Margaret still felt a pang at that disappointment. She might not know how to read or write, or how to dress or act like a noblewoman, but she knew how to run a castle, and she’d wanted him to see that. To know that he hadn’t married an unaccomplished, backward barbarian, but a wife of whom he could be proud.
She’d tell him how she’d never felt so useless in her life. How the only thing that made his mother and Marjory’s disdain about her “uncouth” upbringing and the endless comparisons to the saintly Lady Barbara bearable was Tilda. His youngest sister was the only person on the isle who didn’t think he’d made a mistake—including her.
And that’s what she would tell him last. How she feared she’d made a mistake. How all the happiness and love she’d felt for him in that cottage seemed very far away. How she looked around and wondered how she’d come to be here and how she could escape. How desperately she missed her home and being around people who actually liked her and weren’t ashamed of her. How she didn’t want to be a mistake anymore.
To say anything else to him would have been a lie.
So as the nuns patiently worked with her on her lettering, every so often asking if she wanted to try to respond to her husband’s missive, Margaret declined. The rudimentary reading and writing skills she’d painstakingly acquired in the past few months—she wouldn’t embarrass him with her lack of education—were no match for the maelstrom of emotion waiting to be unleashed when—if—he ever returned.
“Maybe you’re right,” she said to Fin. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to change before the evening meal.”
God knows, Lady Rignach would not approve of her simple wool kirtle. But Margaret hadn’t wanted to risk paint getting on one of her new gowns.
She shouldn’t have been surprised when the day after Eoin left his mother had the dressmaker from Oban measuring her for new chemises, cottes, surcoats, cloaks—and veils, lots of them. Lady Rignach must have given instructions to Eoin’s father as well, because when the MacLean chief arrived at Gylen Castle with Eoin’s two brothers a few weeks after Eoin had left, his father was laden down with even finer cloth, fur trims, and embroidery from Edinburgh.
Fin let her pass with only a mocking bow but followed closely after her. At first she attributed the strange buzz that ran down her neck as they entered the bailey to him. But it was a different kind of awareness. One that she hadn’t experienced in so long, she’d forgotten it.
She noticed a crowd of people standing near the gate. That was when Tilda saw her. The girl was the only bright spot in these past months. She was sweet and kind and didn’t care that Margaret was a “wild” MacDowell.
“Oh, Maggie, there you are. I was looking for you everywhere, look who’s . . .”
Margaret didn’t hear the rest of her words, for at that moment a man stepped out of the crowd, and she froze.
He was dusty, grimy, more grizzled than she’d ever seen him, with a jaw thick with whiskers and hair down to his shoulders, and he seemed to have put on a good stone of muscle, but when those intense blue eyes riveted on hers, she knew him in an instant.
All the emotion, all the pain, all the misery of the past five months caught up with her in one lost heartbeat. Her chest squeezed. Her throat tightened. Her eyes swelled with heat. She made a sound that was a cry of half-pain, half-relief, and ran.
The next moment she was in his arms. Eoin was holding her, burying his face in her veil, murmuring soothing words against her ear, and then his mouth was on hers.
Eoin would never forget the fear and uncertainty of the moment when his wife had first seen him and seemed to turn to stone. Nor would he forget the relief and happiness he’d felt when she launched herself into his arms an agonizing few moments later.
He wished he could forget what came next. How he’d started kissing her right there in the courtyard—heedless of the crowd around them, which included his mother and sisters, damn it!—and then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, how he’d lifted her up and carried her to their bedchamber in the middle of the damned day.
No one in that bailey had seen what had come next, but he was sure every one of them had guessed. He’d barely taken time to remove his weapons and armor before he’d followed her down on the bed and made love to her with five months of built-up passion.
It hadn’t been pretty. It had been hurried and frenzied and over far too quickly—although he had made sure she found her pleasure first. But it had been every bit as powerful as he remembered.
And maybe it had been just what they’d needed. A moment of physical connection before the questions and recriminations that his return would inevitably bring started to fly.
She’d collapsed in a heap on his chest and had remained quiet since. Her cheek rested against his shirt, but her face was turned away from him, and all he could see were the silky plaits of long red hair coiled neatly at the top of her head. She’d been wearing a veil when he’d first seen her, and it had taken him a moment to recognize her without the wild waves of vivid red that had tumbled over her shoulders like a silken cloud.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She didn’t answer for a long time. Finally, she lifted off his chest and out of his embrace to a sitting position where she could look down at him. Too late he remembered the words of their last conversation.
“No, Eoin, I’m not ‘all right.’ I haven’t been all right since the day you left.” Her golden eyes held his steadily. He’d forgotten the sensual tilt and catlike brilliance. How just the feel of those eyes on him could make his skin heat and blood race through his veins. “But if you are referring to the pleasure you just gave my body, then yes, I think I shall recover.”
There wasn’t one note of teasing in her voice, one wicked twinkle in her eye, or one naughty curve of her beautiful red mouth.
He hadn’t expected to be greeted by the smiling, lighthearted, mischievous girl who’d stormed into the Great Hall of Stirling Castle—and into his life—five months ago, taking it over like a marauding pirate. But neither had he expected this serious, subdued young woman.
