Chapter 8
The hall below was still quite dark, but Lex had waited too long already for the slightest ray of the morning sun to show itself through his window. As far as he was concerned, night was over and he had won.
Closing the door quietly behind him, he pulled his tunic over his head and took a moment to wipe the sleep, or lack of it, from his face by rubbing his skin briskly with massaging hands. With the first of his morning rituals done, he started to work on the knots in his legging laces. They had done their job quite well through the night, but the call of morning would not wait much longer. His attention focused on the tangle of string around his waist, he barely noticed Corkie stroll up the stairs.
"Good mornin' to ya, my lord. Did ya sleep well?" Her question was laced with double meaning as always, but her usual jolly smile faded when he glared up at her. His patience was already at an end from his long, torturous night, not to mention his dire need for release.
"No, I did not," he slowly enunciated each word to make sure she knew his mood precisely.
"I will just be takin' this down to Miss Sandra then," she said with a quick jerk of her head toward the other end of the hall. "No man tells me shoo twice. I have always got better things to be doin' than wasting time on a limp arse lout who cannot--"
"She is not down there," Lex interrupted Corkie's tirade of all men being swine to save her an unnecessary trip down to the women’s quarters. "She is in my chamber."
Corkie's head whipped around. Her eyes grew extremely large, and slowly her chin rose to an “I know what you have been up to” level. Lust, passion, ravishment, she wanted all the juicy details.
"Just give her the food," Lex growled out, not being in any mood to explain his fruitless night in bed with his new wife.
Corkie's smile returned full force with a mischievous grin of a child stealing a treat. "That girl will need more than these oat cakes after a night with you," she laughed. "I would have hacked off a leg of mutton if I'd known there had been a beddin' shaking the floorboards up here last night." She gave his stomach a rough nudge with her elbow as she walked past him into the room with her hot cakes and cream.
Lex groaned from the sharp pain her good-natured hit sent to his over-full bladder. There was no more time to deal with knots. He had to get these things off right now or there would be a puddle around his feet. With one fierce tug in both directions, the laces gave way, but unfortunately so did the fabric.
"Oh, by the way," Corkie stuck her head back out of the room, looked down at his leggings, then burst out with a laugh. "There is an Englishman here to see ya down in the main hall. Arrived in the wee of the mornin', he did." She glanced down at his torn leggings once more with a refrained chuckle. "Tied ya in knots last night, did she?"
"Can a man find no peace in his own bloody house?" he swore, holding his ragged clothing together with one hand and heading into the nearest room for a chamber pot.
"I would be changing those clothes before you go down to see that one," he heard Corkie's warning voice from behind the door as he stopped in his tracks. "It is the king's man, and I doubt that is how ya want to be seein' him."
"Is it Worthington?" he asked without turning around, the sneer on his face evident in his voice.
"Aye, it is," was her own sneer-filled reply.
"Then he deserves no better than this." Lex finished up his morning release and leisurely headed down the stairs with a slam of his booted feet on every other step. When he reached the bottom, he noticed all were still fast asleep down there, all but Rory and Worthington. The young man stood with his arms folded and his claymore jutting up toward the rafters out of one hand. The other man lounged casually in Lex's chair before the morning fire, the tracks of his muddy boots tracing a clear path from the door where he entered.
"I see you still have the manners of a Scotsman." Worthington's pert English voice echoed even more unnaturally than Lex's in the ancient Highland manor. "Is this how you greet all your guests?" Lex was sure Rory could not understand the English words, but an insult could be recognized in any language when it was accompanied by such a dismissive wave of a hand in someone's direction.
Rory took a menacing step toward the relaxed man and bared his teeth like a true savage. Just what Worthington had expected him to do. Just as he had always said a Scot would do.
Lex spoke up in Gaelic before things got out of hand. "The man is spit under your boot, Rory. No need to waste a good blade cuttin' through his rubbery bones."
Rory and Lex exchanged a smile that made translation of his insult unnecessary as well. Rory spat on the floor, then ground his boot into it before he sheathed his sword and walked off to the kitchens.
"If I did not know how much you needed the gold I am to pay you, I would swear you had changed our bargain and joined the rebels up here." Worthington checked the blade of a small dagger with his thumb, then slid it back into the folds of his cloak. Lex had not even seen his hand move to withdraw it, an oversight that could have cost Rory his life had the young man taken one more step. Lex doubted the king's advisor would make a trip all the way to the Highlands just to kill one man, even if he was a Scottish rebel. Maybe in London, but not here. He was here for Lex, and not for a social visit.
