Amanda Scott Read Free Page A

for both of them. But although Adela tried to obey her command, she knew her own smile was feeble at best.
    She had hoped that her second wedding, unlike the first, might proceed without undue fuss or drama. However, although she knew that Roslin Castle’s highly trained guardsmen would prevent the kind of trouble that had cut short her first ceremony, she had already seen more fuss and ado than she liked. And she knew that before the day was over, she would see more. Nervously, she fingered the gold chain necklace her mother had given her the year before she’d died.
    Sorcha reached to push back a long, thick strand of Adela’s straight honey-blond hair that had managed to slip over her shoulder to the front of her tightly laced golden velvet gown. Letting go of the chain, Adela stood quietly, even submissively. Sorcha’s pearl-trimmed caul and the simple blue, shoulder-length veil that matched her silk gown concealed her own curlier, amber-golden hair.
    Adela reminded herself that fuss had been inevitable. Not only were there now two brides and bridegrooms instead of one couple, but when one’s hostess was a powerful countess in her own right, one had to expect such an occasion to merit extraordinary pomp and circumstance. And when one’s younger sister had married the countess’s favorite nephew by declaration a fortnight before, one could scarcely cavil when the fond aunt and one’s own fond parent insisted on a double wedding to sanctify both marriages properly.
    Even her father, Macleod of Glenelg, had had little say in today’s wedding plans. His word was law back home in the Highlands, but Adela had not expected him to object to anything, because he planned soon to wed a widow in comfortable circumstances, which included a fine house in Edinburgh, seven miles away. The royal court was presently in residence there, and she knew that Macleod would do nothing that might stir gossip or jeopardize his own nuptial plans.
    She had therefore understood from the outset that this wedding would be a grander occasion than her first attempt, which had taken place in the Highlands mere weeks after the death of the first Lord of the Isles. But the result was beyond anything she had anticipated. Her hostess, Isabella, Countess of Strathearn and Caithness, and the rest of the powerful Sinclair family had spared no expense.
    Adela had not mourned any lack of splendor the first time. But after all the effort and expense, and in view of her own considerable gratitude, she thought it a pity that she could not feel more enthusiasm for this wedding.
    As she waited near the chapel entrance with Macleod and the other members of the wedding party while the small but noble audience crammed into the chamber began to quiet down, she wondered why she did not care more. After all, other than the much larger group of friends and kinsmen unable to squeeze into the tiny chapel but assembling now in the castle’s great hall for the wedding feast to come, nothing but the setting had changed—and Sorcha’s role, of course, and Sir Hugo Robison’s presence today at Sorcha’s side.
    Adela’s bridegroom remained the same. And a generous, kind man Ardelve was, too. He was fond of her, she knew, and would make few demands with which she would not willingly comply.
    So far, he had asked only that she manage his large household in Kintail near Chalamine, her family home. It was a responsibility that she expected to enjoy far more than the near decade of running her father’s much less manageable household.
    Although Sorcha insisted that Ardelve was too old and pompous to make a good husband, Adela liked him. To be sure, he was nearly as old as her father, had been twice married and widowed, and had a grown son older than she was. But his children had raised no objection to the marriage, and his cousin, Lady Clendenen, the wealthy widow whom Macleod intended to marry, stood in the front row now with an approving smile, waiting for the ceremony to