He was struck by her sharp beauty and missed a note with his left hand but recovered quickly; he didn’t think anyone had noticed. Save for Adaira. She grinned as if she heard his misstep, and he knew he should look away from her before the music came unraveled in his hands.
He glanced back to the strings and remembered his purpose—he was playing for the clan, not for her.
And so he did.
Frae had been overcome with all sorts of feelings the entire day. Ever since she had joined Sidra to walk Adaira to the thistles, witnessing her brother marrying the heiress. She was terrified it was a dream, that she would wake up and discover that all of it—even Jack’s return home—had been her imagination.
But nothing prepared her for the moment when he played for the clan.
She sat on the bench beside Mirin, so eager that she bounced on the balls of her feet. The moment his music touched the air the hall seemed to wake. Frae noticed the tapestry colors becoming vibrant again, and the carvings in the timber beams seeming to stir with sentience. The fire burned higher in the glazed hearth and in the torch sconces, and the shadows danced low and gentle.
The isle was stirring, coming to life. Frae was transfixed by its awakening, and she could almost swear that she felt a rumble beneath her feet, as if the stones were basking in the sound of Jack’s music.
His song ended all too soon. When he was begged to play another, he did. He played three songs in all, and to the last one he gave his voice as well as his notes.
Frae was overcome with pride. A roar of applause filled the hall when Jack reached the end. Frae jumped to her feet and clapped; she could feel the fervor in her teeth, and she wanted to tell everyone, “That’s my brother! That’s my brother!” Especially when Jack rose and bowed to the clan and everyone in the hall stood to honor him. Frae noticed Mirin had tears in her eyes again, as she had the first time she heard Jack’s music. She wiped them away before they could fall.
It was the happiest Frae had felt in weeks.
She had been so afraid when her friends began to go missing. Girls she went to school with. Girls she sometimes passed in the city or on the road. She wanted them to be well. She wanted them to be found.
Listening to Jack’s music … Frae’s hope was restored.
She didn’t quite understand how, but her brother’s music was going to save them.
Adaira was weary of the revelry. The feast began to dwindle; the fire began to burn low. She had wanted no celebration, no dancing, no games, no toasts at her handfasting. She was still surprised that her father had managed to arrange a feast without her knowing.
But perhaps her father and Torin had planned it together, if only to have Jack play for the clan. Because Adaira had felt it—the shift in hearts. The clan feeling the balm of Jack’s music, the peace and light suffusing the gathering.
She still felt his music echoing in her bones hours later.
She glanced sidelong at him, noticing his eyes were bloodshot.
“Shall we retire?” she asked and held out her hand.
He nodded and entwined his fingers with hers, as if he had been waiting for it.
“Torin and Sidra and a few other couples are going to follow us to my bedchamber,” Adaira explained in a low tone as they stepped down from the dais. “It’s tradition, you know. They’re supposed to stand outside the door until you and I consummate the marriage, but I’ve already told Sidra not to linger once we’re inside my chamber. All this is to say … don’t let their presence alarm you.”
Jack had no chance to reply to her. The crowd cheered to see them walk the aisle of the hall, whooping and throwing a few lingering, wilted blooms upon them. Adaira walked through it with a smile, but she was relieved to leave the hall behind. Sidra and Torin followed them, as well as Una and Ailsa and several other married couples.
She hurried to guide Jack up the stairs. They were almost to her quarters, and she would at last be able to breathe. Ailsa, who was like an aunt to Adaira, teased her for the rush.
Adaira glanced over her shoulder, boldly saying, “I have waited long enough, I think.”
Jack coughed; he was certainly embarrassed. Adaira didn’t dare look at him.
The couples laughed, save for Torin.
At last, the entourage reached her bedroom door.
Adaira opened it and all but yanked her new husband over the threshold behind her. She thanked the couples for their escort and shut the door. It was only her and Jack now. No more prying gazes, no more skeptical eyes. No more conversations and questions and scrutiny.
She slumped against the wood and sighed, meeting Jack’s gaze. Her flower crown sat crooked on her head, and her bones felt heavy as iron. She waited until she heard Sidra usher the group of witnesses away from her door before unwinding her fingers from Jack’s. Then she walked deeper into her room, massaging the heel of her hand. Jack awkwardly remained where he was.
“You are welcome here, Jack,” said Adaira, stopping by the hearth. A fire was burning, casting a rosy, inviting hue over the chamber.
From the corner of her eye, she watched Jack examine her quarters, much as she had done the night she came to his bedroom, just before she had proposed to him.
He meandered past her large bed, its canopy tasseled back to reveal a glimpse of the quilts and pillows. Wildflowers were strewn across Adaira’s blanket, as was a gauzy, transparent robe that her chambermaids must have laid out for her. Jack certainly took note of the robe but smoothly shifted his focus to the tapestry that hung nearby, and then the painted wooden panels that graced her walls. Paintings of forests and vines and harts and phases of the moon. Some of the artistry was ancient and chipped—older than the castle—but those panels happened to be Adaira’s favorites, and she had refused to let her father replace them.
From there, Jack noticed the bookshelves, crowded with volumes, and the windows, which were cracked to welcome in the night. The storm had left a trace of sweetness in the air. He admired the stars that burned in clusters beyond the glass, and the distant gleam of the ocean.
Adaira wondered what he was thinking as he at last found his way to her by the fire, and she marveled at how the sight of him walking to her made her heart quicken. She wasn’t taking him to bed, and she didn’t know when she would want to, but she sensed it might come sooner than she had once believed.
She busied herself pouring two glasses of red wine, flavored with fruit. She gave one to Jack and said, “That wasn’t so terrible, was it?”
He took the cup from her and didn’t smile, but his voice was husky with mirth. “I had a moment of trepidation.”
“Oh?”
“I thought you were going to stand me up,” Jack confessed.
“You think I would ask to marry you and then fail to appear?” Adaira asked, amused.
He met her gaze, his eyes incandescent with firelight. “It felt like I waited an eternity for you.”
She fell quiet, his words coaxing a flush across her skin. When he continued to hold her stare, she clinked her glass to his as a distraction. “To you and me and this year and a day that belongs to us.”
They drank to each other. Adaira felt her weariness burn away, and she imagined it was Jack’s fault, for being so attentive and for standing in her room, as if awaiting orders from her.
Her stomach growled, so loudly she knew Jack heard it.