He sat with the lass, making polite conversation. But when he looked at her lips, he thought of Mared’s lips. When he looked at her brown eyes, he saw green. And when he glanced at her hair, so artfully arranged, he saw Mared’s long black braid.
When Dora waxed dreamily about the wedding and spoke of her interest in art, he thought of Mared tromping about the Highlands in her boots, pilfering berries and penning his sheep.
The night was interminable.
Because of her brush with disaster, Mared spent the evening in her chamber, afraid to go out and join the other servants, who were wild with joy and helped along by a significant amount of ale. When a giddy Una asked where she’d been, Mared lied. “In the bailey. Did ye no’ see me there?”
Una swore that she had not, but then, she had seen only the handsome footman.
Mared didn’t emerge from her chamber until the next morning, in time for the wedding.
The Douglases were ecstatically happy that the day had dawned so crystal clear and cool. It augured a good beginning for the bridal couple.
Mared donned her purple gown and with Una, stayed at the fringes of the crowd for the traditional processional to the kirk. There were three hundred souls attending the processional, and another hundred or more already waiting in the kirk yard. As the old stone kirk was so small, the servants and villagers were to stand outside while Douglases filled the pews and lined the walls within.
Mared and Una stood together under an elm tree, Una watching for Harold, the footman whom she had come to love desperately in the space of forty-eight hours, and Mared no longer pretending not to look for Payton.
But how could she miss him? He was part of the family processional, looking quite resplendent in his black coat, a white, frilled lawn shirt, a green waistcoat, and the féileadh beag, the plaid tartan of Eilean Ros, belted at his waist. He’d also donned the traditional sporran and ghillie brogues.
Behind him and his cousins, two young girls skipped along, tossing rose petals on the path the bride would take. “Diah, but she’s bloody beautiful!” Una sighed as the bride appeared.
She was resplendent in her cream-colored gown. She wore a garland of heather around her fair head and carried a bouquet of Scottish roses and thistle. As she neared the kirk, a piper began to play the bagpipe, welcoming her in traditional fashion.
The bagpiper stood aside as the Douglases filed into the kirk, followed at last by the bride and her father.
Those standing in the kirk yard could not hear the ceremony as it was performed, so Mared made her way through the throng to get as close to the door as possible. And while she could not see the couple—there were too many men standing along the back wall of the kirk—she could hear the priest conduct the ceremony in Gaelic, could hear the couple recite their vows.
At the conclusion of the ceremony, the happy couple kissed to the wild approval of those congregated inside the kirk, and Mared drifted to the fringe of the crowd once more as the couple burst forth, their hands clasped, their faces beaming. The groom threw coins to the children as they hurried to the carriage parked nearby, and they were whisked away to Castle Leven, while the hundreds of guests walked, accompanied by the bagpiper and joyful wedding songs.
Mared did not see Payton in that crowd—there were too many people, too much movement and jostling about.
The wedding breakfast had been split—the servants would dine in the old stables, and the family and guests of the Douglases in the castle. Following breakfast, there would be a rest period, and the common celebration, at which servants and their betters would mingle, would begin late in the afternoon with singing and speeches in advance of feasting and dancing that would carry on well after the newlyweds were shown to their bridal chamber.
After the breakfast, Mared and Una returned to their room to rest and dress for the big celebration that evening.
Except that they did very little resting, as Una was too enamored of Harold to keep quiet for more than a moment. She chattered endlessly as to how kind he was, and how very thoughtful, and when he kissed her, Una felt as if she’d contracted a tropical fever and felt close to fainting.
Mared wished she would go on and faint, then, for it was impossible to hear so much joy and anticipation of love without wanting to feel that all for herself. Accustomed as she was to pushing those sorts of feelings down, it was difficult to let them out, if only for an evening.