Page 23 of A Highland Duke to Claim Her Heart

His valet stepped back, his expression wary, and Ewan saw the flash of hurt in his eyes. Richard had been with Ewan for ten years now, and in those ten years, Ewan had barely spoken an unkind or impatient word to him.

But today, Ewan did not feel like himself. His stomach was in knots, his hands would not stop sweating, and he felt a rumbling anger in him like a distant volcano preparing to explode.

“You look very well, Your Grace,” Richard said, inclining his head. “I only want to make sure it does not come undone during the ceremony.”

“Thank you,” Ewan said gruffly. He turned away. “I think that will be all for now.”

“Very good, Your Grace.” Richard bowed and crossed to the door, while Ewan stared out the window of his bedchamber, down toward the grounds below and to the mountains beyond. It was only after about half a minute that he realized he had not heard the door close behind the valet.

Ewan turned. Standing in the doorway, his arms crossed and his eyebrow raised, was Alaric.

“Is that how you really speak to Richard after so many years of loyal service?” Alaric said, stepping into the room.

Ewan grunted and turned away. He did not need this right now. He had other things to focus on.

“You do look very well,” Alaric said, looking him up and down appraisingly. “Like a man about to be married.”

Ewan swallowed. The wordmarriedhad made his mouth go suddenly dry, and instead of responding, he began to pace back and forth across the bedchamber. Alaric leaned against the four-poster bed, arms still folded.

“You are angry,” he said after a moment, his voice surprisingly soft.

For a moment, Ewan stopped pacing to glare at his friend. “Of course I am angry,” he growled. “I am marrying a woman I hardly know because my brother ran off and abandoned his duty, then got himself—” he did not finish the sentence. It was not Christopher’s fault that he had died. So why was he angry at him for it?

“Yes,” Alaric murmured. “The situation is less than ideal. And I understand your anger. It is not the life you planned for yourself. And your brother…” Alaric shook his head. “It is grotesquely unfair. For a boy in the prime of his youth to be taken like that…”

Ewan could not think about it. The thought was too terrible to consider, and he began to pace the room again.

“I do not know how I am supposed to do this,” he said as he walked back and forth across the polished parquet floorboards, which creaked under the weight of him. “This is so very Christopher, to put me in a difficult bind like this, to make my life hell—”

“It is not hell,” Alaric interrupted sharply, and Ewan stopped pacing to stare at his friend. Alaric had not spoken to him so sternly in a very long time, if ever. “You are gaining a wife,” Alaric reminded him. “A wife that you believed would be a goodinfluence on your brother, from a respectable family, a woman of good birth and sound character, from all I can see. It may not be an ideal situation, you may not know her well, but you can rest assured that she is far more nervous about this union than you are. She has much more to lose.”

Ewan blinked as Alaric’s words settled over him. His friend made a good point. A woman always had more to lose in a marriage. She gave up all her rights, her money, her freedom, in order to gain the protection of her husband. And if her husband did not protect her, she had very little recourse for protecting herself.

“And this woman deserves a man who shows up,” Alaric continued. “Not just in body, but in his soul. You may not have chosen this initially, but you have chosen it now, which means you must show up for it with everything that you are.”

There was truth in this, and Ewan felt himself standing up straighter, his shoulders pressing back. He had no other choice. He had to do this. For his family. For his name. For his brother.

“You are very wise, my old friend,” he said, eyeing Alaric. “I now remember why I allow you so much presence in my life.”

“I am all charm and wisdom,” Alaric said, cracking a grin. “Now, let us get you downstairs. We have a wedding to get you to.”

The wedding was to take place inside the castle chapel. As Ewan stood at the top of the altar, surrounded by the grand limestone walls, vaulted ceilings supported by flying buttresses, and stained glass windows that turned the white floors a blazing red and yellow, he could not help but feel the sanctity of the place pressing down on him, the holiness of it imbuing the moment with meaning.

The organ music swelled, and Ewan knew that was the cue. He turned to the door just as it opened, and Lady Cassandra entered on her father’s arm.

She looked… radiant. Stunning in a gown of pale silk that flowed around her, trailing behind on the flagstones. A long lace veil had been set in her hair and it drifted behind her like mist on a cold winter morning in the Highlands.

Her face was still but exquisite, her eyes darkened around the rims with kohl and her lips a soft, rosy pink. Ewan had never seen anyone so stunning in his life, and the moment he realized this, he felt his stomach curl with guilt.

You are not supposed to find her beautiful,he reminded himself sternly.She was Christopher’s bride.

But she was his now, and as she came toward him down the aisle, her eyes locked on his, he felt his heart begin to beat more rapidly. She was his, to care for and protect, in sickness and inhealth. He barely knew her, but the protectiveness that flooded him was immediate and instinctual.

They may not have chosen each other to begin with, but they had chosen each other now. And he had no choice except to rise to the occasion. To be the man she needed.

Not just in body, but in his soul,Alaric had said.

Well, he could not be the man she needed in body, but maybe he could be that man in his soul. If that would be enough for her.