So in Love (29 page)

T
here was a hush in the priory, but unlike the last ceremony to be held here, there was no grief in evidence, and no sound of muffled tears.

The time of the ceremony had been chosen with care in order to show the stained-glass windows at their best. Now shafts of jewel like light colored gold, scarlet, emerald, and indigo illuminated the faces of the congregation, danced upon the altar, and pooled around the couple standing with hands linked at the front of the priory.

The magnificence of the scene would cause some of the worshipers in the Scottish Reformed Church to say it was reminiscent of popery. But should that comment have been made to anyone at Gilmuir he would have demurred and said that it was only history he witnessed and nothing more.

Generations of MacRaes had stood in this same spot over the centuries. The room itself, one of the largest at Gilmuir, had been rebuilt, but only as it had once been. The arches had been restored, the slate floor replaced. While it was true that the shape of the priory had been altered, that was only done to allow for the passage through the secret staircase.

Although this holy place had been rebuilt with the past in mind, the ceremony held here was very much one of the future. The whole of the clan was here, if not in physical form, then in spirit.

Jeanne Catherine Alexis du Marchand was marrying Douglas Allen MacRae. Standing behind them was their daughter, Margaret, a look of irritation flitting over her face as she caught sight of her nemesis behind a pillar. She frowned at him, while Cameron only grinned back at her.

Alisdair MacRae recalled when Douglas was born a lifetime ago. As an adolescent he’d been shocked and appalled at the travail of birth, so much so that the two times his darling wife had been brought to bed with a child he’d been awed by her courage.

James MacRae remembered when Douglas had been an angry seventeen-year-old, desperate to return to France, and longing for the woman he was now marrying a decade later.

Hamish had witnessed Douglas’s emergence into manhood, and had sailed with him for three years. He wasn’t surprised at either the success his brother had become or the strength of character he possessed.

Brendan remembered Douglas as a younger brother, when he’d been annoying and mischievous. He sent a cautionary glance toward his two older sons, who immediately subsided and stared straight ahead, afraid of further angering their father.

Mary MacRae, standing on Scottish soil for the first time in more than ten years, witnessed the marriage with a feeling of rightness and completion. She had given her life to healing, but she knew sometimes that wounds were never truly mended until the heart was engaged. She witnessed the glance between Douglas and Jeanne, feeling almost like a usurper seeing such tenderness. Tears came to her eyes and at that moment Hamish turned his head, look
ing down at her. She smiled to reassure him, but he only looked puzzled. In the quiet moment, she clasped his hand and squeezed it. He responded by bending over and tenderly kissing her.

The wedding finished, the vows exchanged, the bride smiled at the groom and the groom at the bride. The wind blew gently against the priory and the sun blazed even brighter as if in celestial approval. The priory was filled with joy, and if there were tears spilled they dried atop smiles.

Margaret extended her hands to her parents, one on each side.

“Now,” she said, very firmly and very loudly, as if addressing both corporeal and spiritual entities, “we’re a family.”

The five MacRae brothers smiled as one at the little girl so much like Moira MacRae.

A murmur began in the rear of the priory, and carried forward, growing in volume. One by one the members of the convocation raised their right fists in a gesture mimicking that on the clan badge.

The cry, which had been used in war, in battle, in despair and loss, almost shook the building. As it was repeatedly shouted, it subtly changed, becoming an acknowledgment of celebration, a victory over circumstance and time itself.

To the MacRaes! Our family, our strength!