Page 30 of My Highland Bride

Only to take my mostly full one.

Not the reaction I’d expected.

“You agreed to this?” Another sip, this time of my wine.

“I did.”

Her laugh is bitter. “Of course you did. You are the queen’s commander, and would do anything for”—she pauses—“Edingham.”

But we both know she meant to say the queen.

On both accounts, she is correct.

Any attempt to charm her will not work. So I do not try. I tell her only the truth. “I agreed because I find the idea appealing.” I pause, then come out with the rest of it. “He told me that you would not marry me, that you wish to marry for love.”

If I wanted to make her angrier, I’ve accomplished the feat.

“I accepted the challenge,” I say, perhaps too bluntly. “Gladly.”

Her eyes pierce mine, and then she takes another sip of the wine. When she hands me the second empty goblet, I turn to place them on the ground next to the stone seat. When I pull upright to face her again, Reyne is already two steps away.

I grab her arm gently, unwilling for her to misunderstand.

“Would you have preferred for me to continue to hide the truth? In telling you, I risk any chance at gaining the Highland lords’ support. We march another step toward war, which is precisely what some of our own men wish for. I risk . . .”

I let her go. I’d speak to her, make Reyne understand, but I will not keep her here against her will.

“You risk angering the queen.”

I was going to say, I risk losing you before you were even mine. But I know she’d not believe me. While I did not come to Ledenhill for a wife, I would gladly leave here with one, if that wife were the redheaded siren in front of me.

This, I realize, is the girl I knew. The one with fire in her eyes. Lady Reyne Moray, before she lost her sister. Before life beat her down and tried to turn her meek.

“I might have done it,” she says, still not turning to leave but clearly unhappy with her present company. “He will force me to marry soon enough. ’Tis my duty to do so, as it is my brother’s. And you . . .” Her eyes soften, for just a moment. “Despite your deception, or perhaps because you told me of it when my father, and I am assuming my brother, did not see it necessary to do so . . . aye, I might have done it . . . if not for the fact that you are in love with the queen.”

It is as if she punched me in the chest.

“I cannot marry a man who loves another.”

With that, Reyne walks away. This time, I will not try to stop her. For what, precisely, would I say?

12

Reyne

It stuns me to return to the courtyard and find it as it was before my world was turned upside down. While the other guests have seemingly been enjoying the food and music, and most especially the wine, I’ve been learning how very little my own father and brother care for me.

So that was why Warin acted so strangely. And Father? I am less angry with him, for such a thing could almost be expected from him. Accustomed to giving orders without asking for input, he is exactly the sort of man who would conspire with another over his own daughter’s future.

How many times I’ve wished to be a man. Or if not a man, then a woman who actually wields power. Like an abbess. A Garra.

Or even a queen.

Why I should be angry at Cettina, as Erik calls her, I do not know. In fact, before this tourney, I was proud to live in a kingdom ruled by a woman. And though many worry she is ill-equipped to rule, my mother insists it’s a victory that she has been mostly accepted as the Isle’s first queen.

Victory, indeed.

“Wine, my lady?” a servant says, coming around with a tray.