Even in the growing darkness she could see the small frown on her son’s face. “I don’t like surprises.”
So much like his father . . .
Her chest squeezed, trying not to think about how much it hurt. She could do this. She’d done it before, hadn’t she?
“I know, but I hope you shall like this one.” Turning around and seeing that the tower had faded from view, she decided they were far enough away. The anchorage point was just on the other side of the islet of Eilean Orasaig in the bay. “How would you like to see your favorite uncle?”
“Uncle Duncan?” the boy asked excitedly. “Here?” He frowned and looked up at her with a furrowed brow. “Has he decided to fight for the bloody usurper, too?”
Margaret winced, realizing the short time on Kererra had not wiped away all traces of her father’s anger. “Nay. He’s with your grandfather and the rest of your uncles on the Isle of Man. But he’s come to take us for a visit.”
He stopped, letting his hand fall from hers. “But what about . . . what about my father?”
She knelt down to face him. Over his shoulder the sun flattened on the horizon. It was almost dusk. She knew how confusing this must be to him—it was confusing to her—but she vowed she would do whatever it took to see that Eachann was not hurt by her decision. Even if it meant she had to be apart from him sometimes—God help her. “You may come back and see him whenever you wish, but I—” Her voice dropped off. What could she say? “I can’t stay here any longer.”
She couldn’t be half a wife—even for her son. She wanted to share Eoin’s life, not merely be a part of it. But the secrets between them from the first were still there.
Eachann’s face drew so serious she wanted to squeeze him tight and never let him go. “Doesn’t he want us anymore?”
She threw her arms around him and gave him a fierce hug. “Of course he does, sweetheart. He wants you very much.”
“Then why are we running away?”
“We aren’t—” She stopped, staring at him. He was right. She was running away. Just like before. Maybe they were doomed to repeat their mistakes after all. All of them.
She was trying to figure out what to say when she was saved by a dot of white in the distance. A sail. She stood and took his hand. “Come, son, we must hurry. Your uncle is here.”
Eoin was too late. They were gone.
He’d raced up the tower staircase to the room he shared with Margaret, only to find it dark and empty. He didn’t need to look in the antechamber to know that Eachann was gone as well.
It felt like a stone wall had crashed down on him as he realized everything he’d lost. It was like the last time, when he’d come home to realize she was gone, except maybe even more devastating. He’d lost his wife and his son.
They’d fled and it didn’t take him long to realize how: her brother. Eoin had been so angry about the failed trap he hadn’t asked her the details of how her brother planned to “rescue” her. He must have planned to pick her up on the way back from Appin—today.
A quick questioning of the guards on duty at the gate told him he was right. The lady and the wee laddie had left over an hour ago for a short walk to the village. Not the village in reality, Eoin knew, but one of the other anchorages on the isle. There were three, including the one at the castle. The one on the northwest side opposite Oban would be too busy—even at this hour—but the one on the east side of the isle would be easily accessible for a ship of marauding MacDowells sailing down the Firth of Lorn who wouldn’t want to draw a lot of attention.
The anchorage was a short walk. Twenty—thirty—minutes at the most. If they’d left over an hour ago, he knew they were likely long gone. But he had to make sure. Knowing it would be fastest to ride, he started toward the stable when someone blocked his path.
“She’s gone,” Fin said.
It took everything Eoin had not to kill him. Only the fact that Fin was married to his sister prevented his grandfather and namesake’s fabled battle-axe from coming down across his head. But still, his hand itched to reach to his side and pull it from the strap.
Not cognizant of the imminent danger, Fin added, “I saw her and the boy boarding a ship by the dock at Bar-nam-boc.”
Eoin took a threatening step toward him, his hands fisting at his sides. He’d never wanted to strike someone so badly. “And you did nothing to stop them?”
Fin shrugged, obviously mistaking the source of the threat that he was too good of a warrior to have missed. “I figured it was for the best. She betrayed you again. The traitorous bitch is better off gone with her kin.”
