He settled down close to her, wrapping his cloak around his own body. It was a thick and coarse piece of green wool. During the day, it was pinned at his shoulder to serve as a rough kind of cloak, but when he lay down to sleep, it kept the ground from leaching away his heat.
Aidan did his best to fall asleep, but it was impossible to avoid hearing Margaret. She shifted on the clay underneath them, twisting and turning to find whatever comfort she could, but he knew well enough that there was none to be found. At some point, she drifted off into a restless sleep, but she murmured when she did so, something he couldn't remember her doing before. When she had slept in his arms, she was as silent as a drowsing cat, but now there was a kind of restlessness to her. Once or twice, he wondered if he heard a sob.
“If you're trying to make me feel sorry for you, it won't work,” he growled softly. He was only half-surprised when she slept on. She must be exhausted, but he knew from being on the march with the army that any sleep she got like that would be thin and leave her still tired in the morning.
For several long minutes, Aidan fought with himself. He was a man who knew better than to go about buying trouble, and that was what Meggie was right now. She was trouble, and right now, there was only the question of how much trouble she would be for him, how much she might bring down on the people he cared about.
Then he heard something that was definitely a sob, and it was decided for him.
Aidan rolled closer to her, slightly shocked at how cold she was. She was shivering a little, and when he came closer, he could hear that her teeth were chattering together a little, and there was goose flesh on her arms, where her sleeves had been pushed up. She sounded miserable, and when he draped one edge of his blanket over her, she blinked at him blearily.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Aidan shrugged.
“I'm tired of listening to you weep from the cold.”
As he had expected, she squinted at him angrily.
“Not weeping,” she muttered, but she uttered a small and happy sigh when he rolled closer, pulling her into his arms.
She only warmed up by inches, but her body clinging to his felt good, no matter how clammy her clothes were or how cold the tip of her nose was when she pressed it gently into his neck. Underneath his blanket, they were as close as two people could be, and that was familiar as well. There was nothing in his body or hers that hesitated to lie down together. They fit together, as he had fit with no one since that blasted day on Crinnan's Mountain, and a part of him would do anything to keep it.
Betray my clan, betray my honor, betray everything I stand for? Because there is a chance, after all, that this girl will ask it.
She had already dragged him from the home he loved best and his family. She had dragged him into a mess with an English lord, who was even now chasing him. What else could she convince him to do, or manipulate him into doing, just by batting her eyes at him and asking for his help?
Aidan didn't want it to feel so good when she was pressed against him, but his body had no such qualms. When she warmed up and was still clinging to him, a part of him wanted nothing more than to push her onto her back as he rose above her, to nuzzle her lips apart with his tongue and to taste her again.
The kiss in the chapel hadn’t been enough, would never be enough, and he was a fool if he thought it might be.
Finally, somehow, he fell asleep, and even if his dreams were of her, it didn't matter. No one could punish a man for what he dreamed of, and if in his dreams, his arms were full of a girl with dark red hair and eyes that could leave him breathless, what of it?
When Aidan awoke, there was a chill to the air that hadn't been there before, and he and Margaret were pressed as closely together under his blanket as the pages of a book. They were on their sides, his arms around her, her head tucked under his chin. He could feel her breath against his neck, and for a moment, it seemed like the greatest shame in the world to wake her, but he knew he would have to do just that.
“Meggie. Meggie, darling, it's time to wake up. We need to be away from here.”
She woke up slowly, and he could tell that she was having a difficult time coming up from her dreams as well. At the very least, the smile she gave him, soft and sweet and full of the sunlight that pooled high on the peak of Crinnan's Mountain, was not one she would give him now, of that he was sure. Still, it was as if she had put a hook in his heart and tugged, and there was no resisting her. There never was.
Aidan leaned forward, and when his lips touched hers, it was as if something in his body cried out in relief. It was as if he had been in pain all those years without her, and now, for the first time, he could take a breath without some kind of small agony. Kissing her was like cool water after a hot day, and after a stunned moment, she kissed him as well, sliding her hands up his chest. It felt good, so good, and it seemed unbelievable that it had been so long since they were together, really together.
“Meggie, sweet girl...”
“I missed you,” she murmured against his lips, but it was there and gone so fast that afterward he wasn't sure if he heard it at all. All he knew was that she was clinging to him, kissing him, pressing herself against him. He knew that she could feel his manhood harden between them, pressed up against her as he was, and it didn't make her cringe away. She felt so sweet and soft and lovely that Aidan wasn't sure if he could stop at all, not even if the king of England himself came to the cave's opening.
He reached down and unpinned her braids, running his fingers through her sleek red hair until it flowed as free as the river. He had never seen another woman with hair like hers, and when he imagined what she might look like wearing nothing but that streaming hair over her white, white body, he groaned.
