An Enchanted Spring: Mists of Fate - Book Two (28 page)

She wrinkled her nose. On second thought…no on the hot dog.

“Emma, pay attention! You need to know—” Brianagh stopped short as Monaghan reached their box.

Laird Monaghan said, in very broken English, to Emma, “Well, that settles that, I suppose. In case you were wondering, I thought you’d make a lovely Monaghan. But the Muskerry lass will do nicely, too.”

“Um, thank you?” Emma replied uncertainly.

“As you’re his ward, it should be easy enough to settle the papers,” Laird Monaghan said. He directed his gaze at Nioclas. “My son is disappointed, you see.”

Nioclas inclined his head. “I see.”

Laird Monaghan nodded his head slowly. “I do not want to become involved in any…conflict…with the Muskerrys. They outnumber us here, aye?”

Nioclas agreed.

“Then I suggest, for all clans involved, that the ceremony happen immediately.” He turned his attention back to Emma. “Before my headstrong offspring gets any ideas in his thick skull.”

Emma thought Shane seemed intelligent, but she wasn’t going to contradict his father, so she agreed enthusiastically without any idea as to what the man was talking about.

Laird Monaghan gave a brisk nod, then made his way back down the steps.

Brianagh groaned loudly. “This is a disaster.”

“Perhaps you ought to take Lady Emma to her room for immediate preparations, and explain to her what’s happened,” Nioclas said grimly. “I’ll find that arse and tell him he needs to be in my solar to sign papers.”

“Wh-what?” Emma said, looking back and forth between them. “I’m not getting the warm fuzzies here.”

Brianagh signaled to Kane, who immediately brought forth her personal guard, before saying, “I’ll explain it once we get to your chamber. Kane—send for Sinead immediately.”

“Who’s Sinead?” Emma asked, allowing Brianagh to steer her out of the box.

“My best dressmaker.”

Emma licked her dry lips nervously. “Why would you need your best dressmaker?”

Brianagh set her jaw. “Because Aidan never breaks a vow. Let’s leave it at that until we reach your chamber.”

Silently, Emma hurried toward the castle, her stomach sinking. Brianagh called out instructions to various people as they made their way to her chamber. Emma didn’t know what she was saying, but she understood the urgent tone.

Brianagh flung open the door, and an older woman was standing in the center of the chamber, surrounded by bolts of fabric, a small stool, and six teenage girls. Right behind them, four men lugged a large tub into the room and placed it off to the side.

“Right,” Brianagh said briskly, rubbing her hands together. To Emma, she said, “We have four hours.” To Sinead, she said something in Gaelic, and the woman blinked, then began barking orders like a general.

Two of the girls came forward and grabbed Emma’s arms, hauling her to the stool, where they encouraged her to step up onto it. Sinead placed her arms in a T, and Emma looked at Brianagh in concern.

“Okay. First things first. Don’t pass out,” Brianagh warned. “Sinead will poke you with a needle to revive you. I’m not kidding.”

As if to demonstrate the point, Sinead stuck a long, thick needle into her mouth, then began to measure Emma.

“Next. Last night, Aidan announced that you were handfasted. Shane took that as a challenge. When Aidan charged out today, he cut Shane off to reach the MacWilliam side, and, in going back and forth in front of the clan, didn’t allow him the opportunity to come anywhere near you. Shane was not happy, but thankfully, he went with his second choice.”

“Brigit,” Emma supplied.

“Yes. And when Aidan unseated Shane, he was telling him, in stupid man-code, that you were his, and to back off.” Bri chewed her lip. “Laird Monaghan was, in no uncertain terms, demanding that you become unavailable to his son immediately.”

“I’m not available to him, though,” Emma pointed out. “Aidan already announced we’re engaged.”

“Which, if you remember, is a perfect excuse to snatch you away,” Brianagh reminded her.

“Why would he do that? He seems completely logical and level-headed. Ow!”

Sinead barked something at her.

“She said to stop fidgeting,” Bri translated.

“I barely moved!” Emma complained.

“Breathing constitutes fidgeting,” Bri replied apologetically. “So, there’s more. No—don’t respond. Just try to be completely still. Last night, at dinner, Aidan made you a vow, did he not?”