"You can hardly call a wild band of starving Highlanders a threat to the crown," Lex said as he came to stand before the man, positioning himself completely in front of the heat of the fire.
"So you have turned." Worthington sneered at him with what could have been deemed either a smile or a sneer on this man. The two were eternally etched into his pale face, making one always wonder what evil plot he had lurking behind those small dark eyes.
"As you said already, our deal was the king's gold for a Highland chief. I am the one who chooses the chief he will get. He knows I will not fail him. I never have."
"Good to hear it, old boy, but I thought I would travel out to this pit of hell anyway to make sure of the king's investment. You see, I understand you better than you think, MacLachlan. You hunt down the scum of our realm and sell them to the king, but you have always brought us our own. I told the king you might go soft when the price was for a Scot's head."
"I have no care whether the head is that of a Scot or an Englishman. Justice covers all under God's sun. To see the MacEwen's head on a pike for murdering my brother I would gladly pay the axe-man myself." Lex felt his rage and hatred renewed in that brief moment. He had gone soft, but never again. "As you can see, I am making plenty of allies for the king already." Lex waved his one free hand around the room to show all the sleeping bodies of his clan. "Edward will need at least two willing Scots to fight against each one he cannot turn. My job here is worth three times the gold I am being paid."
Their stares locked in a fierce battle of superiority and challenge. Worthington's beady eyes narrowed as he sat up in his chair and leaned forward. "Get too cocky and I will have you in the tower as well. You are still a Scotsman, and you will never be worth more, no matter how many of your countrymen you sell out."
Lex hated the silence he let fall between them. He knew it was an admission of subordination to this man, but he knew he had no choice. Worthington had the power to make his every threat come true and his wide toothy grin only reinforced that fact. "The king will have his man and the allegiance of these people when I am done. And I will have the justice I was promised. This is the only chief I will turn over to the king, and only because it serves my purpose as well."
"Looks to me like you are quite enjoying this lifestyle already." He drew his eyes down to Lex's torn leggings. "They say the redder their hair the more fire they have in them. Maybe you will not even enjoy the pleasures of a civilized lady when they are done whittling away at your prick with their grime-covered hands." The man's hissing laughter was like the annoying panting of a tired hound. "I am told you even married one of them to make the game look better. Grand idea it is, mixing right in with their kind and all, winning over their trust before you stab them in the back. It is almost as if you belong...almost."
Worthington had baited Lex too many times into rash decisions based on pride. The man was good at what he did, and what he did was twist a person's wishes into his own, getting anyone to do anything for him without even realizing it. Well, Lex realized it, but this time Worthington was paying him to do something he had been wanting to do for years. He would get the gold, justice for his brother, and the confidence of a few more barons. It was his only chance of establishing himself with the English so that he would belong, something he had not known since he was a boy, something Worthington had latched onto like a leech and was using against him even now. The man was cunning, but Lex was wiser now not to fall into his traps.
"There is no marriage, just a misunderstanding that will be cleared up today."
"I will be down in a moment to greet our guest properly, Lex." This had to be the most inopportune time for Sandra to take on her wifely role. Standing at the top of the stairs in his huge white shirt, she looked quite the matching partner for his ripped leggings. She did a quick curtsy to them both and then dashed back into his room.
"She certainly looks like a misunderstanding I would rather like to spend a day's work on." Worthington turned his head back from the stairs to give Lex a view of his lecherous look, his hand going down to his groin and giving it a firm grab. Loud and inconsiderate of those still sleeping around him, his roar of laughter topped off his disgusting picture and churned Lex's already roiling blood.
Again, Lex knew his silent rage only strengthened Worthington's control of the situation and his own lack of it. It was just one more piece of kindling Worthington would tuck away until he needed it to fuel a fire under Lex another time. Lex recovered his composure and joined in with his own laughter, the only way to ensure that Worthington would not know which pawns to use against him.
"She is hardly worth the food I had to give her." Lex was very aware of Worthington's narrowed eyes on him, judging his every reaction for clues.