What had he done to her?
“I’m not sure I will,” he said wryly. He took her hand, amazed at how soft and delicate it looked in his, and brought it to his mouth. “It’s been too long.”
“Has it?”
He frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She shrugged, looking away. “I don’t know. Something felt different.”
Eoin swore inwardly, glad she couldn’t see the guilt on his face. He hadn’t even realized what he was doing until he pulled out at the last second. He couldn’t believe he’d actually had the presence of mind to do so. But he knew it was the right thing. As much as he would like to leave her with his child, he knew it wouldn’t be fair to her, knowing he might not survive to see it born.
But he knew that wasn’t what she was alluding to. He reached up to cup her chin and turn her face to his. “I haven’t looked at another woman since the day I met you, Maggie. There is, and has been, only you.”
She held his gaze and must have been satisfied by what she saw there because she switched the subject. “You look different.”
Unconsciously, he rubbed his jaw which hadn’t seen a razor in weeks. He knew he looked like hell—he’d been through it to get to her. “I didn’t exactly have time to wash up after I saw you.”
The girl he’d first met wouldn’t have been able to resist teasing him about his eagerness and uncharacteristic public display, but she ignored it. “How did you arrive? I didn’t see a boat down by the dock.”
He hadn’t wanted to draw that much attention to his presence. The ship and men who’d sailed with him were waiting in an inlet on the west side of Kerrera. MacLeod had come through for him, all right: he’d arranged to have the best seafarer in Scotland bring Eoin home. Without MacSorley’s skills, Eoin would probably be dead—either from the English who’d chased them halfway around Ireland or from the storm that at first almost capsized them
, and then forced them to take shelter on a small island for nearly two days until it passed.
The few days that he’d hoped for had been whittled down to less than twenty-four hours. How was he going to make her understand in under a day?
“I came in on the other side of the isle.” Hoping to cut off more questions, he asked, “Is that where you were? Down at the dock? My mother said you go to Oban a few times a week to help the nuns at the convent?”
She stared at him as if trying to gauge whether there was something behind the question. There wasn’t—except maybe curiosity.
“If you want to know what I’ve been doing for five months, Eoin—five months—just ask me. Because that is exactly what I want to know from you.”
Eoin swore. Damn Bruce to hell for making him agree to that vow!
He would tell her what he could. She would learn part of the truth soon enough, when news of the coronation spread. “I will do my best to answer your questions, and I know we have much to talk about, but let me bathe and eat something first.”
He also knew that his father, brothers, and Fin would be anxious for a report. When the call to battle came from Bruce, they would answer.
He could tell she wanted to argue, but she took pity on him. He must look more beaten up by the past few days than he realized. “Now that you are home, I suppose there is time. But I will expect answers.”
He didn’t know what he was looking forward to less: telling her he was leaving again or telling her why.
12
IT WAS SO romantic—although I thought my mother was going to faint right there, she turned so red.” Tilda giggled beside her on the bench. Margaret knew she belonged in the middle of the hie burde next to her husband, but she’d taken her usual seat below the high table beside Tilda instead. She thought it would be easier to sit next to someone she could talk to rather than someone she couldn’t. His mother and father were only too happy to accept her offer to have their son to themselves, without their regrettable daughter-in-law in the way.
But for once Margaret wasn’t in the mood for Tilda’s cheerful chatter. She was too anxious about the coming conversation, and her husband’s attempt to explain the inexplicable. She needed answers. But more important, she needed him to prove to her that she hadn’t made the biggest mistake in her life.
She glanced down the table, and was glad to see that after the bath, shave, and meal, the dark circles under his eyes and the lines of weariness etched on his face had faded. But there was still something different about him—other than the added bulk and what looked to be one or two new scars on his face. He looked harder somehow. Fiercer. Darker. Even more intense than she remembered. Different from the man she’d married.
Tilda hadn’t noticed her unusual quietness. She shook her pretty golden brown head. She had the same coloring as Eoin and Neil. The two other siblings, Marjory and Donald, were darker like their mother. “I’ve never seen Eoin do anything like that,” she said. “I knew he must love you very much. He would have to turn his head away from the battlefield or one of those boring old folios for more than a few minutes. I hope one day I will marry a man that will take one look at me and carry me up to the bedchamber.” She sighed dramatically. “You are so lucky.”
Lucky? Margaret was lucky she wasn’t drinking her sweet wine (the syrupy wernage was a suitable lady’s beverage) or it might have been “uncouthly” spattered all over the pretty linen tablecloth. She mumbled something intelligible in response, which must have satisfied Tilda, because she resumed her soliloquy on the “romantic” events of earlier.
Margaret wished she could see it the same way as Tilda. But to her, the frenzied lovemaking had seemed more a cry of desperation and a release of pent-up emotion and pain than a romantic expression of love.
She would never deny the passion she felt for him, but lust wasn’t romance. Romance wasn’t sharing a bed, it was sharing a life. It was trusting someone. Having someone to share your thoughts. Knowing that the person lying next to you would do anything for you because you would do the same for them.
