The bagpipe music swelled when they reached the double front doors and stepped out into the sunshine. Kendra wandered off to find her twin. Colin was waiting outside for Amy, their infant daughter Jewel cooing in his arms. The bairn between them, he bent to give his wife a sweet, lingering kiss, and Caithren smiled at the three of them together.
A family. She smiled at the thought that she and Jason might be starting a family soon.
It was a glorious day to be wed, the quadrangle redolent with the scent of newly cut grass, the sky blue as her gown and dotted with puffy white clouds. Cait’s gaze swept the castle’s crenelated walls and the ancient keep built on a motte—reminding her of the one outside Stamford. Beyond it was an area where the grass grew high and untamed.
“Gudeman’s croft,” she murmured.
“What is that?” Mary asked.
Cameron knelt down to her. “A place allowed to grow free as a shelter for brownies and fairies.”
“Oh.” Mary’s eyes widened. “Do you know stories of brownies and fairies?”
“Many. But they’ll have to wait for later.” With his free hand, Cam ruffled her golden curls before he stood and faced Cait. “It’s really the old tilting yard. Colin told me they don’t groom it since it’s long been in disuse.”
“I knew that.” Her lips curved in a soft smile as she regarded her new home. A hundred rooms, she remembered Jason telling her. “Can you believe this place, Cam?”
His hazel eyes met hers. “You always were meant to live in a castle, dear cousin.”
“Aye,” she said, thinking of Da’s tiny castle at home—Cameron’s castle now. “But who’d have ever guessed it would be such an enormous, historic one…and in England?”
Her head reeled with the impossibility of her new life. Nothing Jason had told her could have prepared her for the sheer size and grandeur of Cainewood Castle. She could scarcely believe she would be living within its four-foot-thick stone walls. As the Marchioness of Cainewood, no less.
“You’ll do fine.” Cam leaned to kiss her forehead, then looked up. “There’s your man now.”
Her gaze flew to Jason, and suddenly what had seemed impossible was gloriously real. She was going to live here, in this castle, with the man she loved.
Clearly comfortable in this place, he walked beside the gray-haired parson, deep in conversation. He wore a forest-green velvet suit that brought out his eyes, trimmed in gold braid that matched the stiff ribbon bows on his formal heeled shoes.
When he looked over at her and smiled, her heart did a slow roll in her chest.
A young woman in a simple but fetching pink dress came up to take Mary by the hand. “It’s time,” she said gently, and reluctantly the wee lass released her grip on Cameron. The little girl looked over her shoulder, her blue eyes lingering on him as the woman led her away.
“Her mother?” Cait guessed.
“Aye. Her name is Clarice Bradford.” Cameron’s gaze followed the two as they walked toward the gatehouse on their way to the family’s private chapel. Clarice’s bright blond hair gleamed beneath a pink-ribboned straw hat. “I think you’ll like her.” He turned to take Cait by both hands. “Are you ready?” he asked.
“More ready than I ever thought possible.” Smiling at him, she squeezed his fingers. “You know, Mam always said it’s better to marry over the midden than over the muir.”
“I’ve heard that said, that it’s wise to stick within your own circle.” Did she only imagine it, or did his gaze flick toward Clarice? “But I’m not sure I believe it.”
“I don’t believe it, either.” Her own gaze trailed to Jason, waiting for her by the barbican. She was sure she’d never glimpsed so romantic a vision as her husband-to-be standing with the soaring castle behind him, his blue-black hair ruffled by the slight breeze, his clear green eyes locked on hers. “I reckon even mothers are wrong sometimes.”
THE PARSON cleared his throat. “Caithren Leslie, wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love him, comfort him, honor, obey, and serve him, and keep him in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him so long as you both shall live?”
Beneath the hammerbeam roof of Cainewood’s ancient chapel, dappled by the multicolored light that filtered through the stained arched windows, Jason squeezed Caithren’s hand. She looked around her at the people gathered there to see them wed.
Cameron, who’d insisted on staying for her wedding before going home to his new life in Scotland. Kendra and Ford, who’d stood by her side that wrenching night in London. Colin—like Jason, but different—and Amy and their beautiful bairn. Mary and Clarice, whose tragedy had set Jason on the path that led him to find her.
They were all looking toward her, so expectantly.
“I will,” she said. “All except the obey and serve part.”
Cameron snickered. Kendra smiled. The parson appeared stunned.
“I accept those conditions,” Jason said loud and clear.
The parson still looked confused.
“Go on, will you?” Jason prompted. “Before she changes her mind.”
SEVENTY-FIVE
MOST OF THE wedding party sat around the dining room table, waiting for Colin, who had gone to settle the baby in her cradle, and Ford, who had told them he wanted to fetch something. A stack of marzipaned wedding cakes sat in the middle of the long mahogany table, which was set with the sort of fine china and crystal that Caithren had only read about in books. She kept looking down at the wedding ring that Jason had slipped onto
