The praise had Fiona hiding a wince. She didn’t want to hear about what a fine man she’d wed. Not when she wanted to run for the hills and pretend that she hadn’t remarried, despite swearing she never would. She owed her new husband so much, yet she gave him so little in return. No wonder she’d approached her wedding with mixed feelings.
She bit back a snort. Mixed feelings? She’d been a jangled mess of nerves and self-disgust and guilt. Marina was right—Diarmid was too good for her. He deserved better than a damaged woman, who married him purely out of self-interest.
He deserved…love. The kind of love she’d stopped believing in, once she realized fairy tales were cruel lies.
After coming to Achnasheen, she could no longer pretend she didn’t believe in love. With every moment she spent with Marina and Fergus, she witnessed its power.
“I wish you ‘appy, Signora Mactavish,” Sandra said in her broken English. “Il Signor Diarmid è un uomo eccezionale. E molto bello. You are blessed.”
Aye, her husband was molto bello and molto buono, and molto cursed to be tied up with her and her troubles. “Thank you, Sandra,” she mumbled.
In liquid Italian too fast for Fiona to follow, Marina spoke to the woman. The maid curtsied and left the room.
“Andiamo, bella. Let me help you change,” Marina said. “I’ll miss you. It’s been nice having another woman of my age to talk to.”
Fiona smiled at her. Unlike her gratitude to her new husband, no shadows tinged her gratitude to this remarkable woman. “You must have wished us to perdition when we turned up at such an awkward moment.”
Marina shook her head emphatically. “No, not at all. Per pietà, cara, I only survived Eilidh’s arrival with your help.”
“I was glad to be there. It was the kind of day that stops people being strangers.”
“Sì, certo.” Marina’s smile was wry. “It was also the kind of day that reveals a person’s true colors. You came out pure gold, Fiona. Diarmid’s a lucky man, too.”
She couldn’t agree. She suspected he wouldn’t either, although she’d lay good money, if she had any, that her white knight would never admit that, even under torture.
“You’re so kind.” She touched the beautiful collar of pearls around her neck. “Thank you for my wedding gift and my lovely gown. I felt much more like a bride than I did at my first wedding.”
She bit her lip to force back rising tears. It had been an emotional day. She’d started it with a good cry. Because she was about to marry a wonderful man, and all she could offer him in return was heartache. This should be a joyous morning, and she’d spent it feeling like she went to the guillotine in a tumbril.
As Marina crossed to stand behind Fiona and unhook the cream gown, her expression softened. “You married a much better man this time round.”
That was true—and Fiona repaid him with poison coin. They’d settle into things, she supposed, if the unbelievable happened and they retrieved Christina and set up home together. In time, she supposed he’d take a mistress. Men had needs, and Diarmid would reach a point where he could no longer bear their unnatural chastity.
“Oddio, what’s the matter, Fiona?”
Fiona realized she’d gone as stiff as a board. She struggled to relax, but it was harder than it should be. How addled she was to choose to avoid Diarmid’s bed, yet to loathe the idea of someone else taking the place she denied herself.
“Nothing,” she muttered and drew a shuddering breath. “Sorry.”
Her self-contempt deepened another few notches. Every cell in her body revolted at the thought of her tall, handsome husband kissing another woman, or putting those elegant hands on another woman, or sharing his strong, vigorous body with another woman. The mere idea made her feel sick.
After a pause, Marina went back to unfastening the dress. “At least I don’t need to talk to you about what happens tonight.”
“We haven’t…” she began, as Marina lifted the rustling silk over her head. She emerged from all that shiny material to catch sight of Marina smiling in the cheval mirror in front of her.
“Credimi, I know. I haven’t seen so many longing looks since last year when Fergus took me to see ‘Romeo and Juliet’ at the Theatre Royal in London.”
“We don’t…” Devil take her, why couldn’t she finish a sentence?
Marina laid the extravagant frock over a chair and crossed to the bed to lift up the hardly less extravagant traveling dress. “You do.”
“Diarmid is…” Another sentence that frayed at the ends before she completed it, but she balked at telling anyone, even Marina, that this was to be a chaste marriage. Even she could hardly believe that Diarmid had given her his name and his protection, with no plans at all to enjoy the use of her body.
“In a complete spin over you. Which is nice when you’re in a complete spin over him, too.”
Fiona met worried blue eyes in the mirror. A shaking hand rose to her throat, where her pulse fluttered like a moth trapped in a bottle. Of course she was in a spin, but not at the prospect of her husband’s passion. She was in a spin because they would soon confront the Grants, and because even with only a good night’s sleep waiting ahead of her, there was something unsettling about a wedding.