It wasn’t disappearing for five months without explanation. It wasn’t being kept in the dark. And it wasn’t being left alone and miserable among people who thought you weren’t good enough or smart enough for the “brilliant” young warrior with such a promising future.
Perhaps some of that misery showed on her face. Eoin caught her eye, said something to his father, and stood. Lady Rignach looked in her direction, and for once Margaret thought she detected sympathy.
She discovered why a short while later. Margaret sat on the edge of the bed, while the man she’d given her heart to stood before her and stomped all over it.
He calmly explained that he’d been at Lochmaben in Dumfries with the Earl of Carrick and turned her world upside down.
“But you said you were doing something for your father.”
“I was,” he said. “Am. Bruce is the rightful king of Scotland. My father believes that as much as I do.”
“Rightful king of Scotland? Only because he rid himself of his rival by killing him in a church!” The news of the Lord of Badenoch’s murder last month had spread across Scotland like wildfire. She’d been shocked—horrified—and sad for his son. John Comyn was too young to have such a weight on his shoulders. But ironically she’d thought the murderous act would help Eoin make the decision to fight with her clan. Never had she imagined Eoin . . . Oh God! “Please tell me you had nothing to do with it.”
His mouth tightened. “I was not there when it happened. It was regrettable, but Bruce was provoked.”
Margaret couldn’t believe this was happening. The nightmare was only getting worse. Her absent husband had come home, but he’d done so in full-fledged rebellion. He’d chosen to fight not only against her family, but against the most powerful man in Christendom. How could he have kept this from her?
“You can’t do this, Eoin. You have to reconsider. Think of what happened to Wallace. King Edward will do far worse to Robert Bruce—a man whom he trusted—and his followers. You will be hunted like a dog. And what of my family? There will be a civil war, and my father will never forgive you if you fight with Comyn’s murderer. I thought you loved me. How can you choose Bruce over our marriage?”
He frowned. “This has nothing to do with you or our marriage. My decision was made long before I ever met you.”
She stared at him wide-eyed. “But I thought . . . We discussed . . .” She looked up at him. “You let me think you would consider fighting with my family.”
He shook his head. “You let yourself think that. I told you I didn’t want to talk about it.”
Was that supposed to be some kind of excuse? “So I’m to have no say in the matter? You will make enemies of my family, put your life at risk, and I’m allowed no choice?”
“You made your choice when you agreed to become my wife.” He eased the harshness of his words by kneeling down before her and taking her icy hands in his. Big and warm, with more calluses than she remembered, they seemed to swallow hers up. “I know this is difficult for you, and I never wanted to hurt you, but you are my wife. Your loyalty belongs to me now.”
Her heart wrenched in her chest, as if it were being twisted in two different directions.
But he was right. No matter how much she didn’t want to hear it, she had made her choice when she married him. But she never realized what she would have to give up. With no discussion and no say.
“I love my family. You can’t expect me just to forget them.”
He shook his head. “I would never ask that of you. But I am asking for your support and loyalty. I’m asking for you to trust that I know what I’m doing. I truly believe this is the best thing for Scotland.”
“More war is the best thing?”
“If it sees Scotland’s rightful king on the throne and an end to Edward’s overlordship.”
“And you think Robert Bruce is that rightful king?” Half of Scotland—including her clan—wo
uld disagree.
“I do. I’m not asking you to believe in him, I’m asking you to believe in me.”
Her heart squeezed. “I do.”
The politics weren’t what mattered to her, it was keeping all those she loved alive.
“I didn’t know it would happen like this,” he said in earnest. “I thought we’d have more time together before war broke out. Believe me, if I didn’t have to leave—”
He stopped suddenly, as if realizing what he’d just said.
“Leave?” she repeated thinly, through lungs that had just had all the air sucked out of them.
His expression turned grim. “Tomorrow. I’d hoped to have longer, but we were unavoidably delayed. We will be racing across Scotland as it is to make it in time.”
She was too shocked to question him about “we.” She shook her head. “No.” She shook her head furiously, panic rising in her chest. “You can’t go. You can’t leave me here alone.”
“You won’t be alone, my mother—”
“Your mother despises me. She and Marjory can barely stand to be in the same room with me. You don’t understand how horrible it’s been since you left. Everyone hates me here.”
He looked genuinely taken aback. “I know it must be difficult adjusting to a new home, and it might seem that way, but—”
“Don’t tell me I’m exaggerating or imagining things, I’m not. They think I’m some kind of wicked strumpet who forced you into marrying me.”
The circumstances of their marriage unfortunately had followed them to Kerrera—as had the disparaging stories of her clan and the fair “maid” of Galloway.
He frowned, clearly taken aback. “If someone has said something to offend you . . .”
“No one has said a thing. It’s the way they look at me. The way they stop talking as soon as I come into the room. I’m a MacDowell, Eoin. To them I might as well be heathen dancing naked around the fires of Beltane. I can’t even go to a convent without gossip and speculation. Half the people here, including your mother, think I’m doing something illicit. Do you know that Fin followed me today? He practically accused me of seducing a priest!”
The Striker Page 15
