The Wedding Dress (50 page)

Instead, dimly filtered light revealed a Scottish warrior’s face stepped out of time. Her heart tried to beat its way out of her chest and run to him. She wanted to knock the wooden box out of Jared’s arms and fling herself against his broad chest, wanted to hold him and be held. But that would only make the inevitable harder. Nothing had changed since she’d left Lady Aislinn’s castle for good.

His eyes ate her up with that hungry look that had always made her want to fill his soul with everything he needed. It took every atom of self-control not to give in to it. “What are you doing here?” she asked, wiping her dusty hands on the legs of her jeans.

He carried the box to an old desk, set the crate down. “Bringing you a wedding present from Snib.”

Grief pressed tight on Emma’s heart. “You’ll have to return it,” she said. “I’m not getting married. Not ever.”

“So you said in your letter.” Pain flashed into Jared’s beautiful eyes. Emma knew she’d put it there. “You should have waited for me, Emma,” he said softly.

“And you should have let me go.”

“That’s what I figured you’d say.” Jared ran his fingers through his hair. The weary laugh he gave tore at Emma. “In fact, I’ve been getting plenty of advice about how to proceed here. Davey says I should take the advice you gave him. Tell you I love you. But I’ve already done that.”

Emma winced, the words slicing deep. She’d found out the hard way that sometimes love wasn’t enough.

“How is Davey?” she asked, trying to switch to a safer subject.

“Appalled that we were afraid he’d driven off the road on purpose. The crash was an accident. He wasn’t trying to kill himself as we feared.”

“Thank God,” Emma breathed.

“He and Beth were inseparable while he was recovering. They finished this summer’s dig in fine style. After the truth about his father broke, well—she clung to him more fiercely than ever. Who knew the girl had that kind of backbone, facing up to something like that? They’re engaged.”

Emma’s eyes widened. “Engaged?”

“He says he knows she’s The One. I think he’s too damned young, but what the hell do I know? If I learned one thing this summer it’s that love doesn’t always happen on a convenient schedule. Hell.” The old impatience crackled in his voice. “There’s not a damned thing convenient about love at all, come to think of it.”

Emma’s mouth curved in a half smile. “I’m glad for Davey.”

“Then, after I got pointers from a nineteen-year-old, I got hammered by two old men. Snib and your grandfather both told me I should throw you over my shoulder and have my way with you to change your mind. In fact, Captain McDaniel had specific interest in a great-grandbaby. After he kicked my ass.”

“He what?” Emma froze in surprise.

“Dropped me like a rock on the garden path before he let me in here.”

She smiled. She couldn’t help it. Not with the funny expression on Jared’s face. The Scotsman flushed just a little. “Of course, I
was
trying to be gentle with him.”

Emma chuckled. “I’ll bet.”

Jared’s eyes darkened. All humor fled. “Emma, I would have let him beat the hell out of me a hundred times if I had to. To get to you.” She saw him swallow hard, his voice catching in his throat. “Marry me. Let me love you the way Robert Burns described.
’Til all the seas run dry, my dear, and rocks melt wi’ the sun.
”

“Poetry,” Emma breathed, her chest hurting. “Burns is beautiful, Jared, but it doesn’t change anything. Didn’t you see what our lives would be like during those days at the hospital? Nothing would ever be easy.”

“Maybe it doesn’t have to be. Maybe that’s what makes every minute I spend with you so damned sweet.”

He reached out, touched her face. She bit back a moan, knowing how much she’d missed this—the rough tips of his fingers, the warmth of them on her skin. She forced herself to pull away.

“God, Jared. Don’t…”

“We’re not the first ones to face challenges. Hell, next to what Lady Aislinn and Sir Brannoc faced for love, this is nothing.”

Even through her pain, Emma started. “Sir Brannoc? You mean Lord Magnus. You’ve got your history mixed up.”

“No.” Jared’s eyes shone the way she loved so well, intense, intelligent, filled with awe at some small find. “I’ve got it right for the very first time. Lady Aislinn’s husband was a scheming opportunist who poisoned her father on the night before the wedding.”

“But…but why?”

“He only wanted the fairy flag—to add its magic to his family’s bloodline.”

“But how could anyone prove that?”