“Don’t you mean better off gone where I won’t discover the truth?”
Fin’s confidence slipped, but only for a moment. He did, however, straighten from his relaxed stance into something slightly more defensive. “You know the truth.”
“Aye, I do,” Eoin said darkly, his muscles tensing as he took a step closer.
“I told you about her brother Duncan being here on Gylen.”
“You did,” Eoin said, seething. “But you neglected to mention that you were the one who told him my plans. You were in the barn, weren’t you?”
It was the only explanation, and the one Eoin hadn’t considered when he’d been so focused on condemning his wife. Someone had overheard them. It was his fault, damn it. He’d been in a rush and hadn’t checked.
Fin hesitated. He seemed to be weighing whether to lie. Apparently recognizing the futility, he just shrugged again. As if it were nothing. As if his betrayal hadn’t cost Eoin everything. “Fortuitously outside the window. I saw you come back and decided to stay.”
“So you spied on me and decided to betray me?” Eoin couldn’t contain his rage. He slammed him up against the stone wall of the barmkin. “I trusted you. You were like a brother to me.”
Fin’s expression slipped, revealing anger and bitterness that must have been simmering for years.
“Were like brothers, until you married her. Married her!” He scoffed with disbelief. “You surprised me. With all those rumors going around . . . I never thought you would be the knight-errant type to ride into her rescue.”
It took Eoin a moment to realize what he meant. “It was you. You started the rumors about what happened in the library.”
Fin didn’t bother denying it. “It was no more than she deserved. The lass was shameless and totally wrong for you. But you didn’t see it.” His mouth hardened. “But I never spied on you. I was curious, and I thought she was trying to have you send me away after what Marjory did. I would never have said anything, but when I saw MacDowell the next day . . .”
“You decided to take advantage of it, knowing I would blame Margaret, is that it?” Opportunistic bastard. Fin had done the same thing in the war. Eoin had made excuses for him, but he wouldn’t do so any longer. He held him up by the scruff like the dog he was and shook him. “Men were killed. Good men. I could have been killed, damn it. All so you could take out your misguided hatred on a woman who would have been a friend to you, if you’d given her a chance?”
“Friendship?” Fin sneered, ignoring the hand that was squeezing around his neck. “I didn’t want her friendship. I just wanted to fuck her.” Eoin’s fist slammed into Fin’s jaw before the offending words had even left his mouth. Blood ran down his foster brother’s chin as he smiled. “She must be as good as she looks, for her to have turned you against me so quickly.”
Eoin was barely listening. He was too busy pummeling his former friend with everything he had. The face. The gut. The ribs. It took him a minute to realize Fin wasn’t fighting back. He was bent over, half on his knees.
The blood was still pounding through Eoin’s veins as he leaned over him, holding him upright by the edge of his cotun, his fist poised for one last blow. “She never tried to turn me against you. She didn’t need to. You did all that by yourself when you attacked her.”
Fin’s eyes turned black with rage. “Aye, but it’s cost me, hasn’t it? That
bitch has made me pay.”
Assuming Fin was referring to their friendship, Eoin said, “So you try to have me killed?”
“I knew you and Campbell weren’t in any danger. Bruce’s indestructible phantoms?” Fin laughed at Eoin’s shock. “Do you take me for a complete fool? Do you not think I never guessed all these years?”
Eoin stared at the man who’d been his closest friend and felt his rage dampened by disgust and an incredible sense of sadness at the loss of something that had been important to him.
He lowered his hand, knowing he couldn’t kill him. But they would never be friends again. “Get the hell out of here. I’m going to get my wife and son back, and I want you and Marjory gone by the time I return.”
He heard a woman’s gasp behind him. He turned to find his sister staring at him. But that wasn’t what distracted him. It was the two people standing beside her.