Finally, Worthington seemed to be satisfied that the girl was no more than a diversion and changed the subject. "I will not be staying long enough to witness her appetite for myself." He stood up from the chair and straightened out his over-cloak with a swift snap of the heavy red wool, his mail under-tunic showing clearly what he thought about riding in the country of Highland savages. "In two fortnights I will return with a larger force, to give you and a guest safe escort back to see the king in his great London Tower. Until then, I am sure this will be a suitable reminder of your allegiance." A heavy clang rang out as he dropped a hefty sack of coin on the floor. From the few pieces of gold that scattered out, Lex knew it was at least half the amount he was being paid to bring in the MacEwen chief. "I will find my own way out of this huge dwelling. Manor...ha!" he hooted, his raspy panting following him all the way to the doors and grating on every fiber of Lex's control.
Lex did not turn from the fire as he listened to Worthington's spurs clank more noisily than they had to over the stone floors. By the time he was out the door, everyone in the hall was wide awake and staring directly at him. As he looked from one thin face to the next, he thought of how each one of the coins at his feet represented one of those faces. Once the MacEwen fell, who would take care of them? Certainly not him.
When he bent down to pick them up, he suddenly felt like a beggar he remembered seeing in the streets of London, scrambling for the pennies that were tossed at him, willing to do any degrading thing to get more.
He needed to do this. Justice. Justice. Justice. What he was doing was right, not degrading. It served his purpose just as much as the king’s. Besides, if he was able to accomplish a foothold here in Scotland for the king to secure his authority, he would be guaranteed a place of respect in the king's court, no longer needing to rely on the dirty jobs thrown his way by people like Worthington. When he left here, these people's lives would be little different from what they were before he came. They would simply be doing homage to the King of England, a fact that would probably affect them little. Nothing would change for them, only for the MacEwen's chief. His new home would be the London Tower to guarantee the allegiance of his whole clan as well as payment for his crime of murder.
Lex's conscience was no clearer as he walked back up the stairs. He could still feel all their eyes on his back, watching him take his payment of gold greedily back to his lair. He turned an accusing eye on them all when he reached the top of the stairs. They all darted their eyes in another direction and cowered under his glare, all but Rory.
Rory just looked up at him with a prideful grin and brought his fist to his chest in a warlike salute. "He is just spit under yurr boot, Lex MacLachlan."
Lex turned away from Rory's admiration with a sick feeling in his stomach. Why was it they made him feel like their king, like he belonged, when he had finally decided he did not want to belong here?
***
A mighty pounding on the door startled both Sandra and Corkie as they fussed to get her into her cleaned plaid. Lex yelled out with a temperament that matched his fist's actions. "Do not bother rushing. He is gone."
Corkie gave her a shrug and more leisurely worked the tucks of fabric into neat pleats. It seemed she was hardly affected by his harsh tone.
"He barely gave me time enough to run a brush through my hair, let alone get into a full tartan. He cannot possibly be angry at me?" Sandra was talking more to herself than to the kindly woman who had brought her breakfast, but she had expected some sort of answer, anything more than just a shrug of Corkie’s shoulders. "He is mad at me again, is he not?" she said and slumped onto the bed. It seemed everything she did made him furious, even sleeping.
"Do not think it was ever you he was mad at in the first place, mi'lady. That just be the way mi'lord is, the growl of a badger, without the teeth. And if ya reach out your hand to stroke his fur kindly you will be rewarded tenfold by its softness."
"That was his toothless growl?" Sandra asked with a huff of doubt. "I have never felt a badger pelt so I would not know how soft they are, but I doubt your lord will ever match that description, and I do not plan on being around long enough to find out if it is the truth or if I would get my hand bit off."
"Aye, a wise plan you have, gettin' away before he steals yurr heart. A delicate thing like you probably could not bear it." Corkie did not seem to notice Sandra's purposeful glare. She just flipped the tail of Sandra's plaid over her shoulder haphazardly, not sure what to do with the leftovers of the long tartan. "Now you are ready to face him."
She gave the woman an odd look. Did not she just hear what Lex had yelled at her? Surely everyone in the manor had heard. "The man is already gone. There is no point in going down there now."
"I did not mean Worthington, mi'lady. I meant your husband. You cannot be starting off by lettin' him speak to ya in that manner, whether you plan on staying or goin’ in the end. Go on and let him have an earful. It is just what that little rough tongue needs right now."
"You really think so?" Sandra was beginning to wonder if Corkie was in her right mind.
"Most certainly. Lexxie knows better than to talk to me in that tone, and best he learns that it applies to you as well. Use him for practice if you will. Then ya can pet his fur with no fears at all."