Margaret's hands came up to grasp lightly at his hair, threading her fingers through the thick strands and holding him close. She wanted this kiss as much as he did, he would have staked his soul on it, but she went still when he pushed her skirt up from her ankle to her thigh, running his hand along the length of her leg.
After a moment, she shook her head, pushing him away.
“Meggie?”
“We can't.”
“We don't have to—”
“We can't!” she snapped, and Aidan tilted his head at how sharp her words sounded. He felt as if someone had dumped cold water over him, and then she moved away from him as if she was somehow nervous about what they had done. As if she were somehow afraid of him. The thought of Meggie being afraid of him made him sick, and he shook it off brusquely.
“I'll not force you,” he said, and he knew his words were cruel. “I only thought to take what you owed me.”
“What I owed you?”
“Yes, what you offered me back at Maras Castle, lass, or have you forgotten as soon as it was convenient?”
“When I offered you my body...”
He shrugged.
“It seemed as good a time as any to collect, to be sure. You were warm and willing, or at least you were a few moments ago.”
She shook her head, and for some reason, he was relieved when she lifted her chin proudly. He didn't know what he would have done if she had looked down, beaten and sad, and he didn't want to know.
“That deal was void when you turned it down. You waited until the price for taking me north was being freed from prison instead of... that.”
Aidan laughed, climbing to his feet to begin breaking camp. It was not a particularly kind sound.
“I don't know what I like least, when you were offering yourself to me like a girl on the docks or now, when you look like just thinking about what we have done already would send you into fits. There's nothing real to you, is there, lass? Just deals and bargains and no part of you that can't be sold off.”
He expected her to fight him again. The old Meggie would have scratched out his eyes for a tenth of what he had just said. This woman who stood in front of him now wasn't cowed; her anger was of the cold sort, instead. It was cold and
indifference so biting that Aidan had to stop himself from flinching.
“At least when I sell myself off, it will be because I know what I am worth and to who. Believe me, Aidan, I will remember what I am worth to you and price myself accordingly.”
Her words made him so furious that his breath was swept away. The idea of Meggie selling herself, actually selling herself, to a man like the English lord he had seen threatened to drive him insane.
Instead, he turned away from her, unsure of who had won this exchange, but aware that they were both blooded.
“Gather your things,” he said shortly. “We’re leaving as soon as we do. The moon will be up, and it should be an easy night's travel if we get underway.”
Aidan told himself again that he had to get back to his own place in the world, and the sooner he got Margaret where she wanted to be, the better. When they were packed up and the remnants of the fire buried, he climbed up on Bram's back and pulled her up behind him. He tried to ignore how good she felt pressed against him, and he turned the gelding north.
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chapter 9
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Margaret wasn't sure when she realized that something was wrong. The night mists swirled around them as they made their way north, and sometimes, it felt as if there were eyes watching them from the trees.
Aidan doesn't see anything, and neither does Bram. That means that I'm the one who is seeing things.
The moon had begun to set when she started to shiver. It felt as if no matter how close she sat to Aidan, no matter how tightly she hung on to him, she couldn't get warm. It felt as if her fingertips were slowly turning to ice, and when they stopped for food, she could barely taste what Aidan gave her. He frowned at her when she gagged a little, and when she did manage to get the food down her throat, it sat in her belly like a stone.
“Meggie, you look like the devil's after you.”
She blinked, and suddenly that felt far too true. Harry wasn't the devil, but there was something terrible and relentless about him. Perhaps that was who she kept seeing grimacing in the trees, Harry stalking her and waiting for her guard and Aidan's to be down.
“I'm fine,” she said automatically. “Please. Let's keep riding.”
Aidan gave her a doubtful look, but this time, he boosted her up on Bram's back before climbing up behind her.
“I don't need...”
“Hush,” Aidan said, taking up the reins. His strong arms bracketed her on either side. As much as she wanted to brace herself away from him, the hurt he had given her from this morning still loud in her ears, she couldn't resist the compulsion to lean back against him, gratefully letting some of the heat from his body seep into hers.
“If you end up falling asleep, I will not let you fall.”
It was offered up as something like a peace offering, and since Aidan couldn't see her, she smiled a little. She remembered that, too. Aidan was a proud man, and she had at least some idea of how badly she had hurt his pride in the last two days. He was never as hide-bound as his father was, but he knew very well that he carried his clan's dignity and prestige on his broad shoulders.
Her mother had once watched Aidan walk away from their cottage after some petty fight or another and shook her head.
“You must pick your battles with that one,” Martha Barton had said. “If you do not, you will fight from dawn to dusk.”
“He should be the one who is worried about picking fights with me,” she remembered saying. “He cannot go through life assuming he can shout it into submission.”
