“Now I’ll have nightmares,” he muttered with a grin, walking over to help button the gown up her back.
Once they’d dressed he finished repacking the trunk and hauled it downstairs himself. They had a simple breakfast of eggs and ham, and well within the half hour he’d requested they were back in the coach headed north.
“What do ye reckon yer parents are doing right now?” he asked as she leaned against his shoulder to look out the window.
“I imagine I’ve been disowned,” she said, her voice much less concerned than he would have expected from her a week or so ago. “No doubt I’m now a candidate for Bedlam, and my mother will have surrounded herself with her dearest friends who will all spread the tale that I was always a wretched child and the Baxters are happy finally to be rid of me.”
“I cannae believe they wouldn’t have any ill words to say about me,” he protested. “I stole ye away, after all.”
“Yes, yes, I’m sure you’re being demonized, as well.”
“That’s more like it, then.”
Amelia-Rose smiled. She’d been smiling a great deal over the past few days, which she supposed under normal circumstances would indicate she’d gone mad. A dash to Gretna Green was the last thing she would ever have expected to find herself doing, but then since meeting Niall she’d done a great many things for the first time. It was an empowering feeling, really.
Through all of this, even when she’d been separated from him, Niall had been beside her. He believed in her. He loved her. His tall, lean form felt like a shield, a man who could protect her, keep her safe and, most of all, set her free from her own damned, limiting fears.
She looked at his profile as he checked his pocket watch, no doubt estimating just how much longer they had to go before they reached Scotland. The English laws of marriage didn’t apply there—at least not the Hardwicke Marriage Act, which said a lady under the age of twenty-one couldn’t marry without her parents’ consent. Not without the couple risking three weeks of having the banns read in church, anyway. In three weeks she would have been married to the Marquis of Hurst.
“Ye just shivered, leannan.”
Amelia-Rose tightened her grip on his hand. “I was just thinking about how my life might have gone if you hadn’t stolen Lionel’s coach.”
“Ye’d have bitten him and run for it, I’d wager.”
She snorted. “I hope so. I’d like to think I would have.”
By ten o’clock her bottom was tiring from another day of riding in the coach, and she was about to suggest that she and Niall switch places with Gavin again so the groom could nap while Niall drove the coach. Then Gavin thumped on the roof with his fist. “Gretna Green,” he announced.
Her heart jumped, not with nervousness, but rather excitement. In a few minutes she would be married. She would belong to Niall MacTaggert. He would belong to her. And she would be Amelia-Rose MacTaggert. Amy MacTaggert. That sounded like a fair Highlands name, if she said so herself.
They turned, and then the coach stopped. Niall faced her. “Are ye ready, Amy, my adae, my leannan?”
“Aye,” she said, putting a hand over his heart. She could feel its fast, hard beat beneath her fingers.
He kissed her, slowly, leisurely, in a way that warmed her to her toes. A possessive kiss, an intimate one, a moment she would always remember as the only proof she needed that she’d made the right decision.
“Let’s get married, then.”
Niall pushed open the coach door and kicked down the step, then descended to the ground and held out a hand to her. Belatedly she realized she hadn’t bothered to wear a bonnet, but she wasn’t certain whether one should remove a hat in a blacksmith’s or not, anyway.
“Gavin, tie off the team. We need two witnesses, and ye’ll be one of ’em.”
“I’d be honored, Master Niall. Most honored,” the groom gushed, hopping down from the driver’s seat.
They walked into the blacksmith’s shop, where a large man in Puritan black, a flat-brimmed hat on his head, sat in a chair beside the forge, a mug of something resting on one knee. He set the cup aside and stood. “David Lang. Bishop Lang, they call me. Ye here to marry?”
“Aye,” Niall returned.
“Do ye have another witness?”
“Just me,” Gavin answered, his hat in his hands.
The blacksmith walked to the rear of the shop. “Mary! I need a witness!”
“I’ll be right there, David!”
“That’s my wife,” he said. “Ye’ll need to sign yer names here,” he went on, pulling a book from beneath his chair, then paused to look them up and down. “It’ll cost ye … five pounds for my services.”
Five pounds seemed like a fortune, but Niall produced the money wordlessly and handed it over. “Is there a marriage certificate, so we can prove we wed?”
“Aye, for another pound.”
“Is there anything else ye’d care to offer us for a fee?” Niall commented with a swift grin.
“I can recommend an inn for yer wedding night. I’ll do that for free, because they pay me for every newlywed couple spending the night there.”
“Nae. We’ve a distance to go after this.”
A plump woman opened the rear door, a towel in her hands and the smell of fresh bread accompanying her. “I’ve ten minutes before the bread burns,” she informed her husband.
“Aye. The two of ye, stand before the anvil,” Prior Lang ordered. “Hold hands if ye like; it’s nae matter to me.”
Wordlessly Amelia-Rose took Niall’s proffered hand. No, she would never have expected a wedding like this. But what a story it would make for their children. Youngsters with light-green eyes and brogues and hopefully a liking for fine clothes and dancing. She grinned.
Lang looked at Niall. “Are ye of marriageable age?”
“Aye. I’m four-and-twenty.”
The blacksmith turned to Amelia-Rose. “And ye? Are ye of marriageable age?”
“Yes. I’m nineteen.”
“Are ye related to each other?”
“Nae,” Niall said, frowning.
“I have to ask, lad. Now. Are ye both free to marry? Neither of ye is already wed to someone else?”
“We are free to marry,” Amelia-Rose answered.
The door behind them burst open. “Just a damned minute!” Lionel West, the Marquis of Hurst, slammed into the smithy.
Her heart clenching, Amelia-Rose backed up, feeling Niall beside her coil like a panther ready to strike. “Ye get the hell out of here,” he growled.
“I will not! You belong to m—”
A muscular arm grabbed the marquis around the neck and hauled him backward, out of the building. Muffled yelling followed, and then Aden MacTaggert stuck his head into the doorway. “Sorry about that. He squirmed away from us. Get on with it; he and his friends are promising nae to bring more trouble.” With that he closed the door again.
“Did you know your brothers were here?” Amelia-Rose whispered.
“Nae. I should’ve figured it, though. Prior Lang, if ye dunnae mind? I’ve nae wish to see that fine-smelling bread burned.”
“Ye’re certain ye’re free to marry?” the smith asked again, pinning Amelia-Rose with a more interested gaze.
“Yes. What that man wants is not what I want.”
Lang continued to eye her, then nodded. “By yer kilt ye’re clan Ross,” the blacksmith stated to Niall. “Do ye have a tartan to use?”
Niall pulled a strip of plaid from his pocket. It bore the same red, black, and green pattern as his kilt, and he handed to the smith. The big man indicated they should lift their joined hands, and he wrapped the tartan over them. Then he picked up his hammer and struck it against the anvil, the clang sharp and echoing. “Ye’re now married. I’ll get yer wee paper.”