The Groom Wore Plaid

by Gayle Callen

  Maggie stared at Owen lying unconscious on his stomach, Fergus helping the physician cut the garments from Owen’s back. Owen had sent for the physician because of her dream, as if he honestly believed her. She didn’t realize she was crying until Harold pressed a handkerchief into her hand.

  “Ye shouldn’t be here, lass,” he said.

  “I won’t leave him.”

  He couldn’t die—God wouldn’t allow him to die, not when Owen had just proven that he trusted her.

  She and Harold stood arm-in-arm for a moment, watching, and Harold spoke thickly, “I couldn’t find the words to tell him how impressed I was about his studies, how seriously he took them, how he wanted to help his clan.”

  “Ye can tell him when he wakes up,” Maggie insisted.

  Fergus was lighting candles and lanterns all about the room. Harold suddenly left her and bent to something on the floor. Maggie couldn’t look, worried the pool of darkening blood would make her even more nauseous than she’d been these last few mornings with their babe.

  Their babe.

  Harold rose slowly to his feet, then turned a ferocious look on Maggie, holding out items in his hand. “This is a McCallum dirk. I recognize the pattern on the hilt.”

  She stared at it, blinking. “I—I—” Why would a member of her clan want her husband dead? It didn’t make sense.

  “And this letter. ’Tis from your own hand,” Harold accused.

  His expression grew so ugly she recoiled. “My hand? Let me see it.”

  He wouldn’t let her hold it, as if she might rip it to pieces. She felt cold and prickly inside, like something terrible was beginning to happen. But she forced herself to study the letter, then raised her head and said with conviction. “I didn’t write that.”

  Harold scoffed without words at her protest, their shared worry for Owen gone as he looked at her with disdain.

  Someone had forged her writing before, to scare her. This time it implicated her. But Gregor was still confined—her brother had checked just before the wedding. Had Gregor been innocent all along, with the true villain waiting for them to relax their guard? Or was there a second conspirator?

  “Why would I lure Owen here to hurt him?” she demanded, knowing her future depended on convincing the Duff war chief of her innocence. “I love him, I married him.”

  “Ye’re a McCallum forced to marry him,” Harold responded coldly. “Owen told me about your reluctance—he even laughed about it, as if he thought your protests amusing.”

  She flinched, but knew Owen might have displayed such pride when she first refused to marry him.

  “And what is this?” Harold demanded.

  Without releasing her arm, he bent and picked up something that had been next to the puddle of blood. He held it up, and Maggie could see a broken hair comb. Recognizing it, she felt for the one in her hair, but it was gone.

  “Is it yours?” he demanded.

  “I don’t know. If it is, I was here with Owen—it could have fallen off as I lifted him so you could see to his back.”

  Harold seemed to grind his teeth together, but he said nothing more. She met his gaze defiantly, with conviction.

  He pushed her toward Fergus. “Take her to her chamber and keep her there.”

  “I’m not leaving Owen,” she cried, ducking Fergus and stepping closer to the bed. “You can watch over me, Fergus, but I can’t leave him. I won’t leave him.” Her voice broke.

  The physician eyed her briefly, then returned to his work with a needle, while Mrs. Robertson dabbed at the blood to keep the wound visible. Maggie hadn’t even seen the woman enter, but at least she gave Maggie a reassuring look, as if now that Maggie had won her good regard, she could not so easily lose it.

  Maggie turned back to Harold. “Do ye not think it suspicious that all this time, someone seemed determined to hurt me, that they even shot at me—I didn’t shoot myself!—and now I’m suddenly a suspect in Owen’s attack?”

  “Ye could have accomplices,” Harold said woodenly. “And perhaps your accomplice was trying to shoot Owen, not you. It will all be discussed when he awakens.”

  “And he’ll confirm I’m telling the truth,” she insisted.

  Fergus stood beside her, obviously hesitant to touch her.

  Harold let out a breath. “Very well, remain here, and Fergus, make sure she stays in that chair.” He pointed to one beside the bed.

  Maggie obediently sat down in it.

  “I’m going to see to the McCallums,” Harold told Fergus.