She leaned back against Aidan, and almost absently, he brushed his jaw over the top of her head, the gesture wordlessly kind in a way that made her smile a little. For a moment, she was reminded of a kitten she had seen once, walking right under the paws of one of the scarred toms that ruled over their own discreet patches of territory on the mountains. At the age of thirteen, she had held her breath. She had seen that scarred tom tear a full-grown rabbit apart, and she was certain that she would see the kitten receive the same treatment. Instead, the old male had settled down to groom the kitten, sharing the sunlight. The kitten had purred loud enough that she could hear it from where she sat.
What a strange thing to remember. Aidan isn't an old tom, and I'm certainly not a kitten. At least if Aidan was a cat, he could keep his green eyes.
The thought of Aidan as a cat was so terribly funny to her that she started to giggle, and then she couldn't seem to stop.
“Meggie? What in the blazes has gotten into you?”
“Nothing! Nothing, I'm sorry...”
She stifled the laughter, but then she was cold again. When she turned her head to see if someone was actually watching her, her mind felt as if it were swimming behind her eyes. She imagined her head popping off her shoulders and floating away, leaving it all behind her.
Wouldn't it be nice, she thought dreamily, to float above the world and never care in the least about anything ever again?
There was a moment of motion, and in that instant, she thought she had somehow managed to do it. However, she thought she was floating, but the truth was that in reality, she was falling. She didn't go far, because Aidan's arms were locked around her. She was aware of him clinging to her, calling her name.
He sounds afraid. Why in the world would Aidan sound afraid? I would have thought that there was nothing in all the world that could put fear into him.
Then she was gone and thought no more.
* * *
There was an instant when she awakened where Margaret thought that the last eight years had never happened. She had never left the North, and she still lived in that cottage in the glen with her mother. She had never learned to walk with her chin up past Englishmen who commented on how wild her Scottish blood must make her, and she had never had to smooth out her accent so that her father's friends would not humiliate him.
Joy filled her for a moment, and then the real world asserted itself as well as her memory. She knew exactly what was real and what was false, and at the end of it, she was still herself in a rather terrible mess.
Then she realized that she was sleeping in a large bed in a rather snug little room, and she had to put away her dreams and think of what reality was doing to her.
She felt clearheaded now, and when she thought of the last thing that she remembered, she realized that she must have been fevered before she tumbled off the horse.
Aidan kept me from falling. But what happened after that?
The gap in her memory was disturbing, and she was just struggling to sit up when the door opened, and Aidan appeared.
“You're up,” he said with evident relief, closing the door behind him and throwing the latch. “Here, sit up slowly. You've been unconscious for almost a day and a night.”
“I... I have?”
Now that he said it, she could feel it. Her body felt stiff and creaky, as if it had been resting in one position for too long, and her head ached in a dim way, as if she had been dreaming too much and eating too little.
“You have. Saints as my witness, I thought for sure you were dead when you tumbled off Bram's back like that.”
“It must have been a relief for you,” she said with a slight laugh.
Instead of laughing with her, Aidan scowled, reaching for the tray he had brought in instead.
“Here. I had a terrible enough time feeding you when you were asleep. You can damned well feed yourself now.”
“You... fed me while I was asleep?”
“I did. Bits of broth were all you could take; I could not give you anything more for fear of choking you.”
Margaret felt a blush on her face at the kindness that Aidan had so reluctantly admitted.
“You kept me alive.”
“Pay me back by eating your soup,” he said, a bit of impatience in his tone.
Obediently, Margaret started to eat. She remembered how terrible the food had tasted the night before she
had fallen so ill. This broth, nothing but chicken, salt, and perhaps some crushed mustard seeds to give it some heat, was delicious, and she had to pace herself so that she would not make herself sick.
After Margaret had taken the first edge off her hunger, she managed to look around at the room they were in. It was a good-looking room, comfortable and clean, and she glanced at Aidan.
“Where are we?”
He passed a hand over his face but did not answer. He looked exhausted, barely staying upright in the chair he was sitting in.
“Will... will you come and sit in the bed with me?” she asked. “I should think that it is more comfortable by far.”
She thought he would shrug her off or even laugh at her for her offer, but instead, he pulled off his boots and climbed in with her, resting on top of the coverlet while she stayed underneath it. There was something smooth about his actions that made her frown, and then she turned her eyes to him.
“Aidan, have you done this before?”
“Well. Yes.”
“Aidan!”
He laughed at her, and she almost didn't mind because this time, there was no meanness in it at all, only a gentle humor that made him look ever so young.
“What do you care?” he asked, looking up at her with his head on one of the pillows. “We slept together in the cave. We've done it before that.”
“Years ago! When I was a girl who didn't know any better.”
He looked at her with interest. “And you are saying to me that you know better now? That you know that you mustn't soil yourself with the likes of me?”
She stared at him, resisting the urge to dump the remainder of her soup over his stubborn head. The only thing that kept her from it was how good the soup was and how hungry she still was.
The Highlander’s Lost Bride (The Highlands Warring Clan Mactaggarts Book 2) Page 5
