Read Chapter 8: The First Night

The rain came down in sheets over Glen Brae, drumming against the chapel roof like a funeral march. Iona stood at the altar in her mother's pale blue gown, the fabric damp at the hem from the short walk across the courtyard, and tried to remember why she had wanted this.

Lachlan Campbell stood beside her, his jaw set, his eyes fixed on the minister as though the words spoken were a treaty to be endured rather than a vow to be kept. He had not looked at her once since they entered.

The minister's voice droned on in Latin, and Iona's mind drifted to the silver brooch hidden in her valise, to the letter with its faded ink, to Gregor MacRae's whisper in the dark. *The raid was staged.* She had not yet confronted her father. There had been no time. The consortium's deadline had forced the wedding forward by a fortnight, and Alistair MacTavish had shaken her hand coldly at the chapel door as though she were a cargo being shipped north.

"Speak now or forever hold your peace," the minister said.

No one spoke. The silence felt like an accusation.

Lachlan produced a ring from his waistcoat—plain silver, unadorned, heavy as a shackle. He took her hand, and his fingers were warm despite the cold of the chapel. For a moment, his gaze met hers, and she saw something flicker there. Apology, perhaps. Or resignation.

The ring slid onto her finger. It was too large.

"I now pronounce you man and wife."

There was no applause. No music. Only the patter of rain and the scrape of boots as the few witnesses—Callum Campbell, his face carved from stone, a handful of retainers, and the minister—filed out into the grey afternoon.

Iona stood alone with her new husband.

"We should return to the house," Lachlan said. His voice was flat, formal. "There are matters to discuss before I leave."

"Leave?"

"Tomorrow. The border lands require inspection before the consortium makes its next move." He paused at the chapel door, turning back to look at her. "You'll be safe at Braemore."

Safe. What an odd word for a cage.

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The marriage bed was cold when she climbed into it that night.

Lachlan entered the chamber an hour after she had settled, his sleeves rolled to the elbow, a sheen of sweat on his brow from whatever business had kept him in the study. He had changed out of his wedding clothes into a simple linen shirt, and he stood at the foot of the bed with an expression she could not read.

"Iona." He said her name like a question, one he already knew the answer to.

"This is what we agreed," she said, surprised by the steadiness of her own voice. "The treaty required it. The marriage is the seal."

"It is not what I would have chosen for you." His voice was rough, almost gentle. "For either of us."

She thought of Gavin, of his frank honesty and easy laugh. Of the way he had said *we shall be allies* at the ball, as though marriage were a campaign to be waged together. But Gavin was not here. He had been sent south two days past to negotiate grain prices, of all things, and so she had married the brother instead.

It was Lachlan who would get her with child. Lachlan who would bind their bloodlines together. Lachlan who looked at her now with those dark, searching eyes that seemed to see through the walls she had built around herself.

"I did not come here for love," she said. "I came here to save my family. You came here to save yours. We both know what this marriage is."

"Does that make it easier or harder?" he asked.

She had no answer.

He crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed, not touching her, close enough that she could smell rain and woodsmoke on his skin. "I will not force you," he said quietly. "If you want time—"

"We do not have time." She reached for the buttons of her nightgown, her fingers clumsy with cold and fear. "The consortium will move before the snows melt. We need this marriage to be real, or the treaty is nothing but paper. You know that."

He caught her hands in his, stilling them. "It does not have to be tonight."

"It does." She met his eyes. "I will not give them any reason to call this union false. And I will not live my life as a wife who is not truly a wife, watched and weighed and found wanting." She pulled her hands free and finished the buttons. The nightgown slipped from her shoulders, pooling at her waist. "Do what must be done, Lachlan Campbell."

The firelight painted his face in shadows. He looked at her for a long moment—not with hunger, but with something that might have been regret. Then he reached for her, his hands gentle on her bare shoulders, and drew her toward him.

It was done with a grim efficiency that matched the ceremony itself. His hands were careful, his movements measured, as though she were a horse to be gentled rather than a bride to be loved. She lay still beneath him, staring at the ceiling beams, counting the cracks in the plaster until it was over.

When he rolled away, the silence between them was thick as peat smoke.

"Your mother," he said at last, his voice rough. "What was she like?"

The question startled her. "Why do you ask?"

