Hit Me With Your Best Scot (Wild Wicked Highlanders #3) - Suzanne Enoch Page 0,119

ye dunnae mind? I’ve nae wish to see that fine-smelling bread burned.”

“Ye’re certain ye’re free to marry?” the smith asked again, pinning Amelia-Rose with a more interested gaze.

“Yes. What that man wants is not what I want.”

Lang continued to eye her, then nodded. “By yer kilt ye’re clan Ross,” the blacksmith stated to Niall. “Do ye have a tartan to use?”

Niall pulled a strip of plaid from his pocket. It bore the same red, black, and green pattern as his kilt, and he handed to the smith. The big man indicated they should lift their joined hands, and he wrapped the tartan over them. Then he picked up his hammer and struck it against the anvil, the clang sharp and echoing. “Ye’re now married. I’ll get yer wee paper.”

The two of them along with Gavin and Mary Lang signed the wedding register, as did Prior Lang, and then they signed everything again on a small, printed paper. After she put her name down, Niall took the pen from Amelia-Rose and set it back in its stand. “I reckon I’ll kiss my bride now,” he murmured.

She lifted on her toes, putting her arms around his shoulders, and kissed him. Hope, relief, elation—it all mingled together in a heady joy that made her feel as if her feet weren’t even touching the floor. It had been so simple, and somehow that made it more real. She didn’t have to dream about a fairy tale any longer. She had better than a fairy tale.

Niall lifted his head. “I love ye, Amy Hyacinth MacTaggert. So much it scares me a bit. Ye name anything, any dragon, any quest, and I’ll slay it for ye.”

“The only request I have is that you don’t leave me behind,” she whispered back. “I love you, too, Niall Douglas MacTaggert.”

“Och, my bread,” Mary exclaimed, and left the room. And that seemed to be the end of the ceremony. Carefully folding their certificate, Niall stuck it into an inner coat pocket and motioned Gavin to precede them out the door.

Not until Niall paused just short of the doorway, waiting for Gavin to leave first, did she realize he’d sent out the groom to make certain they wouldn’t be attacked by anyone. The fact that Lionel had ventured this far from London during the Season surprised her no end. The idea that he’d done so in such a hurry and had very nearly provoked a fight with Niall made her wonder just how badly he’d needed the ten thousand pounds her parents had promised him in exchange for her.

“All’s well,” Gavin reported, leaning into the doorway again.

In fact, nothing on the narrow street looked unusual at all, other than the large coach stopped outside the blacksmith’s. None of the residents passing by seemed to notice the vehicle, either, which made sense if eloping couples arrived here as often as had been rumored. “Where are they?” Amelia-Rose asked.

Niall let her hand go, hopped up onto the wheel of the coach, then clambered onto its roof. Standing, he did a quick circle, one hand shading his eyes from the sun. Up there like that, in his kilt and boots, he looked once more like a warrior—but then he was a warrior. Her warrior.

He jumped down again. “This way,” he said, retrieving her hand and heading up the street toward a stand of trees and a quaint-looking stream.

As they topped a short rise, she spied five horses at the edge of the water, one of them unmistakably Lord Glendarril’s huge black Friesian, Nuckelavee. Men came into sight, two of them in kilts matching Niall’s, and then three more men who appeared to be tied to trees. Amelia-Rose stopped short. “Niall, this will cause trouble.”

“An English marquis trying to stop a Highlands wedding? Aye, I’d call that trouble,” he returned, tugging her forward again. Abruptly he stopped, as well. “If ye dunnae want to see him, I’ll send Gavin back to the village with ye.”

Did she want to see Lord Hurst again? Not really, but at the same time the marquis needed to understand that she was no longer available, and had never been interested. Not since she’d met Niall, anyway. “I wouldn’t mind a word with him,” she returned.

He sent her a sideways glance, then started forward again. “Lads,” he said, stopping between the two big men.

“Niall,” Coll rumbled. “Are ye wed?”

“Aye.”

“Can ye prove it?”

Niall patted his pocket. “Aye.”

Moving with surprising speed for such a large man, Coll lunged forward, grabbed Niall, and hugged