plucked me down from my perch on the stall wall and pressed a kiss right to my lips.” She fell back on the bed. “It was glorious!”
Esme’s cheeks reddened. “Ye can’t be kissing a strange man. We don’t know his family. What were ye thinking, Abby?”
Brows drawn, Fiona stood, then sat next to Abby on the bed. “Ye ken I usually try to stay out of things between ye two, but Esme’s right. Ye’re still young, too young to be fooling around with men. Yer liable to gain a reputation.”
“Then who will marry ye?” Esme added.
“But he had such gorgeous, stormy black eyes and broad shoulders and—”
Just then the bell sounded.
“’Tis time for chapel,” Fiona said.
Esme stood up and shook the wrinkles from her skirts. “Abby, ye’d best stay after the service and confess yer dalliance to Father John.”
“I will not,” Abby shot back. “It was only a kiss.”
“Silence,” Fiona snapped. Her heart started to race. “The bell has not stopped.” She held her breath. Still, it rang out, her heart hammering in time to its fierce clanging. “’Tis the alarm.”
Fiona rushed to the casement and threw open the shutters and leaned out. Warriors were straining as they turned the wheel to drop the drawbridge. Fiona held her breath watching, waiting. Several moments later, a single rider entered the outer wall.
“He bears the colors of my lord,” Fiona exclaimed. “He must bring word from Adam. She narrowed her eyes on the rider. His seat did not look right. Her hand flew to her mouth as the man slid to the ground, his body sprawled out, unmoving.
“Saints above,” Fiona gasped. She whirled around and raced from her chamber, then down the stairs, through the great hall, and out into the courtyard.
“What is happening?” she cried when her path intercepted her father’s.
Laird Gordon MacDonnell also hastened to reach the rider. “I do not ken, child,” he said, breathless from his excursion.
A wall of MacDonnell warriors encircled the body.
“Clear the way,” her father called.
The men scurried back. Fiona dropped to her knees next to the injured man. Two arrows protruded from his chest.
Tears stung her eyes. She recognized him from her visits to the Mackenzie keep. She pressed a trembling hand to his cheek. “Henry, what word have ye brought from my lord,” she asked.
He muttered something she could not hear.
She dropped her head, putting her ear just above his mouth.
“They are coming,” he rasped. Then his eyes closed. His head rolled to the side.
She sat straight and locked eyes with her father. “Close the drawbridge. They’re coming!”