Page 37 of Highland Fire
The journey from Glenshiel House to Rand’s estate was made in a carriage that had been decked out in ribbons in the clan plaid.
In place of horses, six strapping, kilted Highlanders, all of them Randal men, were harnessed to the traces.
Behind the bride and groom, the wedding guests streamed out of Glenshiel House, jostling each other for the best positions, carefully avoiding the cavalcade of riders who held aloft flaming pitch torches to light their way to Strathcairn.
“Quaint,” said Rand, and waved cordially to all and sundry from his position at the coach window.
“The siller!” hissed his bride from the opposite banquette. “We cannot leave until you have performed the ritual.”
“The ritual? Quite!” There were so many rituals accompanying a Highland wedding, all of them invoking the pagan powers that be for prosperity and good fortune, that Rand easily forgave himself for overlooking one of them.
The only ritual that meant anything to him was one he must forgo until he had straightened out a few things.
Digging deep in his borrowed sporran, a great furry goatskin affair with tassels on it, he withdrew a fistful of silver coins and made to throw them out the open window.
Caitlin clicked her tongue. “Use a little finesse.” Rand looked at her blankly, and she elaborated, “Open the door. Stand up, why don’t you? This is your big moment.”
A crude retort trembled on the tip of his tongue.
Stifling it with a teeth-grinding grin, he flung open the door and performed the ceremony with all the dignity and grace he could muster.
The shower of silver went scattering in every direction to the accompaniment of cheers and thunderous applause.
The young people in the crowd, and some not so young, went diving after the gleaming coins.
Rand repeated the performance until he had emptied his sporran.
When he slammed the carriage door, as though he had given the signal, the coach and its escort of riders moved off into the night to the accompaniment of cheers intermingled with bawdy catcalls.
In the flickering light, he could just make out the gleam of his wife’s teeth.
She was smiling, and that relieved his mind.
During the course of the evening, it had seemed to him that she was unnaturally pale, with as much animation as a wax doll.
The strain of the last few weeks had evidently taken a toll on her.
It had taken a toll on him too, but of a different sort.
Smiling, he said, “That pleases you, does it?”
“What?”
“Giving me orders.”
Another flash of white teeth. “I daresay the novelty will wear off with a little practice.”
“Don’t bet on it!” Though his words were meant to be jocular, even he detected the bite in them. Deliberately moderating his tone, he went on, “You would not be happy with a henpecked husband, Kate. No woman would.”
“I would not be happy with any husband.”
His attempt to smooth over his tactless remark had not been received in the humorous spirit in which it was offered. Before Rand could hit on a way of correcting this error, Caitlin seized the offensive.
“I am not one of your shrinking misses who views the single estate as a fate worse than death. I liked being my own mistress. I enjoyed being a spinster. Marriage was the farthest thing from my mind. You know all this.”
Her impassioned words shattered his mellow mood. “You seem to forget that you are not the only one to suffer from a marriage that was foisted upon us. And if we are ascribing blame, you will come off very much the worse.”
“What does that mean, pray tell?”
“It means that I hold you responsible for bringing us to this pass. Do you imagine that I would have conveyed you to my home, a bachelor establishment, if I had known that you were a female? I thought you were Dirk Gordon.”
She sniffed. “As I remember, you were not always so straitlaced. At our first encounter, your estate was positively teeming with females.”
The darkness hid the stain of color that ran along his cheekbones. “Respectable females is what I meant!”
“I suppose it’s something that you count me respectable.”
“That, madam, is debatable. You have been skirting the edges of ruin for a very long time now, and well you know it. You may count yourself fortunate, indeed, that your grandfather and I managed to suppress the knowledge of your double life. Nor do I hold Daroch entirely responsible for leading you astray. In point of fact, I am much more inclined to believe that Daroch was led astray by you .”
She sucked in a breath and quickly expelled it. “You seem to think I am some sort of female adventurer. Do you imagine that I took up smuggling to ward off boredom?” Her pitch was climbing.
