Page 60 of Bound to a Highland Beast
“Ewan!” Isabeau gasped, her free hand coming up to clutch at her chest. “Dinnae speak tae him like that!”
“Ye dinnae think it was audacity tae ask fer yer hand in marriage?” Ewan asked. Next to him, Alaric was entirely silentand his expression betrayed nothing. A part of Tiernan had hoped that perhaps he would speak up, perhaps he would support them, but it seemed like he didn’t want to go against his brother. “Tell me, Mr. Falconer… what is it that ye have tae offer tae me sister?”
Tiernan drew in a deep breath and decided to be honest. There was nothing else he could do, no other strategy he could follow.
“Nae much,” he admitted, and Isabeau’s head snapped to the side to glare at him. “I dinnae have a title. I dinnae have land. I dinnae have gold, a house, or even a horse o’ me own… well, unless ye count the one I stole fer us tae come here.”
Perhaps that wasnae the wisest thing tae say.
Tiernan felt Isabeau stiffen next to him, her entire body going rigid at his words. When he looked at Alaric, though, he could have sworn he saw a hint of a smile on his lips, though it may have only been a trick of the light.
“What I mean is, I may nae have anythin’ tae me name,” he continued before the laird could speak, “but I can promise ye that I will love Isabeau an’ I will protect her fer as long as I live. I came here determined tae wed her an’ I will dae anythin’ it takes tae have yer blessin’. An’ if I cannae have yer blessin’ then… I dinnae ken what I’ll dae, but I promise ye I willnae give up on her without a fight. I ken me past, but I have vowed tae never return tae me old ways. I was forced into them out of hunger and desperation as a bairn and recently because Isabeau’s life was under threat. But I am a changed man, even more so aftermeeting yer sister, I love her. Naethin’ ye can say will change that.”
For a while, everyone in the room was silent. Tiernan was hyperaware of his own breathing, the sound loud and jarring in his ears. The more he looked at Ewan and Alaric, the faster his heart beat and the more his stomach turned, tying itself into knots.
“Then welcome tae the family,” Ewan said then, and for a moment, Tiernan’s mind couldn’t compute what the man had said. It was so far from what he had expected that he froze, uncertain, thinking that perhaps this was some sort of sick joke, one last chance to laugh at him before throwing him to the gallows.
With a long-suffering sigh, Isabeau threw her hands in the air in exasperation just as her brothers were quickly reduced to tears of mirth, laughing so uncontrollably that Ewan even spilled the cup of wine next to his hand all over his desk. With a mumbled curse, he tried to mop up as much as he could with his handkerchief, then moved to his sleeve, before finally giving up and collapsing back in his chair.
Out of them all, it seemed to Tiernan that he was the only one who had no idea what was happening.
“Ye should have seen yer face,” Alaric said as he approached, patting him on the shoulder.
“It really isnae funny,” Isabeau said. “Neither o’ ye is funny.”
“It serves ye right fer only sendin’ us one letter,” said Ewan, chastising her. “Ye had us all worried sick. We’ve been lookin’ fer ye all this time.”
“I already apologized fer that!” Isabeau shrieked in a tone that she only seemed to take on whenever she spoke to her brothers. “An’ I explained tae ye what happened! But ye came at Tiernan with a sword!”
“I thought he had taken ye!” Ewan said.
“But he hadnae!” said Isabeau.
Tiernan glanced between him and Isabeau.
“Braither, please, apologize tae him right the now,” she said quietly. “It’s the right thing tae do.”
Ewan dragged his gaze to Tiernan, then bowed his head ever so slightly. “Forgive me, Mr. Falconer. I was only worried about me sister.”
“I fully understand?—”
“Thank ye, Ewan, Alaric,” she said then, and the mood in the room seemed to shift abruptly, the weight sliding right off Tiernan’s shoulders. “Now, let us talk, fer we have a council tae face.”
As the siblings started discussing how to face the obstacles that they would surely encounter when informing the council, Tiernan sat back and breathed in for what seemed like the first time in weeks. His chest expanded, his shoulders relaxed—everything he had been holding onto for so long, all the fear, all the pain, all the grief, seemed to slowly seep out of him and dissipate as he stood there, still and silent, the chatter of the three siblings a distant sound in his ears.
He could not yet wrap his head around the fact that it was all over. He didn’t even really know if it truly was. Sure, the laird and Alaric had both agreed quite easily to this wedding, but would the council say the same thing? Could Ewan sway them if they put up resistance? Would Tiernan have to fight for him and Isabeau once more, just because they were from different worlds?
He didn’t know, but he supposed they were in no real rush. As he watched her laugh and soften around the edges, the stress of the past few weeks not yet gone but not as solid, as pressing either, his worries became distant, secondary. She was there with him. She was alive. She loved him just as he loved her.
And Tiernan didn’t need to know anything else.
