Page 16 of My Highland Bride

Erik slaps Warin on the back as they stand apart. “I’ve heard of your travels,” he says. “It seems we missed each other in Murwood End.”

“You were there recently?” Warin asks, surprised.

“Aye.”

He does not elaborate, and my brother does not ask him to. Instead, he asks, “Will you be at the feast tonight?”

The Lord Ledenhill will host a feast this eve, according to Father. Our whole family will be there, and it seems that Erik may attend as well.

Do not overexcite yourself over the possibility. He is the queen’s man, not yours.

But my mind and body do not seem to be speaking to each other. I await impatiently, heart thudding, for Erik’s answer.

“Will you be at the feast, Reyne?” he asks me.

If I had thought Erik flirted with me earlier, the look he gives me now confirms it. Curiously, Warin does not seem affected. Every potential suitor who has attempted to so much as speak with me has been the subject of my brother’s intense scrutiny. But here is the son of a man Father dislikes enough to avoid the western borders of our land, and Warin says nothing. Does nothing.

I will have to question him about his behavior. But first, to address Erik’s question.

“Aye,” I say, “I plan to attend.”

As if confirming my suspicions, Erik brightens. “I look forward to it. Forgive me for intruding on your walk,” he says to us both. “Until this eve, then?”

Bowing slightly and attracting a fair measure of attention with his mere presence, Erik walks away. And I do not waste any time addressing my brother’s odd behavior.

“Would you like to tell me what just happened, Warin?”

7

Erik

Ledenhill Castle, built partially into the side of the mountains, surrounded by rocky peaks on three sides, is in some ways more magnificent than Breywood. Our capital is along the sea, beautiful in its own way, but a Highlander born is a Highlander for life, and I have always preferred the mountains.

But as I enter Ledenhill’s glittering hall, the sounds of music and revelry flowing over me, it’s not the castle I’m thinking about but the woman who holds my fate—some would say Edingham’s fate—in her hands.

Though she does not know it yet.

Moray is doubtful she will agree to the union, however he wishes otherwise, and has said as much. If she balks, he will honor her wishes . . . and I will leave without his support. He is adamant that she will not agree to an arranged marriage, so I must convince her she wishes to marry me. He was very clear on one point: I’m not to dishonor her in any way. I replied that I valued my life too much to try it.

“You are a bigger fool than Lord Bowes,” Gille says as we enter the hall together.

Lady Hilla’s decapitated lover has become synonymous with foolish, reckless decisions. But my role in the affair’s discovery is not one I wish to be reminded of at this particular moment. Of course, Gille does not know all.

“You do not think I can convince her?”

Our hosts are already seated on the dais as their guests, easily more than one hundred men and women, mill about. Some begin to sit as others flit from table to table, greeting their friends and neighbors. Fiddlers give the hall a festive atmosphere completely at odds with the current tense mood in the capital.

Being here, I can understand Moray’s ambivalence toward the queen’s dilemma. It all feels very far away. But he’s mistaken if he thinks even the wildest corners of the Highlands are safe. Meria’s influence can be felt even here, and the Prima’s power spreads throughout both kingdoms like disease through a tree.

Some eye us with suspicion. Others, with respect. If I’ve learned anything from my years in the capital, it is that some men will defer to a position more than they will a man or woman, and others will do just the opposite.

“Do you wish to marry her?” Gille’s question jolts me out of my thoughts.

“I do not wish to marry anyone. But as my mother tells me in nearly every missive, I’ve no siblings to carry on the Stokerton name.” I am lucky to be alive, my birth not an easy one for my mother. Afterward, she was never able to become pregnant again. “So if I must marry, ’tis as good a reason as any.”

“To please the queen?”

Gille knows by now that I won’t respond. He accepts a goblet from a serving maid, and we make our way through the crowd, Gille enjoying his drink while I search for Reyne.