  “What do you mean?” Maggie started to rise, but Fergus put a hand on her shoulder and kept her there.

  “I’m going to put your family under guard in their rooms—for their own protection,” Harold pointed out. “If people believe ye did this—”

  “And they only will if ye insist on telling them such a ridiculous story,” Maggie said.

  “Regardless, when people are angry and afraid, they turn on those they’ve long regarded as the enemy.”

  “Are ye speaking of your own actions?” she asked coldly.

  Harold eyed her, then spoke more evenly. “I’m following the clues, the McCallum dirk, the letter in your own hand—”

  “It’s not my hand,” she insisted.

  “People could well believe that now that ye have Owen’s trust and his money, you, a McCallum, want him dead. And before he lost consciousness, Owen said his assailant was a woman.”

  “He did?” Maggie said in surprise. “Ye didn’t say that before.” A woman?

  Then Owen groaned, and she couldn’t think about anything else. She leaned forward to take his hand, where it hung off the end of the bed. “Doctor?” she said tentatively.

  The older man straightened from where he’d been washing his hands in a basin. He had kind eyes above a stern gray beard.

  “I don’t believe the dirk penetrated any major organs,” the physician said, glancing from her to Harold. “If the wound doesn’t inflame, he should live.”

  Maggie let out a shaky breath and said quietly to Owen, “Did ye hear that? Ye’re going to live. But ye’ve got to fight, Owen. Ye have to fight for our babe.”

  She didn’t know if he heard her; he didn’t squeeze her hand, but she wanted to believe that his fingers moved just a little within hers. And with this small bit of hope, she began to think about who could have done this.

  OWEN slowly opened his eyes, the throbbing of his head inducing nausea. He closed his eyes to control himself, then tried again. The first face he saw was Maggie’s, relaxed in sleep but for the frown line between her eyes. She slumped on a chair, her hand resting on the bed next to him. Maggie. His wife.

  He was awake, he was alive, and lying on his stomach. He mentally moved through the aches in his body, knowing his head hurt, and then lower, where pain stabbed him in the back when he tried to turn.

  And then he remembered actually being stabbed.

  “Owen, lad?”

  At his uncle’s voice, Maggie jerked upright, her gaze going right to Owen. He watched hope suffuse her expression, saw tears of gladness shine in her eyes.

  “Owen, oh, Owen,” she whispered, reaching to touch his forehead.

  To Owen’s surprise, Fergus grabbed her arm and pulled it away. He frowned up at his bodyguard. “What is going on?” he demanded, his voice a croak. He cleared his throat. “Fergus, release your countess.”

  Instead of listening to him, Fergus shot a glance at Harold, who gave a short nod.

  Maggie dropped to her knees beside the bed and touched his face. “Owen, ye made it through the night. I was so afraid. Ye’re warm, but not overly feverish. How do ye feel?”

  “Like I’ve been trampled by a horse,” he grumbled. He lowered his voice. “What is going on?”

  “What is going on,” Harold began, “is that ye claimed a woman attacked ye, and I found a McCallum dirk beside ye and a note from Maggie insisting that ye meet her in your room.”

  “Uncle,” Owen began.

&nb
sp; Harold put up a hand. “A maid even saw Maggie rushing from the room before ye were found.”

  “I was rushing toward the woman room,” Maggie insisted tiredly. “Ye pass this door to reach it. I was told there was a disturbance there, and obviously I’d only been lured from the great hall. No one was there at all. When I came back, I saw ye lying in a pool of blood, just like . . .” She trailed off, and this time, twin tears fell slowly down her cheeks. She leaned forward then, kissed his hand, and whispered, “But ye’d sent for the physician, Owen. Ye believed me.”

  Owen hadn’t been able to get her conviction about her dreams out of his mind. He’d told himself he was only sending for the physician as a precaution. Apparently, he’d help save his own life, he thought wryly. Nay, Maggie had saved his life. She’d been trying to save it all along. He smiled at her, and she smiled back. He didn’t know what sort of gift she had, but he could not deny the truth of it. And that realization suddenly overwhelmed him, as he thought of all the ways he’d denied her, humiliated her, subjugated his own conscience. But he couldn’t let himself think of that now, not when she was still in danger.