"You spoke of her at the ball. When you told me about the land." He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling as she had been. "You said she taught you the hills."

Iona swallowed past the ache in her throat. "She was fierce. Stubborn. She loved the glen more than she loved any person in it, I think." The brooch burned in her memory, hidden in its valise across the room. The Campbell crest. The faded letter. *My dearest Moira.* "She had secrets, though. I never knew how many until after she was gone."

Lachlan was quiet for a long moment. "My mother had secrets too," he said. "She died when I was nine. I have often wondered what she would have told me, had she lived."

There was something raw in his voice, a vulnerability she had not expected. Iona turned onto her side, studying his profile in the firelight. "How did she die?"

He did not answer at once. When he spoke, his voice was careful, measured. "The fever took her. That winter was brutal. Many died."

"I'm sorry," she said.

"So am I." He turned to face her, and for a moment, they were simply two people lying in the dark, bound by grief and duty. "We will make the best of this, Iona. I give you my word."

She wanted to believe him. God help her, she wanted to believe that this cold bargain could become something more. But the brooch in her valise whispered of Campbell silver, of a mother who had loved a man from the enemy clan, of a raid that had been staged. And she knew, with a certainty that settled like stone in her chest, that there were secrets in this house that would not stay buried.

"Goodnight, Lachlan," she said.

He did not correct her use of his name.

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Morning came grey and bitter.

Iona woke to an empty bed and the sound of horses in the courtyard below. She dressed quickly in a plain wool gown—the fine silks, she had been told, were for occasions of state, not for everyday wear—and made her way downstairs to find Lachlan already mounted, a dozen riders waiting behind him.

"You did not wake me," she said, standing in the doorway.

"You needed your rest." He looked down at her from the saddle, his expression unreadable. "I should be gone a fortnight. Perhaps three weeks, if the weather holds."

"And if it does not?"

"Then I will be longer." He leaned forward slightly, his voice dropping so that only she could hear. "My mother is not an easy woman. She has been mistress of Braemore since her marriage to my father, and she does not yield ground willingly. Do not let her push you."

"And my father?" Iona asked, matching his low tone. "Do I owe him any loyalty in this household?"

Lachlan's eyes flickered with something—surprise, perhaps, or respect. "You owe him nothing that you do not choose to give. You are a Campbell now."

The words settled over her like a shroud. She watched him ride out through the gates, the horses' hooves churning mud, until he disappeared into the treeline.

*You are a Campbell now.* She touched the ring on her finger, still loose, and turned to face the manor house that was now her home.

In the doorway stood a tall woman in deep grey, her dark hair streaked with silver, her face set in lines that spoke of long years of disappointment.

"So you are the MacTavish," the woman said, and her voice was cold enough to frost the stones. "I am Elspeth Campbell. This is my house. I trust you understand what that means."

Iona lifted her chin. "I understand that I am Lachlan's wife."

"You are a treaty." Elspeth stepped aside, allowing Iona to pass, but her eyes followed her like a hawk watching a field mouse. "A piece of paper in human form. Do not mistake my son's courtesy for affection, and do not mistake your place here for a home. You are a guest, and guests can be asked to leave."

Iona walked past her into the great hall, feeling the woman's gaze boring into her back. The walls were hung with tapestries depicting battles she did not recognize, and a portrait of a dark-haired woman with Lachlan's eyes dominated the far wall. His mother, Iona guessed, before age had sharpened her features into stone.

"Was that his mother?" she asked a servant who hurried past.

The girl hesitated, glancing around. "That was the Lady Anne, ma'am. She was the first wife of the old laird. She died—" The girl stopped, her face paling. "I should not speak of it."

"Speak of what?"

But the girl was gone, vanishing down a corridor as though the hounds of hell were at her heels.

Iona stood alone in the great hall, the portrait of the dead woman staring down at her with Lachlan's dark, searching eyes. A first wife, dead of fever. A second wife, cold as winter, who ruled this house with an iron grip.

And a silver brooch in her valise, bearing the crest of the clan that had once been her mother's enemy.

She had come to Braemore to save her family. But as she stood beneath the gaze of Lachlan's dead mother, she began to understand that she had walked into a house that was itself a grave—and that the truth buried here might be more dangerous than any consortium of merchants could ever be.

She needed to see the ledgers.

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