Page 16 of Highlander’s Lesser Evil

He should tell her that she looked lovely. Tell her that he was enormously pleased to be marrying her. Tell her anything that would put a smile on her face.

“Father Ian?” Gemma said impatiently. “Could you begin?”

Bloody hell. “Gemma, wait. Before we do this, I really ought to tell ye...”

“Laird MacDougal, there is no need to try and woo me. It is a lovely dress, and as I told Agnes, it is wasted on me.” Her expression softened some. “I don’t think being married to you will be such a hardship, and I will try to be a good wife. I cannot guarantee that things will always be easy, but I am wedding you with no regrets.”

The problem was that Theo wasn’t confident she’d still have no regrets when she discovered the truth of that letter.

As Father Ian started to incarnate the introduction to the marriage slowly, Gemma rolled her eyes. “Father, please, we all have better things to do with our day. I take Laird Theodore MacDougal to be my husband, to respect and honor and revere and kiss his boots every night...no, I’m not really going to do that, but I will do my best to be a good wife.”

Theo held back a snort as Ian’s eyes started to drift shut.

“Very well, Lady Gemma. I take ye to be my wife, to protect and respect. Before God and the old ones—”

“Now, wait a minute.” Father Ian woke up. “Ye cannot say that! This is a vow before God.”

Gemma stepped forward with a smile and put her hands on the priest’s arm. “Father, he does not mean those old ones. He simply means the wise ones here in the audience. If he had finished, he would have said the old and young and the hard workers that make Loch Moran so wonderful.”

“Aye? All right then. I suppose that is it then. Before God ye have made these vows...” He paused. “Have ye made the vows?”

“Yes, Father,” she said, impatient. “We have made the vows. Before God, uniting the MacDougal clan and Loch Moran, we are now man and wife. Yes?”

Ian looked down at the book in his hands and jerked his head up and down. “Aye. That seems right.”

Turning to the crowd, Gemma held up her hands. “Laird Theodore MacDougal and his wife, Gemma!”

Everyone cheered, and Theo couldn’t help but smirk. His wife had all but officiated their ceremony for them, but she’d forgotten one crucial thing. “My dear,” he said as he grabbed her hand, “there is one more thing.”

There, before all of Loch Moran, he shared his first kiss with Gemma.

And it nearly knocked him off his feet.

Her first real kiss. Gemma didn’t know whether to push him away or grab him and pull him closer. The heat of his touch permeated the thick fabric of her dress, but still, she shivered as his tongue slipped through the line of her lips.

Instead, she did neither. All she could do was hold on to him to keep from falling to the ground.

Everyone else slipped away, and all she could focus on was him. His kiss was maddeningly slow and ever so thorough. Her head spun as she clutched at his shirt and whimpered.

Breaking free, he chuckled softly and kissed her forehead. “Now we are wed.”

Reality slammed into her, and Gemma ground her teeth together.

How dare he kiss me like that in front of everyone?

“Do you really think humiliation is the way to start off our marriage?”

“Not humiliation, my dear. Just making certain we follow all the proper steps in the ceremony. After all, this is the strangest marriage I have ever attended.” With a grin, he reached down and took her hand. “I present my wife, Lady MacDougal.”

The crowd cheered, and Gemma turned bright red. Part of it was knowing they’d all witnessed her first kiss, and the other part was knowing that they saw her as their savior of some kind.

All because she’d married a man.

Tears gathered in her eyes, but she held them back as she held up her chin. She’d already made her decision. Nothing would come of regretting it now except to make herself miserable.

Theo nudged her gently down to the large table that had been set up for the feast. Yet another party. The thought put a smile on her face. Loch Moran had so little to celebrate for so long, that it seemed as though they were cramming a lifetime of festivities into a few days.

They deserved it. They were all hard workers—survivors, even—and Gemma was pleased that they would feel safe and secure.