  Maggie didn’t look at Harold, only continued to run her hand through Owen’s hair. When he winced, she cried out.

  “Oh, ye have a bump, Owen,” she said with worry. “Ye were hit from behind.”

  Owen slowly unfolded the fingers of his left hand, still clenched together. “I caught her hair.”

  It was not the dark brown of Maggie’s, but reddish blond.

  Maggie didn’t look surprised, but sad and worried. “I’ve been thinking, Owen, and I believe we were considering the wrong sibling. Kathleen was the one who lured me from the hall. She had easy access to my handwriting.”

  “She’s the one who gave me the letter from ye,” Owen said. “And Uncle, when ye speak to Kathleen, have her show ye her ankle. I caught it hard, and there’d be a bruise.”

  Without Owen even making a suggestion, Maggie lifted her skirts to reveal her delicate, unblemished ankles. “Do ye think she’s been working with her brother from the beginning?”

  Owen shrugged, then grimaced at the shot of pain. “We won’t know until we question them both.”

  “They wanted to incite clan warfare,” Maggie said grimly. “If ye’d believed I tried to kill ye, ye might have imprisoned my brother, and the McCallums would have come in force.” She shuddered. “There’d be no end to the feud. I still need to know why!”

  “I’ll find the lass and bring her here,” Harold said, nodding to Owen as he left the room.

  Fergus backed toward the door and stood there, looking abashed. “My lady,” he began.

  “It’s all right, Fergus,” she said. “Ye were protecting my husband. Now could ye send someone to fetch broth for our patient, and also send word to my family that I am well and will come to see them soon? I do agree with Harold, that they should remain secluded until we’ve apprehended the right person.”

  She glanced at Owen, who smiled before closing his eyes. He liked the sound of her giving orders with such confidence and pride. He found himself gradually drifting into a doze, still feeling her hand resting on his.

  When the door opened, he simply listened and trusted Maggie to deal with anything.

  Harold said, “I found Mrs. Robertson unconscious and Kathleen gone.”

  Maggie gasped and Owen opened his eyes.

  “Oh, that poor woman,” she said. “Will she be all right?”

  “After a few minutes, I was able to awaken her,” Harold said. “She showed me the writing paper, ink, and pen she’d found in Kathleen’s things before the wedding, assumed they were stolen, and was going to report it to ye afterwards.”

  “We don’t know where Kathleen is now?” Maggie asked.

  “I’m searching the castle.”

  Nodding, Maggie turned to Owen. “Would ye mind if I go to my family? They’ll be frantic with worry.”

  Though he tried to remain awake, their voices began to fade away. Something was wrong—he could tell by Maggie’s voice, by . . . something. But he couldn’t stop the long slide his consciousness seemed to take down a deep well.

  Maggie, don’t go.

  CHAPTER 21

  Maggie did not go to her family’s rooms, but grabbed a cloak to disguise herself. Now that word had been given to search for Kathleen, it was easy enough to take the servants’ staircase at the rear of the towerhouse and no one bothered her. Once she was in the courtyard, still awash in the gray shadows of dawn, she went to the barracks, where Gregor was being confined in his own room.

  A guard nodded respectfully to her, and she was able to gesture him farther down the hall, so she could speak in private to Gregor. A little slot had been cut into the door, probably for ease of passing in trays of food, and she opened it.

  When Gregor saw her, he came nearer at once, then raised both hands when she stiffened.

  “I mean ye no harm, mistress, but somethin’ is terribly wrong with Kathleen.”

  She almost gaped at him. “What are ye saying?”

  Gregor rubbed his hands over his unshaven face. “I don’t know what to do. I know I’ve made no friend of ye, but if I send the guards, somethin’ worse will happen to Kathleen, I know it. She’s the only sister I have left, but she looked . . . wild when she came to me. Go after her, mistress. She said somethin’ crazy, that her task was complete and there would never be peace. I fear she’s goin’ to harm herself.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “The loch. She talked about water like it would ease her soul. Please, mistress!”