"I do not know about the fur-petting part, but you are right," she said with a curt nod to Corkie. "I will go and tell him just exactly what I think of his demeaning tone."
"That a girl." Corkie patted her on the back and headed her out into the hall. "Now do not come back until you get what you want out of him."
Sandra could think of many other things she wanted more from Lex MacLachlan than a promise he would never yell at her again, like maybe for him to disappear back into the storm that he came on. If she was able to extract even an oath of civility from him she would be shocked.
Only halfway down the hall she realized just where he had headed. There was only one door partially open down that direction. The women's quarters.
Why would he go in there? And did she dare go in there herself again to confront him? What if he was not alone? What if that woman was in there waiting for him? What if she started to have those delusions of last night again? By the light of day all the visions of murder had seemed so distant and untrue. But looking down that hall toward that door gave her shivers down her arms.
Sandra's doubts started her hands worrying at the wool of her skirt. The loose fringes gave her hands ample things to do instead of pushing open the door she had finally made it to. She stood there a moment longer, undecided about what to do; face him like Corkie said and get the respect she deserved, or wait until later when he was alone and in a calmer mood…and not in this particular room.
The wait until later sounded like a much better plan and her feet carried her three steps away before she stopped in her tracks. The other woman's laughter, Derrdra's laughter, rang out from inside the room. Her lustful words made Sandra change her mind about a meek, quiet retreat. It was not a dream or night time delusion. That was a real laugh and a real women he was in there with.
"I have never seen such a perfectly formed physique on any man before. I am sure it has never been said that Lex MacLachlan has nothing to offer a woman on a cold night."
Sandra burst through the door and glared right at the doting Derrdra, who was worshiping the mounds of massive muscle on Sandra's new husband’s back. Only Lex swiveled his head around to look back at her, and that was when she noticed what his hands were occupied with.
"Do I have to go up in the hills to get a private gardrobe around here?" he shouted at her.
She stared in shock a moment longer, then turned her back and held her hands to her flushed cheeks. "I would hardly call this private," she retorted back, still angry at him for being in there with that woman. No matter what he was doing, it was not right he would do it with Derrdra present and ask her to leave.
"Well, I much prefer this to offending your delicate sensibilities. Would you mind leaving if you are not going to help?" His tone was sarcastic and very rude as far as she was concerned, just the problem she had come to fix in the first place.
"I will leave when she leaves," she said with conviction, turning back around to face him boldly. She located Derrdra now on the bed and pointed an accusing finger at her.
"Who?" he asked as if he did not know full well who she was pointing at. He might have his hands occupied with finishing up his task, but his eyes were perfectly capable of seeing where her finger was pointed.
"He cannot see me," Derrdra finally said from her lounging position she had taken on the bed while she speared a long ringlet of her red hair with her finger and swirled it around.
Sandra had just this morning been able to convince herself that last night had been a very bad dream. The certainty in Derrdra's voice had shattered her fragile explanation in one blow.
All she could hear was her own heart beating in her ears as she looked at Derrdra on the bed, then to Lex, still facing the copper chamber pot he had placed on a chair. "Look at the bed. You can see her there, can you not?" Sandra was beginning to feel frantic again as he looked to the bed, then to her, and shook his head.
"Please just leave me alone, MacEwen." His voice was angry again, his jaw jutting out and his eyes looking to the ceiling for deliverance.
"He cannot see me either," came Iain's friendly voice from the gardrobe chair. He was sitting right in the middle of the pot and Lex continued to water on him like a bottomless cornucopia of wine.
"Stop!" she screamed at Lex as she ran across the room. "Can you not see Iain sitting there?" With a shove of her hand she shifted the eternal stream away from Iain's lap and onto the floor.
"What the devil is wrong with you, woman?" Lex roared out, jumping out of the way of his own spray before he could get it under control.
"You really cannot see them?" she asked, more distressed now than before, especially since Iain's garments were completely dry.
"Have you named all the furniture in this room and made them your friends?" Lex asked, shaking his head at her as if she were mad while he tucked himself away.
Maybe she was mad. Maybe she was suffering from an illness like her father's from the shock of this new arrangement. "You are right," she said, straightening her shoulders back and avoiding any glances at the bed or gardrobe chair. "There is no one else in this room with us. Shall we leave now?" She hooked her arm through his that was holding his leggings together.
