Page 18 of Love Beyond Time
Adelle turned, not waiting for a response, and only briefly registering Blaire’s question as she made her way out of the basement room.
“Aye, but might I ask ye a question? What is a ‘car’?”
Chapter 11
Scotland—1645
Eoin stood at the edge of the rocky hillside that overlooked the ocean at the backside of the castle, waiting for his future bride. He scanned the crowd of townspeople all dressed in their finest, excitedly waiting for the wedding to begin.
He would gladly trade places with any one of them.
Any moment Blaire would arrive at the end of the aisle, dread simmering in her eyes as she glared up at him during her long march.
He would take her hand in marriage as his father bid, but he would live each day guilt-ridden for being the source of such great unhappiness for any lass, even one as miserable as Blaire.
He glanced toward his brother, who stood on his left-hand side. Arran looked as if he were having a hard time standing. His face was flushed and his eyes were bloodshot.
He’d been drinking again.
It hadn’t escaped Eoin’s attention that Arran hadn’t stopped drinking since their return to the castle. What was bothering him? Had Arran taken their father’s death harder than he’d realized? Whatever it was, he vowed that he would talk to his brother as soon as this wedding was behind them.
A sharp intake of breath from Arran caused Eoin to jerk his head in the direction of Arran’s stare.
His heart hammered wildly inside his chest, and his breath lodged in his throat as he locked eyes with Blaire.
Standing at the end of the aisle, she was beaming back at him with a smile so wide and bright he couldn’t help but smile in return. It was the first genuine smile he’d seen from her, and it made him uneasy.
Has the lass been drinking also? She looks pleased. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she had been. But no, the lass was too certain in her steps to be drunk, and her eyes shimmered with clarity as she neared him.
He stepped forward to take her hands in his as the ceremony began.
* * *
The entire ceremony had been a blur. I sat next to my new husband, watching the hordes of merry villagers dancing around the grassy expanse behind the castle. I knew I was dreaming; there was simply no other explanation for the whirlwind of confusion that had been the last two hours of my life.
The swirls of color and boisterous laughter—combined with music that I was vastly impressed with myself for dreaming up—had my head spinning yet again. I tried to stop the pounding in my temples by thinking back on what I could remember.
Meeting Mary; having not one, but two full-blown panic attacks; being tossed into a tub and dressed up like a Thanksgiving turkey; walking down the backside of the castle; laying eyes on the hunk now sitting beside me; walking up the aisle, grinning like an idiot. It seemed to me that I could recall everything that had happened since I woke up inside my coma. That is, until I had reached the end of the aisle. At that point, Coma Husband had taken it upon himself to grab my hands, and my brain short-circuited.
No surprise, really. My brain was obviously working overtime just to dream up Laird Eoin, not to mention that it was trying to heal itself out of a coma.
After he had taken my hands in his own, I could recall only two other things about the ceremony.
The first was his eyes. I had been immediately hypnotized by them. They reminded me of a black stone that used to sit in a bowl at my grandmother’s house. When I was younger, I loved to hold it up to the light and examine all the different flecks of brown and gold that danced between the swirls of darkness. His eyes were like that stone. I wanted to examine every speckle of color that had stared back at me throughout the ceremony.
The second thing I recalled was the kiss at the end of the wedding. You would think that since I was staring at his eyes so intently, I would’ve seen it coming. I didn’t.
The impact of his lips on mine startled me so much that I tried to jerk away from him on instinct, but I was prevented by his hand, which touched the smallest part of my back and pulled me close to his chest. His right hand cupped the left side of my face as he moved his lips confidently against my own.
Part of me felt I should have stopped the kiss; I was kissing a total stranger, after all. But this wasmystranger, whom I’d created, and my body betrayed me as fire coursed through my core, sending heat down to the farthest ends of my fingertips and toes.
I couldn’t breathe, and I parted my mouth to try and take in a breath, but his tongue deftly slipped inside, and instead of oxygen I breathed him in instead.
Had it not been for the roar of the guests, I think the kiss would have gone on much longer, but the noise from the crowd caused the laird to jerk away. As he did so, a look of utter frustration, almost anger, crossed his face. It confused me even more than I was already. His face hardly seemed to coincide with the kiss he’d just given me.
Thinking back on the kiss caused my temperature to rise, and my cheeks flushed as the sudden warmth of the memory washed over my body. I reached to lay my fingers against my cheek, hoping to cool them, when a voice to my left caused me to jump.
“Ye look beautiful, Blaire.”
