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Blue Like Your Eyes
June 7, 1559, Ulster, Ireland
My long hair had been pinned into a full bun, my face dusted white with the accursed venetian ceruse, my fingernails crimsoned. After helping me into a pressed new léine, Aine tied a blue frieze skirt round my waist. Next came the white linen snood over my head, a tight new saffron waistcoat, and a blue handkerchief adorned with white lace trim. It would become the Christening bonnet for my firstborn child—Lord O’Neal’s child. I shivered despite the layers. All this anticipation had turned me into a quavering bundle of nerves.
Aine searched my face. “Are you well, a leanbh?”
“It’s the jitters.” Mother gave Aine a cool smile, taking a sip of the milky tincture she took for her pains. “Comes to pass for proper women.” Her smile grew wider, though not warmer.
I took the hankie from the flustered Aine and tucked it into my skirt pocket. I didn’t care a whit for any of it. Today was the seventh day of June, and in mere hours, I was to become the wife of the King of Tyrone.
Bright summer day greeted us outside, the coach ready and waiting to take me to the small chapel. It would never fit all the best families of Tyrone, so the ceremony was to take place on its steps.
Everyone had already gathered when we arrived, for the bride was to make the groom wait. Forcing down the jitters, I took my father’s arm and sought his eyes—only to be met with his profile. For the first time in my life, we weren’t on talking terms.
“You know not what you’ve done, Neave,” father had choked out soon as I came downstairs to break my fast the day after Lord O’Neal’s visit. He must have ordered everyone out, for he sat alone at the table. “Of all the men you could wed, you chose one I could never safeguard you against.”
He stood to pace the length of the hall, his noble face weary with fatigue.
“You’re of age to hear this, daughter—women don’t mean a thing to Aedan O’Neal. He’s gone through so many, they say he himself has lost count. I believe it’s a matter of sport with him. Mind, to bed a woman of your rank, he’d have to wed you first.”
He halted his anxious march, no doubt preparing to deliver his weightiest argument.
“Have you considered what will come to pass once his conquest of you is complete?” Receiving no answer, he sank down on the bench beside me. “Your best hope is that he leaves you be while carrying on with his gallivanting. Even so, he might come to your bed when fancy strikes him. Is this the sort of marriage you wish for, a leanbh?”
Father blinked in the silence that fell.
“You can still decline.” He rubbed his temples. “He’ll not take kindly to it, to be sure, but I’d sooner endure his fury now than subject you to a life of misery.”
He spread his arms, waiting.
“It’ll be different with me, father.” I met his gaze. “I’m certain of it. I’m not those other women.”
He shot to his feet. “Fallen for this charmer, have you? Like all the other countless foolish lasses! Only you’re my daughter. And what of the whispers? Don’t tell me you fancy that will be different. Never have I fathomed of taking such a tone, daughter, but I forbid you to wed him. I’ll send word you’ve changed your mind.”
He stormed out, but I caught up with him in the corridor.
“Father.” I’d swayed on my feet. “I’ll throw myself off a cliff if you deny me this.”
His disapproval grated at me until I saw my dashing bridegroom: dark hair rippling in the breeze, blue eyes sparkling in the sun, saffron léine embroidered with gold yarn, blue mantle secured with twin brooches, wide belt encrusted with rare gems. He nodded when I took my place beside him, and a surge of pleasure rushed through me.
“Dearly beloved people of Tyrone,” the priest began, “we’re gathered here today in the sight of God to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony...”
Lord O’Neal’s slow grin drowned out the priest’s words.
“... therefore not to be taken lightly or wantonly, to satisfy men’s carnal lusts and appetites, but reverently and soberly, and in the fear of God, duly considering the causes for which matrimony was ordained...”
The priest regarded Lord O’Neal with a somber expression. “Will thou have this woman, Neave ingen Cormac McConway, as thy wedded wife, to live together in the holy state of matrimony? Will thou love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her, in sickness and in health? And forsaking all other, keep thee only to her, so long as you both shall live?”
“I will,” said the man my father didn’t wish me to wed, his eyes on me, his voice sure and bold.
The priest shifted his gaze to me. “Will thou have this man, Aedan mac Owen O’Neal, to your wedded husband...”
I held my breath.
“Will thou obey him and serve him, love, honor, and keep him, in sickness and in health...”
“I will.” I frowned. Love, honor, and keep him—I would. But obey and serve? I was here to become his wife, not his servant.
The priest gave me no time to think. “Who gives this woman to be married unto this man?”
“I.” My father took my hand, then released it, and stepped aside.
Lord O’Neal took the same hand in his. The hand he’d asked for and received. The hand that already knew the strength of his arms and the breadth of his shoulders. Obedience and servitude didn’t belong at the Niall waterfall. Love and honor did. For it was love when he pulled me close and set his lips on mine. And it was honor when he stopped the escalating kiss.
Eyes twinkling, he repeated after the priest: “I, Aedan mac Owen O’Neal take you, Neave ingen Cormac McConway to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness, and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us depart, according to God’s holy ordinance. And thereto I give thee my trouth.”
This, after eight long years of only hearing of him. Only dreaming of him.
My heart sang like thrushes in the willows. I smiled into his eyes, echoing the priest’s words: “I, Neave ingen Cormac McConway, take you, Aedan mac Owen O’Neal to be my wedded husband...” I pressed my lips together at “obey and serve,” then parted them. “... to love, cherish, and honor, till death us depart, according to God’s holy ordinance. And thereto I give thee my trouth.”
Lord O’Neal placed a ring on the Holy Book. The vow that followed was his own, each word shimmering in his eyes and caressing his lips. “With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, with all my worldly goods, I thee endow.”
He stroked the back of my hand with his thumb as he slid the ring on my finger. It fit—an exquisite gold Claddagh ring of the latest fashion and rare artistry, with two carved hands surrounding a crowned sapphire heart. The heart faced inward—I was a woman wed. Wed to Aedan O’Neal, who I thought I could never have.
“Blue like your eyes,” he murmured, grazing my palm with his thumb. The familiar tingles passed from his hand into mine and rushed to my every corner.
The priest wound a length of red cloth round our wrists for the handfasting. “Those whom God has joined together, let no man separate. Presented so before all these witnesses, I pronounce them man and wife together...”
The service continued as my new husband and I stood facing each other. Man and wife. Next would come the wedding feast, then the bedding ceremony, in which the guests would put us to bed.
“I rather fancy this blush of yours,” Lord O’Neal murmured, his eyes restless on my face.
To bed a woman of your rank, he’d have to wed you first.
“So likewise—” The priest’s voice thundered in the cooling air. “Let the wives be in subjection unto their husbands in all things. Let the wife reverence her husband, for according to Saint Paul, the wives submit themselves unto their husbands, as it is convenient in the Lord.”
The priest’s words landed like a lump of lead as I took notice of Lord O’Neal’s stubborn jaw and proud nose. A formidable man, he’d gotten all he’d ever wanted: prominent titles, vast clan lands and all their riches, magnificent castles, and well-trained armies. And every woman he’d ever set his sights on, including this daughter of his own subject.
Love and honor may have played no part in his peremptory marriage proposal that was like an order, in his hasty wedding that was like a formality, in his lavish ring that was like a payment. He’d soon take what he wanted from me all along. Another conquest to tickle his pride. Another woman to add to his bottomless list. One to reverence and submit to him in all things for as long as she lived.
I froze with belated clarity as the service came to an end. But it mattered nothing now. I’d been wed to Lord Aedan O’Neal.