“We’re right here, Eoin.” The smile on his wife’s face and the way she was looking at him made him wonder how much she’d overheard.
He was stunned. “I thought you left.”
Her mouth curved wryly. She looked down at their son and gave his hand a loving squeeze. “Well, someone reminded me that running away never solved any problems, and that MacDowells are fighters.”
“Even against pigheaded, humorless, too-smart-for-their-own-good horses’ backsides,” Eachann said proudly.
Margaret gasped, looking down at her son in horror. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.” She gave Eoin an embarrassed shrug. “I was talking to myself.”
Relief and an outpouring of happiness the likes of which he’d never felt swelled over him. He grinned. “Obviously louder than you realized.”
So focused on his wife, Eoin didn’t see the threat until too late. Beaten and bloodied, Fin lunged toward Margaret.
A flash of silver flickered in the torchlight.
Oh God, he had a blade!
Eoin cried out a warning, but it was too late. Fin snaked his arm around her waist and held the blade to her throat. “You already robbed me of a son, now I’m being cast out—”
Fin’s words were cut off as his eyes widened in horror. A moment later he dropped to the ground, landing with a deadly thud. Only then did Eoin see the hilt of his sister’s eating knife sticking from the back of his neck.
29
IT WAS EVENING before Margaret had a chance to speak with Eoin alone. He had to tend to his shocked and traumatized sister, while Margaret did her best to ease the fears of their son, who’d nearly witnessed his mother’s death before seeing his aunt’s killing of his uncle.
She knew it would be some time before the events of the day were forgotten, but warm milk, a butter cake with sugar and cinnamon, and lots of hugs had gone a long way to soothe the boy’s distress. Eachann was sleeping peacefully by the time Eoin entered their chamber.
A look in the direction of the antechamber was his first question.
“He’ll be fine,” Margaret answered. “I’m not sure he understood exactly what was happening. Frankly, neither did I.”
Eoin looked exhausted, wearily removing his weapons and tossing his cotun on a bench before sitting down on the edge of the bed opposite her chair before the brazier. “How much did you hear?”
“Enough to know that you were coming for me.” She looked over at him, her eyes wide in the firelight. “You realized I was telling the truth?”
“If I had been thinking rationally, I would have realized it earlier. But thinking rationally and you have never gone very well together.” He explained what had happened when he’d reached Dunstaffnage and Fin’s part in it.
“How is Marjory?”
Eoin shrugged. “In shock, which is to be expected. But I think it is something of a relief. She understood the depths of Fin’s resentment and bitterness better than we did. She lived with it every day and wasn’t surprised that it manifested in violence. I still thought of him as the friend I fostered with, but the war, time, and disappointments had shaped him into a different person.”
“I can’t believe he hated me that much.” She repressed a shiver, and then frowned, recalling what he’d said to her. “What did he mean, I robbed him of a son?”
“I think he must have put some of the blame for his failure to have a child on your knee.”
“Yet he told Marjory she was barren.” She bit her lip. “Do you think it’s true?”
“I suspect it was more in his head than in reality. I think you were an easy target for his rage.”
“He blamed me for coming between you.”
He acknowledged the truth with a nod. “Which was wrong, as we would have grown apart anyway.”
She gave him a long look, arching a brow. “Because of the Phantoms?”
Eoin’s mouth twisted. “You heard that, did you?”
“Is that why you never told me what you were doing? Are you really part of Bruce’s infamous Phantoms?”
He heaved a heavy sigh. “I made a vow of silence. It wasn’t just me I was protecting but the others as well. But I was planning to tell you after I spoke to Bruce.”
It was the piece of the puzzle that finally made everything fit together. This was the big secret he’d been keeping from her. No wonder.
“The men at camp. The ones I asked you about.” He didn’t confirm or deny, but she’d already guessed. “I knew there was something strange about all of you! But I never imagined you—” She stopped, staring at him accusingly. “I should have known you would sign up for the most dangerous job. No doubt you’ve been right in the forefront of everything. You could have been killed. I should be furious with you. But . . .” She looked up at him, her eyes suddenly filling with emotion.