“Magnus’s first wife died in an
accident
to clear the way for the alliance with Lady Aislinn. On the eve before the wedding, Sir Brannoc met with Lady Aislinn’s father in secret. He’d ridden across Scotland at breakneck speed, bringing the maid who’d seen Magnus throw her mistress off the cliffs to tell her tale of murder. She’d heard the man say once he’d got a brace of sons on his new bride, he’d do the same to her as well.”

“But helping anyone this way is completely out of Sir Brannoc’s character. Why would he bother to do such a thing? Not out of the goodness of his heart. Every source I’ve read claims he was Scotland’s most infamous mercenary. Did he want to marry Lady Aislinn himself?”

“Certainly not. After the meeting, Sir Brannoc left the castle with a hefty reward for saving Lady Aislinn from such a fate. But later that night, when her father called Magnus in for a private meeting to tell him there’d be no wedding, Magnus poisoned him, killed the maid and blamed Sir Brannoc for their deaths.”

“But didn’t Sir Brannoc defend himself?”

“The gold that had been Brannoc’s reward was missing from the coffers. Magnus said Sir Brannoc stole it after he committed the murders. No one in Scotland would believe Sir Brannoc’s tale, save his own loyal men. Who in power would take a renegade knight’s word against a noble lord’s?”

The truth sank into Emma. “What did Brannoc do?”

“Sailed off to the continent to sell his sword to the highest bidder and vowed that as soon as he was strong enough, powerful enough, he’d go to Craigmorrigan to take his revenge.”

“And Lady Aislinn?”

“The wedding took place the next day, supposedly to fulfill Lady Aislinn’s father’s wishes. Lord Magnus insisted that Lady Aislinn needing protecting from the evil knight who’d murdered her father.”

“But how…the story wasn’t that way—not in any of the texts I read. Not even in your book! How did you find all this out?”

“Snib.”

“The standing stones? You excavated and found—”

“Not me. My da dug up a cache of things while he was on MacMurray’s land. He had a gift for it—finding old pike blades and soldiers’ spurs and such. Da figured the things belonged to whoever cared enough to find them. Snib caught him with the finds and confiscated the bundle Da put the things in. Snib took it just for spite. It’s a miracle he didn’t burn it.” Jared’s voice hushed. “Thank God he didn’t.”

“But where…where did your father find them?”

“We’ll never know for sure. But I’d wager within two meters of where your little rogue of a dog found the gauntlet.”

“Jared…Oh, Jared!” Emma flung her arms around him in elation. He hugged her for a moment before she came to her senses and drew back.

“These things all have to go to a museum once I’ve shown them to you,” Jared explained. “But…Emma, I’ve read the words Lady Aislinn left behind.” He unfolded the oilcloth. Emma gasped at the sheen of carved ivory.

“My God, Jared! What is it?”

“Her book of hours. Apparently she could read and write after all. Before she fled the castle, she penned their love story, squeezed it between the lines.”

Emma reached out to touch the edge of the battered cover with her hand. “However did it survive?”

“There were metal fittings from a series of different document boxes in the bundle and fragments of cloth. My guess is that they wrapped each layer in oilcloth to seal it. Then wrapped the whole thing in oilcloth again. Lady Aislinn wanted to make sure this record of their story survived. She wanted the world to know.”

“Know what?”

“The truth. And it is true, Emma! The part of the tale I always doubted. Sir Brannoc and Lady Aislinn and the swords. But he wasn’t just taunting her while Magnus was off fighting for the thieving English as history says. After he took the castle to avenge himself on Lord Magnus, he saw scars on the Lady. He knew her husband beat her. It was a husband’s right in those days. I don’t know why Brannoc decided to school her in swordplay—because she’d won his respect during the siege or to pass the time and be a thorn in the side of his old enemy.” With exquisite care, he opened the book to the middle and Emma stared in awe at the page, the elegant scribe’s hand and Lady Aislinn’s far more crude one.

“Whatever his reason,” Jared said, “Sir Brannoc’s goal was to teach Lady Aislinn how to fight back. He didn’t expect to fall in love. But it happened.” His voice lowered, still amazed. “Just like I fell in love with you.”

Emma touched the bit of parchment, marveling. “It’s so hard to believe. Six hundred years he’s been cast as a villain. Now all of a sudden…”

“He’s just a man who loved his woman enough to give up everything.”

“No wonder he went mad when Lady Aislinn disappeared…” Emma said, sorrow weighing down her heart. “And we still don’t know what happened to the fairy flag.”

