All other considerations were unimportant. Custom, family expectations, and societal norms, dictated they wait until they were legally and spiritually one before consummating their union. And their betrothal remained a secret, and had yet to receive the blessing of either family, in particular Dair’s mother, the Countess of Strathsay, and most importantly, the sanction of Lord Shrewsbury, Rory’s grandfather.These considerations were mere formalities. Blessings and sanctions were a foregone conclusion for two young people from within the same social circle, who were distantly related, as all the nobility were in some form or other, dating back to the Conquest. Their union would surely be seen by all as the epitome of social, political and economic acceptability. But to the happy couple, and in this place, none of that was important.There was something about the forest clearing, its isolation, even from the rest of the island, with its tall deep curtain of trees, its fanciful temples and its enchanted bathing pool, that rendered the lovers, at that moment in time, invulnerable.The handful of hours leading up to the couple falling asleep in each other’s arms under a coverlet in the small temple was burned into their collective memory.