“He didn’t say the
word
vow…”

Bri snorted. “I like how you’re trying to twist this one, Em, really. But you know, and I know, he made a vow that when he bested Reilly, he was going to marry you. Here.” She glanced at Emma nervously. “Now.”

“Now,” Emma echoed, realization dawning. “Wait, now, as in,
now
, now?”

“Yes.
Now
, now.”

“No!”

“Yes.”

“I’m being measured for a wedding dress?” Emma asked incredulously as the girls each held up a bolt of fabric for her.

“Pick a color?” Bri responded hesitantly.

“I have to sit down,” Emma said, stepping down from the stool.

“Not until you pick a color,” Brianagh said, again apologetically, as Sinead chased Emma back onto the stool with the needle. “She’s all business, all the time. For what it’s worth, I think the gold would look stunning with your hair and eyes.”

“Fine. Gold,” Emma said, exasperated. “This is ridiculous. I can’t marry him. I can’t!” She paled. “Does this mean I’m stuck here, in the past?”

Bri said something in Gaelic to Sinead, who immediately began barking orders to the girls.

“I don’t know,” Bri admitted, then added softly, “but if you are, believe me, there are worse fates than being Aidan’s wife.”

Emma put her head in her hands. “My choices aren’t that great,” she said, her voice muffled. “Marry a man who doesn’t love me, or face one who wants to kill me.”

Sinead patted her shoulder. Emma smiled at her gratefully, then realized the woman was trying to get her off the stool.

All business. Right.

She got down, and a thought occurred to her. “Bri, if I marry Aidan here, but then can go back, am I still married to him?”

“That’s dicey,” Bri replied slowly. “If you are sent back without him…well, who would know, right? And the vows do say ‘until death do you part.’ And, technically, he’d be long dead.”

Emma’s heart constricted at that reality. “Oh, God.”

“But if you were to both stay, then you’d be married for life. If you both leave, well…I suppose that’s up to you, how to handle it. You’d have no proof that anything happened here.” Brianagh clasped Emma’s hands. “I’m so sorry this is being thrust upon you. But, if I were in your shoes—and trust me, I’ve been almost exactly where you are now—I would believe in Aidan. He wouldn’t play with your heart. He knows what I just told you, and my guess is that he’s protecting you in all possible ways.”

“How can you be so sure?” Emma asked. “Because I’ve been pretty confused since the moment I met him. One side seems so confident, and trustworthy. But there’s this other side. A darker side, one that he doesn’t let me see, but I can feel it’s there. It’s almost uncivilized.”

Bri squeezed her hands. “I can’t say for sure, but I suspect that’s his medieval warrior self sparring with his modern self—I would think they’d tend to be at odds more often than not.”

Sinead inserted herself between the two women, placed a tape around Emma’s chest, then grunted and gave a nod.

Emma raised an eyebrow. “This has to be the most insane day of my life.” She looked at the girls, who were furiously cutting long swaths of gold fabric, and Sinead, who was using a knife to outline a pattern in a large sheet of parchment.

Bri laughed. “I bet it is.”

“Do I have a choice?” Emma asked in a small voice.

“You’ll always have a choice. But there are consequences to each choice, and the one that’s most likely to ensure your safety is to marry Aidan.”

“Damn it.”

“Come on. Let’s get you ready for a wedding.”

• • •

Aidan stood next to the desk in Nioclas’s solar, his arms folded. “When you leave, will you have the ability to take Emma back with you?”

“Are you giving up on her?” Reilly asked in surprise. He tossed a dirk into the air and caught it, then repeated the action. “That’s unlike you.”

“She needs to understand her options.”

Reilly caught the dirk again and scratched his cheek with it thoughtfully. “I wonder why you care so much.”

Aidan wanted to smack Reilly’s forehead into the nearest hard surface. “I care because she will be my wife. But if she’s not willing to stay here, I need to tell her that she can return.”

Reilly shook his head in pity. “You poor sap. Of course she can come back with me. In fact, I believe she has to return with me.”

“What?” Nioclas broke in.

Aidan felt his chest constrict. “I thought you said you weren’t sure?”

“Once I take care of my business here, I’ve been given orders to return to the future.”

Aidan saw the seriousness in Reilly’s eyes, and he felt as though he’d been punched in the gut.

“So what you’re saying is that Aidan has to choose between Emma and his family?” Nioclas demanded.