He tipped her chin with the back of his finger, tilting her face to his. “But?”
“But I’m very proud of you.”
He smiled broadly—and a little too smugly. “You are?”
She shoved his chest. “You don’t need to look so pleased with yourself. I didn’t say I forgive you.”
He took her hand and lifted it to his mouth, pressing her fingertips to his lips in a timeless romantic gesture. “But will you?” He held her gaze to his. “I’m sorry, Maggie. I should have known that no matter how bad it looked, you wouldn’t betray my confidence. I did know, but it just took me a little while to realize it.”
She nodded. “I think I can see now why you felt you had to keep me in the dark. It is dangerous.” She thought about it a minute. “I guess I’ll just have to trust you to talk about what you can with me. It was never about the details. It was about being a part of your life and feeling like I mattered.”
He looked floored. “Of course you mattered. You were all I thought about, you were what I was fighting to get home to, you were what kept me from sinking into the darkness of war. Without you nothing else mattered.” She must have shown her skepticism because he laughed. “If you don’t believe me, ask Lamont. He can attest to my less-than-sunny disposition the past six years. Without you”—he paused—“the world was darker. You were my light.”
She smiled. “That’s sweet.”
He looked appalled and glanced around, as if worried someone might have overheard. “God, Maggie, don’t say things like that—especially around Hawk.”
“Who?”
He didn’t hesitate. “MacSorley.”
She understood. “War names! Do you have one, too?”
“Striker.”
She recalled the words on his arm. Just something some friends and I . . . “The tattoo?”
He nodded and changed the subject. “What made you decide to come back?”
Her mouth quirked. “I think Eachann has come to like it here. He didn’t want to go, and I realized when I thought about it that neither did I.” She paused. “I didn’t want to keep making the same mistakes, and I intended to come back here and knock some sense into that supposedly brilliant mind of yours.”
“Not always. Remember, I told you once when it came to yo
u I wasn’t smart at all.”
Their eyes met, remembering that day long ago when they’d fallen in love, married, and consummated that love (not necessarily in that order) all in one rainy afternoon. She smiled up at him through watery eyes. “I wish it hadn’t taken seven and a half years to figure it all out.”
He drew her into his arms. “Me, too. But we have a lifetime to make up for it.” He grinned. “Starting right now.”
She smiled, letting him carry her to the bed. “Maybe you’re pretty smart after all.”
EPILOGUE
Garthland Castle, Galloway, February 15, 1315
EOIN DIDN’T WANT to be here. The memories were too sharp, the pain too fresh, the ghosts too vivid. Eight years wasn’t long enough to forget. Hell, a lifetime wouldn’t be long enough to forget. But he knew how important it was to Maggie to come home, so he’d agreed to return to the place of so much death and despair.
He gazed down at the fiery-haired bundle in his arms and felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude. He was damned lucky, and all he had to do was look at the faces of his family to remind him. Margaret’s, his now seven-year-old son’s, or the fifteen-month-old redheaded cherub’s in his arms who, if her toddlerhood was anything to judge by, just might be the death of him in a few years.
“Here you are,” Margaret said, coming into the room behind him. “I should have guessed.” She bent over, her own fiery locks tumbling over her shoulder. She’d dispensed with the veil and was much more the unabashed, take-no-prisoners young girl he remembered. “She looks so sweet when she’s sleeping, doesn’t she?” she whispered softly. Their eyes met, and she grinned. “Almost makes you forget what she’s like the rest of the time.”
He grimaced. “Almost. The little tyrant threw one of the chess pieces out the tower window again this morning.”
Margaret attempted to hide her grin—unsuccessfully. “Let me guess? The bishop again? She shows an appalling lack of respect for your game.”
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