LITMIR.BIZ

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soon-to-be husband.

      “There are other duties you’ll need to carry out, too, Stella,” said Maisie. “Wifely duties that a husband will expect.”

      I had heard some of these wifely duties discussed by my sisters, first when Clementine had been preparing for marriage—twice—and then when Maisie had been expecting a proposal from Wilkie Mackenzie. But I had studiously avoided thinking too closely about what such duties might entail. My sisters, however, liked details. “Firstly,” began Maisie, “a husband expects his wife to undress him.”

      My soft groan was acknowledged with patting hands, but we all knew there was little they could do to help me aside from informing me and doing their best to pick up the pieces after the fact.

      “He might not demand that of you on the first night,” Clementine offered.

      “How would one even go about undressing Kade Mackenzie without getting speared?” asked Agnes.

      “Aye, sounds dangerous,” agreed Ann. “Getting past all those blades might present a challenge.”

      “Some husbands, I’ve heard,” continued Maisie, “like their wives to feed them. It makes them feel powerful, I would imagine.” Her comment trailed off wistfully, and I had no doubt in that moment that she had planned to serve her own husband—lost to her forevermore—in these ways and any other she could imagine.

      “And then, of course,” added Clementine, “the marriage bed presents its own...duties.”

      “The marriage bed is a minor detail to be endured,” offered Ann, perhaps noticing my stricken expression. But her words offered no solace; she knew less about what to expect than even I did.

      “You don’t have to remain faithful,” said Maisie quietly. This comment was met with a moment of awkward silence. Maisie didn’t have to mention his name for the reference to be brutally clear. “He’ll likely be allowed to return to Glenlochie once you’re officially married.”

      “Just wait until your husband strays before you do,” advised Agnes. “Ainsley Munro told me that her cousin’s husband annulled their marriage when he found out about his wife’s affair, and he was legally allowed to. But if he’d strayed first, then there are no legal grounds for an annulment.”

      “Is that true?” asked Clementine, intrigued.

      “Aye, she told me, too,” Maisie confirmed. “And it’s true that most men do stray. At least that’s what I’ve heard. And I’d wager Kade Mackenzie will be no different, especially if the rumors of his...vigor are true.”

      “Well, hopefully Kade will stray,” Ann added softly. “He can seek his dark pleasures elsewhere. Then Stella can get what she wants.”

      Their chatter continued somewhere outside my scope and I let my head slip under the bathwater to further distance myself. In just a few short hours I would be wed to and irrevocably bound to a man I had met but a handful of times, whose unholy vibrancy haunted me from afar. At this moment what I felt was fear, but I could acknowledge a curiosity, too, or what might have been better described as a survivalist instinct. I wanted to begin to emotionally prepare myself for what lay ahead. I couldn’t help letting my mind tread in disturbing directions. Tonight. The marriage bed. With Kade Mackenzie. Would he be kind? Or brutish? Would he be cold and disinterested, or possessive and demanding? Would he hurt me? Maisie and Bonnie had spoken to me about the very adventurous marriagelike activities they’d both indulged in with men they desired to wed. For Bonnie, the future looked bright. I worried for Maisie, having given herself like that, so fully, to a man who was now someone else’s husband; I worried that it would indeed have an impact on her chances for marriage to another man. She regretted nothing, though, she insisted. Those private moments with Wilkie Mackenzie, she’d said, were some of the most pleasurable and treasured of her life.

      I wondered if my experiences would be at all pleasurable. Despite Agnes’s gossip, or perhaps because of it, I thought that possibility unlikely. Aye, Kade affected me in unusual ways. The rippling, primal awareness that seemed to infuse me whenever he was near: it was a reaction I had attributed to fear, but there was a warmth to my lingering panic that was quite removed from trepidation, which I might have described as wary curiosity. His grip on my shoulders had been so sure, so strong yet in no way painful. His rasped surprise that was laced with the slightest trace of vulnerability. Stella.

      Nevertheless, I was too accustomed to violence to expect anything less of him, and this type of impending violence would be more personal and more damaging than anything I had so far experienced: this I knew.

      If I hadn’t been pulled up to have my hair washed and attended to, I might have stayed in my underwater haven, to slip away and never know. As it was, I was so lost in my silent, fevered reservations that before I even knew what was happening, I was bathed, dried, dressed, primped, polished and perfumed to within an inch of my life, and ready to attend my own wedding.

      * * *

      IF I HAD been in a better state to appreciate such things, I might have registered through the haze of my distraction that the day was sunny and warm, that the mood was festive, that Kinloch’s small chapel was an exquisite, reverential space with its white walls and shards of colored light.

      I floated through the proceedings as though watching them from a protective distance.

      My gown was beautiful; that much I could appreciate. Its crushed velvet fabric was white yet tinged with pale shades of pink. The fitted bodice was inlaid with white silk ribbons, intricately woven in a seashell pattern. The long skirt fell elegantly to the floor, and the hem was gathered with shiny white pieces of shell. I wore a lace veil that offered me a welcome barrier against the events of the day, for now.

      My father was dressed in his best finery: a purple cloak with gold silk trim, befitting his nobility. We did not speak. All that needed to be said had already been spoken. He led me down the aisle to the pulpit, where Kade Mackenzie stood, flanked by his two brothers. Laird Knox Mackenzie watched me approach with his arms folded over his broad chest. I couldn’t help noticing that there was a defined melancholy to his countenance, and I recalled hearing that his wife had died some years ago. Maybe the sight of a wedding dress was reminding him of all he had lost. Wilkie Mackenzie sported a much dreamier expression, but he wasn’t looking at me. His eyes were fixed on his own bride, the fair-haired Roses, who sat near him in one of the front pews.

      And Kade.

      I had not seen him for two weeks since I’d nearly collided with him in a corridor; since he’d rescued me from the clutches of Aleck; since my betrothal to him had been decreed. Now, his face was entirely stoic, as impassive as I might have expected of him. His eyes never left me, but I could look at him only briefly, noticing abstractly that his ceremonial garb suited him. He looked tall and noble and at ease in his clan colors. Yet in the aftermath of all the warnings and revelations of late, Kade’s subdued power and flagrant masculinity were enough to wither my courage. If I looked at him, I feared I might faint. So I diverted my gaze elsewhere.

      As he lifted my veil, he spoke to me, and there was a soft, distinctive gravelly edge to his voice that I already recognized from the few times we had exchanged very brief conversation. “You look as though you’re about to be fed to the lions,” he commented. “Be assured, I don’t plan on eating you alive. Not yet, anyway.”

      I looked up at him, caught by his cynical, sensual smirk. Was this an attempt at humor? Everything about him was so very undecipherable to me, I could only stare briefly at his face before blushing, dropping my gaze and wishing I was anywhere but here.

      The small chapel was full to capacity. My family sat near the front. My father wore a triumphant gloat, clearly relieved that our clan’s alliance to the Mackenzies would, at last, be sealed. My sisters and cousins scanned the crowd, making eye contact with possible conquests, reveling in the moment. There were Munros in attendance, Macintoshes, Buchanans, Machardies, Macsorleys, even Stuarts. People had come from far and wide to witness the convergence of two major Highland armies and to take part in the celebrations.

      I realized with

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