Morven’s eyes were wide and puzzled. ‘But surely they don’t count? They weren’t there for us.’
He shrugged. ‘Perhaps not, but if they heard us…I believe it matters not. Even if it is considered we only did a hand fasting it is legal here.’
‘Hand fasting?’ That was something she didn’t understand. ‘Holding hands?’
‘In effect, yes. Holding hands and committing to each other in some way. As I always assumed I would have a traditional marriage, I’m afraid I don’t know when merely holding hands turns into a hand fasting that is considered as binding as a marriage. Strangely, I was never asked to witness or conduct a marriage before I went abroad. I imagine my father was and did so, but never me.’
‘It sounds so unbelievable doesn’t it?’ Morven said quietly. Nothing she could say would help their situation. ‘But then I am from England and only know what happens there. Naught that appeals to be honest.’ Not even to enjoy the rapture she had experienced with Fraser.
Fraser sighed. ‘So, I need to go to Stirling to find out the ramifications, not only of them, but the words we and Tam spoke. Plus if that was not enough to get straightened out, there is the added problem that if we are legally married here, would it hold up in England? What if your mama insisted you marry someone in England, and it was legal there, but if you came up here you would be a bigamist. If we went to England you would be seen as a fallen woman and scorned and banished from the ton.’
Morven gulped. ‘What? So let me see. I have no intentions of marrying anyone, but as it stands we might be legally wed. It could or could not be legal in England. I have no way of proving it either way. And that gypsy tricked us? Kill him slowly. Let him be pecked to death by those noisy crows. Show him the end of a hard stick up…oomptft.’
Fraser put his hand over her mouth. ‘Never curse a Romany.’ He burst out laughing at the disgusted expression on what part of her face he could see and kissed her cheek in the manner he seemed partial to. ‘Morven, hold fast. We don’t know anything for sure. Would it be so bad to be my wife?’
She sighed. ‘It could be. I have always held to my conviction about what a marriage should be, and would ours be that? Who knows.’
He would have to ask her about that conviction as soon as they had time to sit and discuss everything in depth. That moment was not the time to tell her that if the marriage were legal they would have to just make the best of it. ‘I’ll see what happens tomorrow and if necessary will have to approach Tam or Beshlie. That will not be fun, well not for me anyway.’
Morven bit his palm and when he moved his hand she flicked her tongue out to soothe the spot. His skin was salty and bore the scars and calluses of hard work. No soft landlord. But oh what a tangle.
‘Enough that if we are wed life could be very, very complicated, without upsetting a Romany, eh?’ She began to laugh. It was that or cry. ‘If we are wed only north of the border even more so. Oh Lord what now?’ We could make love perhaps? Morven did her best to banish that thought immediately. Now couldn’t possibly be the time. ‘I best laugh or I will cry.’
‘Well,’ Fraser said cautiously, obviously—luckily—oblivious to the direction of her thoughts, ‘I’d heard to be married over the bush could be legal but I honestly didn’t think it would apply to us at the games. I should have paid more attention to all those tales I heard when I was a youngster. It was only when I came home that I heard rumours that several couples had been married on that day, and were still together, that I began to wonder.’
‘It is amazing no one said that one half of one of the couples was the master of Kintrain then,’ Morven said thoughtfully. ‘Local gossip like that at Welland would be around the village in no time.’
‘Yes, but I went away so I suppose it was a case of out of sight out of mind. Or don’t upset the laird.’
‘Can’t it stay that way?’ Morven asked plaintively.
‘Well I am no longer out of sight and nor are you,’ Fraser pointed out, ‘So I would say not.’
****
How he hated to brush aside everything she said, but Fraser reasoned he had no option at that moment. ‘The one thing we do is make sure neither parent gets wind of this until we find out the truth,’ he said emphatically.
He had never seen anyone change colour so rapidly. Morven went white, red and then white again, her face the colour of the old climbing roses that clung to the wall, which enclosed the garden. ‘Oh Lord, yes, I never thought of that.’
‘Then we can go from there, for after all it seems that they…’ He hesitated and decided to take the bull by the horns. ‘It seems they think we would not suit.’
Morven nodded, her colour once more restored to its usual healthy glow, and chewed her lip thoughtfully. ‘I understood that as well. My poor sister is beside herself with worry. She is too young and the thought of you anywhere near her scares her witless. I have a feeling they meant to house her in a tower somewhere but she threw a fit and that idea, if indeed it was one, was shelved.’ She let her breath out in a long hiss. ‘Or so it seems everyone is trying to make me believe.’
Fraser hit one fist into the other palm. ‘I should have realised. I moved into this tower recently.’ He didn’t say how recently. ‘Here then, they meant to house her in these rooms. I did wonder when I saw them being aired in a hurry that mama was possibly up to some trick or another. She can be ruthless in her deviousness when she thinks it is warranted.’
Morven looked at him in query. ‘You have lost me there.’
‘There is a staircase from my rooms upstairs to these here,’ Fraser explained. ‘Ostensibly for servants, but used by the occupants when they needed to see each other without the knowledge of others. The castle is riddled with such passages.’
‘Secret trysts and so on?’ Morven asked with interest obvious in her voice. ‘How intriguing.’
‘Hmm.’ He might have known she would see it that way. To him it could be a nuisance. Or, he corrected himself, in the past it could. Now it could work to his advantage. ‘They have housed you here. Ulterior motive or expediency I wonder?’
‘Who knows, except it is as well it isn’t my sister. Murren is very young and as the baby of the family hasn’t developed the spine she needs to stand up to people. If you had appeared to her like you did to me, she’d run screaming like a banshee.’
‘Am I that much of an ogre?’ Surely he didn’t have a fearful reputation? ‘What do you mean they are trying to make you assume things?’
Fraser flicked her skirts up and swivelled Morven until she sat facing him, her legs either side of his, her breast touching his chest, and her quim resting next to his staff.
She raised her eyebrows but didn’t question his actions. ‘Mama intimating you would, I imagine, be enough to put fear into a young and impressionable girl. Murren needs someone to coddle her, not be bracing and ride roughshod over her. She isn’t like me. I would stand up to anyone who treated me so. Hopefully as she gets older she will learn to do so—but now? Not a chance. But then sometimes I see a look in her eyes and another one in my mama’s and wonder what they are up to. Ah well, hopefully I’ll find out soon. But that apart, Murren is likely to be in too deep, and would not be able to hold her own if challenged.’
‘I wouldn’t treat anyone like that.’ On reflection, he wasn’t too sure.
Evidently, Morven was. ‘Oh yes you would. You need someone strong to stand up to you when you think only your way is the right way. Otherwise you would bully them. Oh I’m sure you wouldn’t mean to but you would, believe me. Any recipient needs plenty of determination to defy you.’
‘As you did,’ Fraser said. ‘Therefore?’
‘Why yes…’