Outside the chapel, Isobel and Lydia kissed Iona’s cheeks, then proceeded her down the aisle of the old Gothic chapel. As always for Malcolm weddings, potted rowans guarded the interior, their autumn berries red against dark green.
The bagpipes blew their last note and a solemn piano chord sounded, signaling Iona’s entrance. A moment of panic washed over her, and she hesitated. She would be very rich, she reminded herself. Mortimer would be out of their lives. Isobel would be happy. The estate would flourish again. . . She would not run and hide. People waited.
She had a kitten now.
Laughing quietly at her foolishness, Iona stepped into the ancient stone chapel with its cathedral ceiling. She concentrated on admiring the pretty ribbons Lydia had attached to the rowans rather than look at Arthur waiting for her at the altar. If she were to have only one wedding day, she ought to remember the lovely details.
She almost walked into the librarian’s wide back. Why had Lydia stopped in the middle of the aisle?
Iona tore her nervous gaze from the décor. Around her, she heard worried murmurs beneath the lovely music. In the pews, heads bent toward each other, whispering, then strained to see the front.
The librarian glanced in concern over her shoulder, then wordlessly stepped aside so Iona could view the altar.
Wearing a flower in the lapel of his elegant dark blue tail coat, standing tall and handsome and strong—Lord Ives stood where Arthur ought to be.
What in heaven. . . ? The corset restricted Iona’s breathing, and all the air swooshed from her lungs. She might faint like Isobel if she didn’t breathe soon.
Oh, my word, he was so strikingly aristocratic and stern. . . He’d rearranged his black hair to cover the wound, which didn’t help to soften his harsh cheekbones. Did he look a little paler than usual? At sight of her, the earl’s mouth softened, and his whole demeanor changed. She could almost smell his lust and happiness from this distance, and she swallowed hard. There was the man she so wanted to love. . .
Taking a deep breath, Iona skirted around Lydia, squeezed Isobel’s arm to tell her she was fine, and marched up to confront the obnoxiously arrogant lord. “What are you doing here? What have you done to Arthur?”
“Your groom accidentally took a little too much laudanum.” Gerard attempted to look regretful but it didn’t match his scent of victory. “He shouldn’t have toasted your future with Mortimer. That was a serious mistake.”
Iona couldn’t unwind her tongue from her teeth. He had knocked out her stepfather? She hadn’t even found the cad yet. “How? How did you do that?”
Gerard drew her gloved hand through the crook of his arm and turned her toward the gawking preacher. “Tavern in the village, of course. Shouldn’t the rest wait? We have an audience expecting a wedding. You look beyond beautiful, you know. I love the way your hair curls about your ears like that, almost like mine now.”
She wanted to laugh. She wanted to hug and kiss him for rescuing her from a lifetime of running away. She wanted to punch him—very, very hard, but she was holding his injured arm.
“You can’t do this,” she hissed through clenched teeth. “It’s not legal. You have no license.”
That was a stupid argument, but all the others fell by the wayside while she had Gerard this close and could sense his uncertainty and triumph and rage. He had way too many emotions churning away, concealed from the world by his practiced indifference.
“Irregular, yes. Illegal, no. This is Scotland, remember. In your charming country I’ll simply pay the fine when we file with the registrar.”
Her head spun with so many fears that she couldn’t express them all. “What about your duty to your father and to Wystan? I have no money!”
“I have spent a lifetime carrying out the duties of others. What about my duty to me?” For the first time, his insouciance cracked, and outrage peered through. “What about your duty to you? Are we naught but cogs in the great wheel of life?”
He turned to the preacher. “Mind going straight to the vows? She’s likely to run off and hide again until I have a ring on her finger.”
“I do not run off,” she protested. Well, she did, she supposed, but for very good reasons. She wasn’t certain if this was one of them. Joy filled her heart, even though her head said this was insane.
Gerard glared down at her sternly. “You ran off and left me confined to the bed and unable to follow. Hiding is what you do.”
“I do not,” she whispered as the preacher uncertainly spoke foolish words about sickness and health, loving and cherishing. “I was right here where anyone with half a brain could find me.”
The preacher faltered. Gerard signaled for him to continue.
“You do understand that marriage is forever?” he demanded, his dark eyes glaring down at her like midnight while the preacher hurriedly continued the ceremony.
“I do,” she retorted angrily. “I’m not—”
Before she could finish, Gerard placed a finger over her lips and faced the preacher. “You heard the lady, she does swear to love me. And I do solemnly swear to take the wench for richer and a damned sight poorer than she wanted, and in sickness and health, in love, honor and equality. May I put the ring on her now?”
“Repeat after me,” the beleaguered preacher intoned. “With this ring I give you, as a sign of our constant faith. . .”
Gerard removed her glove and hurried the process. “For so long as we both shall live.” He slid a slender band of gold and diamonds over her finger.
Iona stared at it incredulously. “You can’t afford this. You’re fixing Wystan.” She wanted to add You can’t do
