Julie Garwood - The Bride

Jamie heard another loud burst of laughter, and then Annie started chanting again. "I'll kill again and again and again until you've learned your lesson.

It's my right to stand beside you. It's-"

The sudden silence, after such demoniacal sounds, was startling to Jamie. She tried to get out of the bed.

"Stay where you are, Jamie," Gavin ordered from the foot of the bed. He loomed over her like an angry avenger. His command was ruined when he put his hands to his head and groaned. "I shouldn't have yelled at you, milady, but Alec wants you to stay put."

"You shouldn't have yelled at me because it made your head pound," Jamie countered.

"That, too," Gavin admitted.

Jamie moved her feet out of the way just in the nick of time. Gavin collapsed on the foot of her bed and let out another pitiful groan as he fell back. She guessed he was trying to turn her attention away from the happenings outside by demanding her sympathy.

"I have complete faith in my husband," she told Gavin. "You needn't carry on so to turn my concentration."

"Then I can have a drink of ale?" Gavin asked.

"You can't."

"The bed is getting damn crowded," Alec announced from the top of the steps.

Jamie smiled. She waited until he'd kissed her properly before asking, "It's finished?"

He nodded. "Alec? You were supposed to marry her, weren't you?"

"Edgar had planned to unite the Kincaids with their clan to gain peace. I was pledged to Annie, aye."

"But she's so much younger than you…"

"She's only one year younger than you, Jamie."

"She seems so much a child still," she whispered. "Edgar changed his mind after Helena's husband died?"

Alec nodded. "He did. Helena was carrying her babe, and the king wanted to give her a good home."

Jamie nodded, understanding. And then she gave him a magnificent smile. He had to shake his head over her strange reaction. "She didn't want to leave you either, Alec."

He still didn't comprehend her joy until she turned to Father Murdock and said,

"Tomorrow you'll have to bless Helena's grave. She must have a requiem mass, too. The entire clan must be there, Alec."

"Do you want her to be reburied in consecrated ground, Jamie?" Father Murdock asked.

She shook her head. "We'll extend the consecrated cemetery to include that whole section. Alec and I will, of course, be buried next to Helena. It is fitting, isn't it, husband?"

"It's fitting," Alec announced, his voice husky with emotion.

"Don't sound so pleased," Jamie teased. "I'm leaving instructions for you to be placed in the center, Kincaid. You'll have a wife on either side to keep you'settled in' for all eternity."

"God help me," Alec muttered.

"He already has," Father Murdock announced. "He's given you two good women in your lifetime, Alec, and that's a fact. Our Maker has a sense of humor, too."

"How's that?" Gavin asked between his groans.

"The sweet lass Alec happens to love comes from England, if you'll all remember, and if that isn't a trick on God's part, I sure as spit don't know what is."

"Oh, God, he's starting to sound like her," Gavin said with a laugh he immediately regretted, for his head started aching again.

Jamie noticed Edith across the room then. She could see how upset the woman was.

"You aren't really meaning to send Edith away, are you, Alec?" she asked.

When Alec shook his head, Jamie motioned Edith closer.

"Edith, you aren't leaving us. It was just a plan to get Annie to try to kill me again."

"Again, wife? Then you knew the fire-"

"No," Jamie interrupted. "I didn't know until I heard Annie laughing just now. I recognized the sound. It was the same I'd heard when I was trapped inside the hut."

She paused to give Alec a good frown. "It was most unkind of you to use me as your bait, Alec."

"It wasn't supposed to happen that way," Alec replied, his tone hard. "Gavin was supposed to stay with you and Marcus was supposed to keep Annie in his sight at all times."

"It's my fault," Edith blurted out. "I didn't know you were planning a trap. I thought Annie was ill. She took to her bed after we were told we were being sent away. I was so upset, I didn't notice when she left."

"No, sister," Marcus interjected. He walked over to stand at Edith's side. "It's my fault. I take full responsibility."

"But I told you to ready the horses," Edith argued.

"It wasn't anyone's fault," Jamie said. "Edith, you do want to stay with us, don't you? I can't get along without you… until you decide on a proper husband," she added.

"You were never meant to leave," Alec told Edith. "But I wanted Annie to believe I was sending you both away because of your relation to Helena. You'll remember when I ordered you to leave, I said I didn't want any reminders of my first wife."

Edith nodded. "I do remember."

Alec smiled. "You never questioned me. Didn't you wonder why Mary Kathleen wasn't included?"

Edith shook her head. "I was too upset to think it through," she admitted.

"I thought of it," Alec returned. "Though only after I'd left your cottage."

"Forgive your laird for causing you such distress," Jamie advised Edith.

Edith quickly nodded. "Oh, I understand now."

"Would you mind taking Mary up to her room now?"

Jamie asked, guessing Edith was close to losing her composure.

Jamie waited until Edith was carrying Mary up the stairs before she asked Alec the question most worrying her. "What will you do with Annie?"

He wouldn't answer her.

Alec was being impossible. He wouldn't let Jamie out of their bed for almost a week. He expected her to nap the days away and then sleep soundly through the nights. She thought it rather odd she was able to accommodate him.

Her convalescence was made easier by her sister's daily visits. Mary helped her sew the tapestry of Edgar's likeness, finally taking over the task in full when she realized Jamie didn't have the patience or the skill for the job.

During Mary's first visit, she whispered the news that Daniel had still not bedded her. Jamie was more upset over this announcement than Mary was, but once she'd explained how truly wonderful this intimacy was-in carefully chosen, general terms, of course-Mary's interest was piqued.

"He keeps a mistress," Mary confessed. "But he sleeps in my bed each night."

"It's time to clean your house, Mary," Jamie advised. "Throw the woman out."

"He'd get angry with me, Jamie," her sister whispered. "I've grown to like his smiles too much to prick his temper. He's being very kind to me, too, now that I've quit crying. The man can't stand tears. I am beginning to care for him."

Jamie was thrilled with that admission. "Then ask him to bed you," she suggested.

"I have my pride," Mary countered. "I have thought of a plan, though."

"What is it?"

"I thought to tell him he could keep his mistress and have me, too."

"You cannot mean to share the man," Jamie argued.

Mary lifted her shoulders in a helpless gesture. "I want Daniel to like me, Jamie," she admitted.

She started crying then, just as Alec strolled into the great hall. Jamie held her smile for Mary's benefit, but she did have to struggle. As soon as Alec saw Mary's condition, he turned around and walked back outside. "Men do hate tears," she said in agreement with her sister's earlier statement.

"Tell Daniel he must keep his mistress," Jamie advised. "Now don't look at me like that, Mary. Then you're to tell him you think he must need the practice and when he's gotten it just right, he can come to you."

Alec returned to the hall when he heard Jamie and her sister laughing.

Mary didn't come to see her sister for two long days. Jamie was in a fretful state, worrying about her sister, but when Mary finally did pay her call three days' later, she could tell by her happy smile that all was well.