“But that’s the best part of the tale!” Jared said. “When Sir Brannoc returned from hunting, the whole castle was weeping. A boy searching the cliff for bird’s eggs had found the lady’s favorite coronet caught on a piece of branch partway down the cliff, and clinging to one of the enameled flowers, a scrap torn from her gown. The whole castle believed he was so obsessed with her that he threw her off the cliff rather than surrender her to Magnus once they heard news of the lord’s return.”

“But Sir Brannoc—he wouldn’t have let that monster take her!”

“Lady Aislinn was Lord Magnus’s by church law, and no man could stand against it. And Lord Magnus marched at the head of an army that would have crushed Sir Brannoc’s forces in a day. Sir Brannoc ordered his men to take their plunder and leave. Then he haunted the tower room, touching her clothes, pressing his face to her pillow, breathing her in from the things she left behind.”

“Him smelling her clothes was all in the book?” Emma asked, astonished.

“No.” Jared’s cheeks flushed. “But I know it’s true. That’s how I tried to hold on to you.”

Emma’s eyes burned, the image of this proud man alone, touching things she’d worn, trying to feel close to her.

“Sir Brannoc went mad and might have thrown himself to his death also, if it weren’t for his lady’s last request. One she had made him swear to see through is ever she died. She must have feared it would be at Lord Magnus’s hand. Brannoc swore, no matter what, he would…”

“Would what?” Emma asked, breathless, spellbound by a fairy tale ages old.

“Would take his sword and go to the standing stones. Pledge in that ancient holy place that he’d avenge her. Kill the husband who’d made her so desperate. He was kneeling at the stones, swearing his oath when she stepped from the shadows. She’d been waiting for him all along.”

“Wh-what?”

“When Lady Aislinn got word of her husband’s return to Scotland, she took the fairy flag and slipped from the castle gates, telling no one.”

Emma imagined the Lady in her silver gauze gown, slipping from behind the standing stones to offer herself to the man she loved. A man who’d suffered, believed her crushed on the rocks, carried out to the sea beyond the Knight Stone.

“But why didn’t she tell Sir Brannoc what she planned to do? Why put him through that torture, making him believe—?”

“To save his life, and hers. His grief was the only way to make certain the castle folk would believe she was dead. And their believing was the only chance she and Sir Brannoc had of escape. If she’d been discovered and dragged back to Craigmorrigan, her husband would have put her to the sword.”

“For loving another man?”

“No. To keep his bloodline pure. He was obsessed by his lineage, wanting a son to carry it on.”

“But Lady Aislinn was barren.” Emma’s breath caught. “Oh, God! With the fairy flag gone Lord Magnus would have no reason to keep a barren woman as his wife.”

“That’s right.” Jared smiled at her, admiration in his eyes for her insight. “For years he’d blamed LadyAislinn for no heir being conceived. But in the end, it wasn’t her fault.” Jared’s voice dropped low. “There was a far more precious reason she had to make certain the world thought her dead. Lady Aislinn wasn’t barren after all. She was carrying Sir Brannoc’s child.”

“The child she’d wanted for so long,” Emma whispered, feeling her own empty arms, her womb’s hollow ache.

“She and Brannoc pledged their love with none but the stones to hear them. She wore a ragged gown her maid had given her, no bridal finery but the fairy flag veiling her hair. But she wrote that she was garbed in something far more magical and precious—her bold knight’s love.”

“But if they had a child, why didn’t their descendants tell what really happened? Years later, after Lady Aislinn and Sir Brannoc had died and they were out of danger?”

“The lovers would have had to shed their identities and remain anonymous on pain of death. Lady Aislinn still being married in the eyes of the church, their child would have been a bastard. Even so, maybe one of their grandchildren did try to set the story straight, but we Scots do love our tragic folklore. And the original version made a better tale to hand down.”

“A little like the paparazzi, huh? Scandal’s much more interesting than happy endings.” Suddenly Emma’s pulse quickened. “Oh, Jared! You have to tell Barry about what you’ve discovered.
Lady Valiant
will be even more amazing than before once the script’s rewritten to tell the truth.”

“Robards knows all about it. I went to see him first, with the proof of the story and a briefcase full of videotapes Davey took while you were training.”

“You what?”

“I made Robards watch the tapes right then and there. Told him this discovery made
Lady Valiant
the film of a lifetime. The whole world knows about his demand for excellence. The best—scripts, actors, set designs. I told him that if he didn’t cast you in the lead, he’d regret it the rest of his life.”