"You should just get some more rest today and I will go to talk to your father by myself about this...misunderstanding."
"You cannot go. We need to talk to you," said Derrdra as she ran to block Sandra's path to the door.
"Well, I do not want to talk to you," she shouted out right into Derrdra's face.
Lex turned his head toward her slowly and gave her a raised brow.
Iain was up and running across the room next, and he planted himself right in front of her as well. "Do somethin', Derrdra, before she ruins everything and he thinks she is a loon."
Sandra saw Derrdra take a step toward her, but did not quite see her make contact. As if she had been struck by a blow to her knees again, Sandra fell to the floor on all fours. She felt that odd sensation of being far away inside her own body. Oh, God, was Derrdra inside her? Was that what had happened that first night? Then her head snapped up and she started saying things she had not even been thinking. "There is no need for you to talk to my father, Lex. There was no misunderstanding." She saw her hand reach up and stroke down the exposed skin on his chest. "I told him no other man will do now that I have been with you." She could not believe she was saying these things to him, taunting him to further anger.
His hands reached out and stopped her caresses with a brutal grasp around her wrist. "I do not think you are in your right mind and I will forgive you your boldness. Iwill speak with your father and then I will bring you back to him."
"I think you can stop now, Derrdra. You be doin' more to him than you have ever done with me,” she heard Iain threaten behind her. But she just watched as her other free hand came up against her will and stroked down the length of his arm. "Derrdra!" she heard Iain's voice somewhere behind her. "One more bloody instant and I will come in there after you."
Sandra felt a cold gush of wind blow over her body and felt a chill run all the way through her. Something had changed inside her again. She was again in control of herself and her body. But nothing had changed for Lex. He was still glaring at her as if she were out of her mind.
“I will be back for you later.” Heavy dark strides carried him around her and out of the room. The door shook with a fierce rumble as he slammed it behind him. She felt a great relief once he was gone, until she heard a key turn in the lock on the other side of the door. Before she could pull it open, Derrdra and Iain appeared before her out of nowhere and blocked her way once again. She jumped back in fear.
"We have to talk," Derrdra said with a very serious face and crossed arms.
Iain was too busy darting glares at Derrdra to even be concerned with her. "You did not have to go so far as to stroke his chest."
"Lex, let me out of here," Sandra screamed frantically toward the door.
"I will let you out when I return to take you home. Until then, I believe you are much too dangerous to have running loose among my kinsmen downstairs."
She heard his footsteps carry him away from the room, and she swore her heart stopped beating. Her one goal in life, to unite these clans with her marriage, seemed to be fading with every step he took. The only logical answer she had for the peculiar way she acted around him led her to the very illogical couple bickering before her. Were they really dead? They looked so real and alive, so normal. She did not know what to think anymore. Lex had not seen them, so maybe she was just dreaming it up.
"Go away! Just leave me alone," Sandra yelled out at them.
They stopped their arguing and both looked at her. Iain spoke up first. "We would if we could, lassie. Well, I can, but my Derrdra here cannot."
"What are you talking about? None of this makes any sense to me. You do not make sense to me!"
"It was my time. I died in my own home. You saw it replay before your own eyes last night, like it does every night," Iain started as he draped a real-feeling arm around her shoulders. "But Derrdra was a mistake, pulled from her body too early and far from her clan's home, Castle MacEwen. Even though my soul is free to go on, hers is trapped here alone unless I stay."
"You are both really ghosts and staying here forever?" Sandra asked, more than a little dismayed that her prayer for simple insanity had not been answered.
"Well now, that all depends on you, lassie," Iain said. "I need your help to make MacLachlan Manor my Derrdra's home."
"It is not even my home," Sandra answered.
"Ah, but it will be," Derrdra said with a smile of excitement glowing in her eyes. "This home can become yours and mine at the same time if you allow it."
"Fine then. I allow it." Sandra saw no harm in it, and maybe it would just work and they would be gone.
"Wonderful," Iain shouted and scooped up Derrdra in a hug of joy. "Now, sweet Sandra, ya only have to get Lex to agree to let us use his body as well."
"What? Wait." Sandra was not exactly sure what Iain had just said, or what she had just agreed to.
"We will need his consent as well to join with the two of you when you consummate your vows. Then Derrdra will finally become my wife eternal, and MacLachlan Manor will be her home. We will be free then."
