Page 154 of Laird of Smoke
The other nuns whispered in wonder.
She continued, speaking her truth from the heart.“Once I felt what ’twas like to love and be loved, to not be…invisible, I knew I could no longer hide behind convent walls, pretendin’ I had no worldly desires.”The room silenced.“I meant to break the news to my father, come what may, and make a life with the man with whom I’d fallen in love.”
Adam’s eyes melted, and he clasped his hand over hers, against his heart.
“And I planned to make a life with you, Eve, damn my clan’s demands,” he told her.“Once I met you and found a kindred spirit…a woman who brought me joy and life and love…a woman whosawme for the first time—not as a Rivenloch, but as a man—I wasn’t about to let anything stand in the way.”
The nuns gasped at the revelation he was a Rivenloch and then sighed at his romantic words.
She smiled up at him, her eyes watering.“I don’t blame ye for takin’ my virtue.I volunteered it.But ye convinced me ye wanted to marry me.”
He nodded.“I shouldn’t ne’er have trysted with ye.But I did want to marry ye.I still do.”
Her heart was pounding so loudly with the rush of love flowing through her veins, she didn’t realize how deathly quiet the hall had gone.
In the silence, the abbess addressed the nuns, who were shocked speechless by the confession.
“And so ends our Martinmas morality play,” the abbess intoned, giving Eve a stern sideways glance before initiating a round of applause.“So ye see, novitiates, this is why ye must always battle diligently against the Devil and carnal desire.”
Epilog
Castle Rivenloch
Winter
Adam had told Eve there was nothing like a Rivenloch wedding feast, and he was right.It didn’t matter that it was the dead of winter.The great hall was full of candles and music and merrymaking, crowded with clanfolk, friends, and neighbors.
All of the local and many of the distant Rivenloch clan attended the wedding.
Adam’s sister Feiyan brought her new bairn all the way from Darragh.She recognized Eve as the nun from the convent, but couldn’t believe she was also the archer from the tournament.
Adam’s cousin Jenefer couldn’t tell Eve was the same person as the French lad she’d shot against at Perth.
His other cousin Hallie thought Feiyan and Jenefer were fools to mistake lovely Eve for a male archer, but she didn’t remember her as the nun who’d been at Perth.
It still confounded Adam how his clan could be so gulled by someone he considered uniquely beautiful.But Eve was grateful that, for him, she was never invisible.
Isabel, the romantic young lass Eve had met before, delighted in showing off the decorations she’d arranged.Beeswax candles lit up every corner.Fragrant herbs were strewn atop the rushes on the floor.Swags of holly and ivy decked the walls.Even the hounds wore sprigs of holly on their collars.
Isabel’s clever brother Ian had devised a special final dish in honor of the newlyweds.It was a sugar subtletie sculpted in the form of a castle that he claimed was—just like Adam and Eve—“not all it appeared to be.”When he gave Eve a tiny silver axe to crack the delicate exterior, the sugar castle broke apart, revealing a golden dragon made of almond paste and dyed with saffron.
Everyone cheered.No one was more impressed than Eve.
The Rivenloch warriors—male and female—were anything but shy.They regaled each other with tales of adventure and full-throated boasts, each one more improbable than the next.
The hounds barked in excitement over the smells of roasting meat and slavered at the sight of stripped bones that would soon be theirs.
The musicians played over the conversations, plucking a lute, blowing a sackbut, beating a tabor, and finally resorting to the raucous bagpipes in order to be heard.
Now the feast was nearly over.The trestle tables in the great hall looked like a battlefield.Bones littered the trenchers.Splatters of red wine and brown sauce stained the tablecloth.Knives were tossed carelessly onto the platters.Finally, after hours of course after course, the white linen napkins had been thrown down like banners of surrender.
But Eve felt uneasy.There was one thing more to come.And she dreaded it.
From Adam’s cousins, she knew all about the traditions the Rivenlochs had carried down from their Viking ancestors.Training women for battle.Using longboats as funeral pyres.Bathing every day.Telling stories about gods and goddesses, fantastic beasts and mythical hammers.Young Ian had spoken eagerly about the sunwheel he was building to roll down the hill in celebration of Yule.
According to wedding custom, the ladies always undressed the bride for bed.The men carried the groom up to her and put him in bed with her.Then they waited outside for proof of the consummation—bloody linens.
The last thing Eve wanted to do was disappoint her new clan by refusing one of their traditional rituals.But it seemed barbaric.Humiliating.And, unfortunately, too revealing of the truth.