“Were it not for you, and those like you, I would never have taken it upon myself to form a smuggling ring. Look around you, my lord. Are you so blind that you cannot see the poverty of the common people? At the best of times, wresting a living from their small crofts is a precarious business. The Highlands are not the lowlands. There is no abundance of rich pastures and fertile fields here. And when even the little they possess is taken away from them, how are the common people to stave starvation from their doors? Smuggling at least allows them to survive.”
Rand quickly sifted through her heated rhetoric and pounced on what irked him most. “So I was right! You are the driving force behind Daroch and his band of smugglers! And I suppose I have you to thank for plotting the attack on my coach and the petty annoyances I was made to endure when I first came into Deeside?”
Her silence was answer enough.
“Caitlin,” he said, “I can hardly credit that a woman of your intelligence should be so lacking in foresight. If any of your accomplices had been captured by the redcoats who accompanied me that night, do you know what would have been in store for them? They would have been transported to one of the convict colonies in the New World.”
Her tone was considerably subdued. “We were not thieves and murderers. We did not do anyone bodily harm. We only destroyed a few suits of clothes and a rowing boat that was on its last legs. Those are scarcely serious offenses.”
“Oh? And do you think the authorities would have accepted your protestation of innocence? I assure you, they would not. Do you know, it does not surprise me that your grandfather was quick to make capital of finding you in my house? In his place, I should have done the same.”
“You speak in riddles, my lord.”
“I think you know what I mean.”
“I assure you, I do not.”
He debated about teasing her, and gave in to the temptation, not because he wanted a quarrel on his hands, but because he wanted to dispel any lingering traces of her inertia. Though verbal sparring was not exactly his idea of domestic harmony, in this case it served a useful purpose.
“Only consider, Kate. Your grandfather was almost at his wits’ end.
He had lost control of you, if ever he had it.
You were a confirmed spinster. You had attained your majority and were under no obligation to heed anyone’s advice.
Marriage to some gentleman who was not afraid to stand up to you was the only solution to his dilemma, but how was it to be contrived?
It occurs to me that your grandfather must be thanking his lucky stars that things have fallen out so fortuitously. ”
For a moment, she seemed to be too taken aback to answer him. Expelling a pent-up breath, she plunged into speech. “You cannot mean to suggest, seriously, that my grandfather engineered our marriage? He is not so devious!”
“I didn’t say that. As I have already pointed out, it was you who precipitated this present chain of events.
Nevertheless, Glenshiel was quick to see his opportunity and seize upon it.
He might just as easily have married you off to Daroch.
He chose not to do so, and I know why. Daroch is not the man for you.
You would soon wrest the reins from his hands.
Your grandfather knows this and acted in your best interests. ”
Her eyes were flashing fire. “That is not the reason Glenshiel chose you over Daroch!”
He regarded her in silence, digesting her words.
“There is something in what you say. Daroch is an incorrigible skirt-chaser. He’ll prove an inconstant husband to some unfortunate woman.
Infidelity is one thing you will never have to endure at my hands, Kate.
I intend to abide by our marriage vows.”
“The feud is what I meant! My grandfather would never see one of his granddaughters go to a Gordon of Daroch. He has never forgiven them for taking up arms against the Stuart cause.”
Rand had a faint recollection of hearing his father mention the feud between Glenshiel and the Gordons.
In those days, Glenshiel was a regular Tartar, at outs with all his neighbors.
Shaking his head, he said, “Those feuds are ancient history and best forgotten. Your grandfather knows this, else he would not have allowed our marriage to go forward.”
Caitlin muttered indistinctly under her breath.
“I didn’t quite catch that.”
“I said there are other more cogent reasons why this marriage should not have been allowed to proceed.” She was thinking of the mortification of having been foisted on a man who did not want her, a man who had told her in no uncertain terms that she was completely ineligible as a wife.