The Lady Most Willing

Epilogue

Amid hollered threats, imprecations, and vows to unman any men they found near their daughters, the rescuers leaped from their horses and barreled into Finovair, heedless of the fact that no one barred their way and that, in fact, Hamish held the castle’s ancient portal open for them.

Finnian Burns led the charge, him having only the one bairn, and thus feeling both the insult and the fear the greatest. Jamie Chisholm was close at his heels, bellowing for his Marilla, while at his side strode the Earl of Maycott, looking justly grim, as everyone knew how much he doted on his eldest daughter, Cecily. Behind them crowded half the men of Kilkarnity, ostensibly to see that justice was finally done to that old brigand Taran Ferguson, but in actuality because nothing near so exciting had happened in the parish in thirty years and they wanted a front-row seat.

The small horde swept down Finovair’s high, empty hall, wrenching open the doors to every hidey-hole, cupboard, and room, one after the other as they hunted down their quarry until finally, they stood before the last door in the corridor, the one leading into the dilapidated family chapel.

“They’ll be no sanctuary in there for you, Taran Ferguson!” Chisholm cried out, and kicked the heavy oak door with all his might.

Unfortunately for Chisholm, the door had not been latched and the violence of his kick sent him flying in and sprawling face-first on the chapel floor. Burns and Maycott, who’d endured four days of Chisholm’s bombast and bluster, and had both come to conclusion that those four interminable days might well lead the list of their grievances against Taran, stepped over him and into the chapel, followed close by the men of Kilkarnity.

Whereupon they all stopped in their tracks.

Standing with their backs to them, facing the altar, stood eight people, four tall men and four ladies in evening attire, while at the foot of the altar stood Father Munro, still wearing the greatcoat Hamish had tossed over the old priest long before daybreak this morning when he’d kidnapped the man from his cozy bed, dragged him up onto a saddle in front of him, and galloped all the way from Kilkarnity to Finovair.

Now, all eight turned around to look at them, variously reflecting amusement, cool appraisal, and steely resolve, yet, oddly enough, also in each face a full measure of indisputable happiness, the happiest of all looking to be the old reprobate Taran, who might as well have been rubbing his hands together, his gloating was that evident.

“What the devil is going on here?” Chisholm, who’d picked himself up from the stone floor, bellowed.

With terrifying hauteur, the Duke of Bretton lifted one dark brow and intoned, “We are having a wedding. Sir.”

At which the handsome, black-haired devil standing beside Lady Cecily added, “Rather to say, we have had a wedding. Sir.”

“Whose wedding?” Finnian Burns demanded.

“Mine,” said Duke of Bretton. “To Catriona.” He smiled broadly. “Father-in-law.”

Burns reeled back under this pronouncement as if he’d been kicked in the chest by a mule, falling into the waiting arms of the Kilkarnity men behind him, more than one of whom had the sense to whisper to their fallen comrade, “A duke, Fin. A bloody rich duke!”

“And mine, also,” the darkly handsome man said before Burns had recovered, “to the Lady Cecily”—words that set Earl of Maycott starting forward in alarm, for now he recognized the man holding his daughter’s hand and remembered his reputation. But Maycott’s steps faltered to a halt when he saw the beatific expression on his daughter’s face.

He opened his mouth to speak, but whatever objection or comment he might have made was forever lost when the icily handsome Earl of Oakley spoke.

“And mine,” he announced, his gaze never straying from the face of Kilkarnity’s most famous romp, Fiona Chisholm. “To the Countess of Oakley, my own Fiona.”

“Fiona?” squawked her own father, dumbfounded. “Not Marilla? Are ye mad?”

“Quiet, Jamie,” one of the Kilkarnity men hissed, “ye have a son-in-law what’s an earl,” while behind them, the much recovered Finnian Burns beamed with paternal pride at his new son-in-law, the duke, until Maycott turned to him and in voice heavy with irony said, “Don’t think this means you’re shut the cost of a proper English ceremony, Burns. That’ll come later.”

To which Burns, who was known far and wide to have deep pockets and short arms, shot back smugly, “Unless a bairn comes first.” Meanwhile Chisholm, heedless of proffered advice, burst out, “But what of Marilla?”

At which point Taran, the instigator and author of all this fascinating drama, stepped forward—though later reports claimed he wisely kept his muscular nephews Lords Oakley and Rocheforte between him and Chisholm—and said, “Well, Jamie, since ye’re of a mind to know, I’m glad to be telling you—”

But Marilla, who had no patience with, well, anything, burst out with obvious glee, “I am wed, too, Father! I won’t have to leave Scotland and I shall have my very own castle!” She grabbed Taran’s arm. “So come and kiss your new son,” she crowed.

Chisholm’s eyes grew as wide as saucers, and all about the room, everyone fell dead silent. Then, with a roar such as hadn’t been heard since Braveheart’s time, Chisholm launched himself at Taran, going straight through the laird’s nephews—well, not truly through, as both men stepped neatly aside—aiming for Taran’s neck and . . .

. . . And all merry hell broke loose.

Witnesses at the pub that night all agreed that Taran made a fair show and acquitted himself well for a man of his years. The laird wasn’t there to dispute it, since he was dancing the bedtime waltz with the prettiest girl in the county, even as her da sat gazing into a glass of whiskey and shaking his head.

Those who believed in fairies and suchlike—and since the Scots aren’t fools, they know right well that magic has its place—well, those folks said later that a strange moon shone over Finovair Castle that December, a lovers’ moon, a blue moon, a spoonin’ moon. Other said the Seelie Court had come riding in on that winter storm, their steeds as white as snow itself, and their laughter falling like blessings down Finovair’s old chimneys and turrets.

Whatever magic took hold of Finovair castle that December of 1819, the four couples who fell in love there never thought of that storm without a leap of the heart.

More to the point—and sure evidence of the magic if ever there was—some nine months later five new bairns squalled their way into the light of day. That would be one each for the noble parents, and a set of red-faced, lusty twins for the laird.

Beautiful, those babes were. And strong. And—or so their parents said—canny. And—so the Ferguson oft proudly said—loud.

But mostly, they were blessed . . . as is every child born to a couple who love each other with the kind of passion that only grows deeper with time. Neither the laird nor his male guests were the sort to babble much poetry, but there wasn’t a one of them that didn’t, now and then, drop a kiss on his wife’s sweet mouth and make her a promise: “And I will luve thee still, my dear, Till a’ the seas gang dry.”

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

While the sands o’ life shall run.