They stood there grinning at her as if she were their fairy godmother come to sprinkle them with lover's dust. Sandra hated to have to shatter their glorious moment. "I am sorry, truly I am," Sandra started as she twisted her hands over each other, "but there is not going to be any consummating between Lex and I. It was all a mistake. We accidentally came upon one another a few nights past--"
"It was no accident," Iain growled out. Sandra took a step back from the suddenly fierce MacLachlan. "Destiny and fate worked hard ta get ya into his room and his bath. We have been prayin’ and waitin’ for this for more than fifty years. You cannot just dismiss us that easily."
Sandra's eyes widened with sudden realization. "It was you that night...both of you."
"Aye, that is right," Iain answered, even though it was not a true question. "We helped you get a fine MacLachlan husband, now the least ya can do is let us join in on the celebrating."
"It was you that made me do those things," Sandra repeated in even more shock now that everything was becoming clear. She took a menacing step toward them and this time they cowered from her.
“Not all of it was me," Derrdra started as she reached out and lightly patted Sandra's hand to calm her. "Our presence inside you cannot alter what you truly feel or want. We have no power over your inner desires at all. Your feelings are all your own...we merely experience them with you…without any reservations, mind you."
"I had no feelings for Lex MacLachlan when I met him that night. He was rude and dismissing and horrible."
"Oh, but you did, my dear," Derrdra said in a tone that made Sandra blush. "I was there, inside you. Existing as pure spirit allows no anger or fear to cloud your mind when I am with you. What you shared with Lex that night was how it should have been between you two, how you two wanted it desperately to be, if you did not have to worry about your clans going to war over it. When we enter you we can move your limbs and speak our words, but what you feel and desire are all your own."
Sandra stared at them in confusion. She thought she had just uncovered the answers to all her problems, everything had seemed perfectly clear. Then Derrdra had to ruin it by saying it all came back to her wantonness again. "It matters not what happened between whom that night, or how," Sandra stated flatly without looking directly into their sad eyes for too long. "There is nothing between Lex and I, and there never will be. As soon as Mangus can be found, I will marry him."
"Mangus?" they both said in disbelieving unison.
"Why does everyone in this manor find it so hard to believe that I love Mangus?"
"Because it is a lie," Derrdra said with a scoff of a laugh. "I have been inside your mind and heart, and I have felt Lex's body pulse under your hands. Mangus isn't the man your body chooses for you in any way. A marriage has a good chance if it can at least start with passion, from there love can build. With Lex you already had a natural fire roaring out of control when you set eyes on each other."
Iain joined in to support Derrdra's claim. "And Lex asking for your hand came from within him as well, not just me speaking for him, somethin' he did not even know existed until he laid eyes on you. I just helped him voice it when he wanted to blow his new English pride around instead. You would believe me if you could have felt the jealous fury that raced through him at seeing you at that altar with Mangus."
That last statement made Sandra's heart flip in her chest, just as it always did when she thought of Lex. Were they right? Had she truly desired him from the moment her eyes saw him? She had been stunned by his strikingly handsome features before he spoke to her so harshly. And in the days after she had thought of more than just his facial features when she recalled… She dared not let herself think it. He was not staying long enough to make their conjecture come true anyway.
"Do you want my help or not?" she said with her arms crossed tightly in front of her. The two lovers looked at each other in conference, then back to her. They nodded their heads in uncertainty. "Then you will just have to wait until Lex returns from my father's...and I marry Mangus."
"I hope it is soon," Iain said in a grave voice that sounded like a death sentence.
"Why soon?" Sandra asked as she watched the two shuffle to the bed and flop down dejectedly.
"Our time grows short. We have only until the first snow touches the ground after the Charm has been married," Derrdra said as she looked toward the window at the gloomy winter's day.
"But that could be any day now," Sandra said.
Iain turned toward the window as well and gently placed his hand over Derrdra's. She let her head rest on his shoulder. "Aye, lassie, we could be eternally doomed anytime now if you really are the charm of prophecy."
“I am the Charm, but this is not my real marriage, so it cannot start the real prophecy yet.”
They both looked at her with doubting looks, then Iain spoke. “Real or not to you, lassie, this hand-fast holds as a sacred bond tying the two of you together in marriage for two months. You can see us and hear us. You are the one we have waited for, so best you decide soon which husband you want to form a peace with. The small blessing of peace granted to these clans by fate will be solidified for all of us when those first cold flakes start to fall.”