  Maggie motioned to the guard to return, then ran back down the stairs and out into the courtyard. She saw that the gates remained open, that everyone still assumed that with Gregor confined, and with the wedding banquet guests going to and fro between the castle and village, there’d been no need to close down the defenses.

  Maggie slipped through the gatehouse and across the stone bridge. The sun had yet to rise above the mountains, and tendrils of fog hovered over the moat and curled down the road she followed. It was an ominous sign, she thought, shivering.

  She walked as quickly as she could, but it still took what had to be a quarter of an hour before she reached the loch, where the fog seemed to hover over the surface in patches.

  In the distance, she saw the boat still moored, and a lone woman setting something inside. Her light reddish blond hair stuck out against the darkness of her gown. Maggie knew she couldn’t get there in time, but began to run anyway.

  It was too late; Kathleen pushed away from rocky edge with an oar and began to row. By the time Maggie reached the water, Kathleen’s boat was at least twenty yards from shore, with fog draping around it. If Maggie tried to swim, she’d only sink with all the clothing she was wearing.

  “Come back, Kathleen! Gregor is so worried about ye!”

  To Maggie’s horror, Kathleen picked up a rock and tucked it down inside her loose bodice, wearing a satisfied and calm smile all the while. Gregor had been right about his sister’s plans. Maggie raced to the other boats, only to find holes bashed in them. Maggie had been in such a rush to confront the woman before she could get away, so worried she’d be stopped, that only Gregor knew her plans. Would he send help—and would it be on time? Once again, she’d acted without enough forethought, just as Owen had accused her.

  “Kathleen, talk to me. Tell me what happened and why ye’re so angry with me.”

  “I didn’t want to be angry with ye,” Kathleen said, her tone casual and almost chatty, even as she put another rock in her bodice. “Ye were just a victim of this foolish contract between two old men. At first Gregor thought we could make everyone angry with ye. I was willin’ to let him try. I even helped. Remember that ball gown during the welcomin’ banquet? Och, I knew ye’d make a bad impression in such finery.”

  Maggie well remembered how she’d felt, looking so fancy when most were hardworking simple clansmen.

  “But Himself—he was ag
og with that gown, and I was angry, even though ye were puttin’ off marriage and my plan was workin’. Ye should have been frightened off by that talisman. But then ye started diggin’ into my brother’s past, hurtin’ him. Ye started to fall in love with his lordship, and I knew ye’d eventually give in and marry him. I couldn’t have that,” she explained, her eyes wide with sincerity. “It took me some time to realize I couldn’t just kill ye—although I did try. I was so angry when ye went to my aunt. And then I realized how much better it would be if I made it look like ye killed his lordship. It would ruin ye and yer clan.”

  “But why, Kathleen?” Maggie hoped by keeping her talking, someone would come by soon and be able to help. Yet the boat was drifting farther away every moment, the fog’s eerie tendrils wrapping themselves around Kathleen’s skirt now, moving higher, as if it would soon take her for its own. “Why do ye hate McCallums so much? Ye spent most of your life away from Scotland.”

  Kathleen’s eyes suddenly seemed to blaze, and the hatred in her voice sent Maggie back a step. “The McCallums are the reason we lost everythin’! Ye stole my father’s cattle, made him lose our cottage, our land.”

  Maggie knew what kind of a man her father had been—if he’d ordered cattle thieving, it would have happened. It also could have been in retaliation for reiving by the Duffs. There was no way to know the truth. But Kathleen wouldn’t care about the truth, not anymore.

  “I could have killed ye any time,” Kathleen continued, her voice back into that awful singsong sound, “but I wanted ye to suffer as ye made us suffer. Do ye ken what it’s like to see your brother lose his life’s work? Do ye ken what it’s like to be just a little girl on a big boat to America, with my mother dyin’ beside me? No one found me for hours and I laid there as she got cold, so cold.”

  Her voice trailed off, and her eyes had a wild, faraway look. The boat rocked beneath her, and she flung her arms wide to steady herself.

  Maggie covered her mouth with one hand, horrified by what Kathleen had suffered. It must have changed her, destroyed her.