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.”The priest sighed.“Very well, sir.The lady Sidony is waiting.”Giff nodded, and as he did, a most agreeable image of Sidony awaiting him in a proper bedchamber at Duncraig, wearing a thin silken dressing gown and nothing else, with her shiny silver-blond hair spilling down her back, filled his mind’s eye.His body stirred, but his lips twisted into a wry smile.A shipboard wedding night was unlikely to be particularly agreeable for either of them.Sidony heard them before she saw them, and her heart began to pound.What had she agreed to—and with Giff MacLennan?All very well to assume that he would not force her submission whenever the mood struck him, but what did she really know of the man? Not enough, certainly, to make such a judgment of him, let alone to be depending on it.He filled the doorway, blocking what little light there had been.“You’ve agreed then, lass?” His voice was gentle in the darkness, and it did something to her.Her mouth was dry, but the words came more easily than expected.“Yes, I have agreed,” she said.“I am not sure I should have, but I am sure that everyone else would say I must, and I don’t want them all ringing peals over me and ordering me to do it after I’ve created a scandal to last all my life.”“That’s good enough,” he said.“Come in, Father.We’re ready.”“We’ll need at least two witnesses, my son.”Giff reached outside the door and pulled Jake to him.“Get your da’ and Hob Grant,” he said, “and come back with them.Tell your da’ to bring a lantern.”At last, with the portholes shuttered, a lantern glowing from a hook in the ceiling, and Hob and the Maxwells squeezed in with them, Father Adam began.To Sidony’s surprise, the ceremony was brief, with only one delay after Giff had recited his vows, when Father Adam asked him if he had a ring for her.When Giff said no, Wat Maxwell pulled one off his left little finger and said, “It were me wife’s, lad, but if ye’d like the use of it until ye can get one for her ladyship, ye’re welcome.I’d like Jake to have this ’un for his own lass one day.”Thanking him, Giff took the thin silver ring and with an indecipherable look on his face, gently slipped it onto Sidony’s finger.She stared at it as the priest asked her if she would marry Sir Giffard, and when she had agreed, he proceeded to her vows.When he put special emphasis on the last one, to swear meekness and obedience in bed and at board, she saw Giff smile.He had not had to make any such vow, of course.To add to her annoyance, she had discerned no priestly emphasis on any vow that Giff did make.Then, suddenly, Father Adam said, “By the power vested in me by Holy Kirk, I pronounce you husband and wife.You may kiss your bride, Sir Giffard.”Putting the wee silver band on her finger had stirred unexpected emotions for Giff, and the announcement that she was now his wife stirred more.As he gazed at her, his throat felt tight.Despite the fact that she wore what she had worn since he had released her from the small hold, and her efforts to smooth her hair had achieved little by way of its usual tidiness, he felt pride in what he had done.The suggestion that he might kiss her now without consequence stirred a wish to do so at once.He put a hand under her chin, tilted her face up, and touched his lips gently to hers, smiling when her eyes sparkled in the lantern’s glow.The priest said, “It is customary to announce your new estate to any onlookers, Sir Giffard.We must certainly tell your crew the good news.”“Go and tell them then,” Giff murmured.“And close the door behind you.”A moment later, the door shut with a solid click, and they were alone.His earlier fear that his body would fail him in such surroundings proved untrue.He reached for the fastenings of her riding doublet.“Please don’t, sir,” she said.“I agreed to marry you, but that is all.”At St.Andrews, Fife and de Gredin, escorted by all but two of Fife’s tail, had walked to the palace and thence to the cathedral to find his eminence, the bishop.The service of Compline being soon over, he had invited them back to his palace for supper and to spend the night, as Fife had expected.He had certainly not wanted to stay aboard the longship all night, for a more uncomfortable craft he had never imagined.De Gredin had not been enthusiastic about stopping at St.Andrews, but he had agreed when Fife pointed out that if MacLennan had found the girl aboard the Serpent, he would want to put her ashore as expeditiously as possible.And where, Fife had asked, could he be more certain of her safety than with the bishop?Accordingly, they had finished an excellent supper at the bishop’s table and were still enjoying his fine claret when a lackey entered and said, “Beg pardon, your eminence, but a man has come from the harbor with a message for my lord Fife.”Chapter 16In the cabin, his fingers still on the fastenings of her doublet, Giff stared at his bride.“What did you say?” he demanded.“You heard me,” Sidony replied calmly.“I heard you, but I do not believe my ears,” he said, wanting to shake her but lowering his hands to his sides instead.Trying to sound reasonable, lest she feared to couple, he said gently, “Our marriage is not a marriage until we consummate it.”“Nevertheless, sir, I have made my decision.”“This is the devil of a time to find you can make decisions,” he retorted.“You are the one who made it clear to me that I can make them,” she reminded him.“So I have made this one, and I mean to stand by it.You are also the one who made it necessary by deciding to keep me aboard—twice.You did so when you might have turned back and put me ashore at Lestalric, and again at St.Andrews, when you might have let Father Adam take me to the bishop.”“You did not want to go to the bishop!”“True, but that does not affect my decision now.I do understand that to stay on this boat puts me in danger of creating a scandal that would embarrass me and infuriate my father and everyone else in my family.But unless you mean to tell the world that I refuse to couple with you, they need know nothing about that.”“Marriage is for life.Do you mean to refuse me forever?”“I have not decided that,” she said, but her gaze slid away from his as she said it, and she did not look at him again.“In troth, sir, you behave much too impetuously for my taste.I do not approve of acting in such haste, on impulse, but you seem to make a habit of it.For now, I would ask that you restrain yourself.”“Look here,” he said, beginning to get angry.“Rob, Hugo, and the others would have been gone before we could have got back to Lestalric, and even if we could still have moored safely there, we’d have had no way to get you home with any speed.As it was, Fife was on our heels much sooner than I’d expected.”“I could easily have walked to Lestalric.”“Don’t talk foolishness.Those two boats Fife commandeered are faster than ours in every respect.Did you see how many oarsmen they have, how long they are, how little draft they require? Had we delayed, they’d have been on us before we reached St.Andrews [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]