by Susan Barrie
Iain had stated quite bluntly that he was no longer prepared to wait even a few days to marry Karen.
“I can’t trust you,” he said. “I can’t trust you either to look after yourself or to behave sensibly, and as I can’t trust anybody else to look after you I’m going to marry you straight away. And I’m not going to take you back to Craigie House yet—in spite of what you said to me before I went to London. I want to get away from here for a bit, somewhere where we won’t have any reminders of the past nightmarish hours spent looking for you.” And because there was something almost haggard in his face when he said this she yielded at once, bitterly reproaching herself because it was she who had caused him so much unnecessary suffering. And as to their return to Craigie House—well, that would be something to which they could look forward when they had wandered for a while in the sun-filled lands he wanted to show to her. It was his wish that she should see them with him, and she had no other conscious thought but that by agreeing with everything he suggested she would be making him as blissfully happy as she was herself.
And if he had suggested honeymooning oh a desert island, where there were few amenities, and no comforts, she would have been just as happy.
The minister was contacted and the wedding took place at noon on the morning of the day after her lonely adventure on the moor. And afterwards, while Aunt Horry’s maid packed for her hurriedly, and Iain’s things were assembled for him hastily at Craigie House, they had a very pleasant lunch at Auchenwiel. The health of the bride and bridegroom was drunk in champagne, and Aunt Horry was a little misty-eyed because Karen, she thought, was such a lovely bride, even if she didn’t wear white and carry a bouquet, and she did somehow manage to look almost too young to be embracing all the responsibilities which the acceptance of a wedding ring would inevitably place on her slender shoulders.
After lunch they drove into the village, and Karen said goodbye to Ellen McBain, and received her congratulations at the same time. Ellen whispered to her before they left:
“I told you it would be all right, didn’t I?”
And now here they were in the train, and this time tomorrow night she would be in London again with Iain, and the following night in Paris. And after that she didn’t quite know where she would be, but it was all almost unbelievable, because wherever she went Iain would be with her. She was his wife!
“Have you fully realized yet that you now possess a husband?” Iain asked her, as the train got into its stride and roared on its way southwards.
Karen’s ready color stung her cheeks.
“I—I haven’t had much time to do so, have I?” she answered, wishing he would give her the opportunity to hide her face, but his fingers were ruthlessly holding her face up into the open.
He smiled, and there was something more than a slightly quizzical amusement under his thick eyelashes.
“That reminds me,” he said. “I’d better go and make sure our sleeper arrangements are all right, and if we’re to have any dinner I’d better check up on that, too. But the sleeper is important. I can’t have you repeating that extraordinary performance you put up when you travelled north three months ago—sitting up all night in a railway compartment!”
And then because she blushed so vividly he caught her back into his arms and kissed her with almost fierce tenderness.