“I’m not saying that at all. In fact, I don’t think the choice will be up to Aidan,” Reilly conceded.

“You think I’m supposed to be here,” Aidan concluded, a hollow feeling spreading through his chest.

“Isn’t that what you’ve been working toward for the better part of the last decade?” Reilly asked, seemingly indifferent.

Aidan didn’t respond, the enormity of it slamming into him. He blindly groped for the edge of the table.

“Fate isn’t always what we think it is,” Reilly said, sheathing the dirk in his boot. “I’ll leave the two of you to settle the marriage contract.”

Aidan sat down heavily, his mind reeling. Fate had handed him his soul mate, only to rip her away?

He didn’t want to believe it.

Nioclas gave him a concerned look. “I’ll return momentarily.”

Aidan nodded, still too shocked to speak. Was his place truly here, at his brother’s side? He had always believed that. His brother risked everything for him, everything for their clan. He avenged their mother—if not his own mother by blood, certainly of heart—and saved Aidan from following in the footsteps of an evil sire.

Aidan owed Nioclas everything. He’d sworn his loyalty, and he couldn’t break it. He’d already been gone too long. If he left again…he couldn’t put his brother through that. But could he let Emma go? Could he convince Reilly to keep her here? Would she
want
to stay here, with him?

His eyes fell on the tapestries that lined the wall behind Nick’s desk. Great battle scenes, in which a tall figure with long dark hair fearlessly rode a stallion into a battle. The men on foot, fierce expressions on their faces, were engaged in swordplay, arrows high above their heads in midflight.

On the opposite wall, the tapestry showed a different scene altogether. A woman sat in a chair by a blazing hearth, cradling a small child in her arms. Behind her, in an open doorway, stood the man with the long hair, home from battle. His attention was focused on his wife and child, and his bloodied sword hung above the door. Woven into the blood on the sword were the Latin words,
Pro domo focoque pugnamus
.

We fight for hearth and home.

The MacWilliam clan did not want to expand across Ireland; they were happy with their lot. They had everything they needed—fish from the sea, fertile fields bearing food, peat for their fires, and a strong clan pride. Expansion would mean some would have to give that up and settle in other parts of the land to keep a stronghold. It meant constant war, constant demand, constant giving without receiving.

That was not the legacy Nioclas wanted to leave for his children, nor his children’s children. He wanted—and had achieved—peace in a time of greed and war.

No, there was no way Aidan could leave his brother. He glanced at the tapestry behind the desk. If another clan declared war against them, it was Aidan who would protect Nioclas’s back during battle.

He knew marrying Emma was the best protection he could give her, for however long she was here. If Monaghan decided he wanted her, he could steal her away in the night and pay any number of priests to perform the marriage, fully against her will. She’d be locked up, too far from O’Malley to ever return to her time.

If she were married to him, the MacWilliams would fight to bring her home, if it came to that.

His gaze traveled back to the tapestry of the woman, his heart torn. Home.

He needed to be here to fight for his brother’s hearth and home. After all his brother had done for him, his own happiness was a small price to pay. He knew the truth of it in his mind…now, he needed only to convince his heart.

Nioclas reentered the room. “Are you sure you want this, Aidan?”

He nodded briskly, resolved. “I am. She needs the protection of the clan if she’s here for any length of time.”

“Is that all it is?” Nioclas questioned.

Aidan rubbed his hands over his face again. “Aye. It’s all it can be.”

“Then let’s draw up the marriage papers.”

• • •

What a difference four hours, a bath, an exceedingly determined head seamstress, six seamstresses, and Brianagh’s personal chambermaid could make.

Emma smoothed her hands down the fine gossamer silk, unable to stop touching the soft fabric. The square neckline of her long-sleeved, lightweight woolen gown was lined with a deep blue ribbon. Sinead used the blue ribbon around each upper arm, and she encircled Emma’s natural waist, separating the top and bottom of the dress. The gold gossamer silk overlaid the gold wool of the skirt, which had a slit up the front to allow a panel of dark blue silk to peek through. From the ribbon bands on her arms fell a swath of the same blue fabric in the skirt.

“This is stunning,” she murmured, humbled by the amount of speed and work Sinead put forth. “
Go raibh maith agat
,” she said to Sinead.

Sinead curtsied at the thanks, then hustled her girls out.

“So you do know some Gaelic,” Bri said, impressed.