by Julia London
Margot looked at the men. None of them could look her in the eye, and all of them seemed unduly apprehensive. Was it her? Was she so reviled? She shielded the sun from her eyes with her hand so she could better peer at them. “Is everything all right?”
“Ah...m-m-madam,” Sweeney began.
“Is the laird here?” she asked, pointing to the door.
Sweeney shook his head.
What in blazes was the matter with these men? “Has he gone far?”
“N-no, m-mu’um. He’s training the m-m-men.” Sweeney seemed pleased to be able to offer up this information, at least.
“Well, then. You can take me to him.”
Sweeney’s throat bobbed on a deep swallow. “J-J-Jock, he’ll t-t-take you, aye? We’re to t-t-take your things, that’s all.”
Her things? “What things, Sweeney?”
Sweeney’s face reddened. One of the men behind him jabbed him in the back and muttered something under his breath.
“I think you are mistaken, Mr. Sweeney. Nell is still unpacking my things. You must mean to put my trunk away, is that it?” she asked, her gaze narrowing on the poor man.
Sweeney looked helplessly to the man beside him, but that man was staring at Margot, his expression one of pure dread.
Margot stepped closer. “It would appear there is something I should know,” she said coolly.
Sweeney shook his head and studied his feet.
She shifted her gaze to the young man beside him. He was only sixteen or seventeen years old. “You,” Margot said.
Sweeney pushed the lad forward, and he bobbed his head and fixed his gaze on Margot’s shoulder.
“Perhaps you can tell me what has you all standing about so uneasily?”
He pressed his lips together and shook his head. His gaze slid lower, to her hand, and fixed there.
Margot took a step toward him, dipping down a tiny bit to look in his eyes, but the man would not allow it. “Why did Sweeney say he is to take my things?” she asked, her voice as smooth and as pleasant as she could make it.
The man glanced even farther to the right...to the wall. “I donna know, mu’um.”
“Oh, but I think you do,” she said, stepping even closer. He would have to step back or look at her. He seemed to debate his options and finally looked at her, and when he did, his companions seemed to shuffle away from the poor man, crowding in together, looking at their feet, the sky, each other.
“Tell me what you’ve heard.”
“I donna rightly know, I swear it,” the lad said helplessly. “Only that they said you’re to leave for home, mu’um.”
“But I am home,” she said.
“To England!” he blurted, and winced, as if he expected the heavens would open up and smite him.
Margot’s heart skipped. Arran meant to banish her? She slid her gaze to Sweeney, who could not meet her eye. “Who has said?”
“I d-d-donna rightly kn-know, mu’um,” Sweeney said, twisting his cap in his hand.
Oh no. No, no. Sweeney’s stammering was all the convincing she needed. She tried not to panic. She couldn’t imagine what her father might do if she were sent home within twenty-four hours of arriving at Balhaire. Not to mention that for Arran to send her away so quickly was practically an admission of his guilt, wasn’t it? And furthermore, if it was indeed his intent to banish her, did he not have the courage or decency to tell her himself? Margot’s pulse quickened with anger, vacillating between utter disbelief and scorn.
Her hands found her waist and she stepped up to Sweeney now, so close that she could see the tiny lines around his eyes. “You’d best hope that no one says a word of taking my things to Nell,” she warned him. “She’ll have an apoplectic fit, and if she does, you can pray that the least she will do is snatch the hair from your head, sir. Not a word, do you hear me?”
The four men nodded in unison.
“And now, Mr. Sweeney, you can bring me a horse.”
“A...h-h-h-horse?” Sweeney said with some difficulty.
“Yes, a horse. A large animal with four legs and a tail,” she said, sketching it in the air with her hand.
None of them moved. None of them so much as breathed. She suddenly grabbed Sweeney by the lapels of his coat and gave him a shake. He was much larger than she, so he barely swayed, but his eyes filled with terror all the same. “By God, Sweeney Mackenzie, you’d best fetch me a horse!” she said angrily. “I may be gone tomorrow, but as of this moment, I am still Lady Mackenzie, and you are disobeying me!”
Sweeney gulped.
“Aye, she’s right, she’s right,” one of the young men behind him muttered.
“Uist,” said another. “Have ye lost yer mind, lad? Mackenzie gives us the orders.”
Margot pushed Sweeney aside as best she could, then stepped around him, glaring up at the man. “Are you quite certain about that? Because if there’s even the slightest bit of doubt in you, I’d fetch your lady a horse.”
“Aye, m-m-milady,” Sweeney said. With a glare for his companions, he stalked off in the direction of the stables, leaving the three of them huddled together like so many sheep.
Margot whirled away from them and marched after Sweeney. She might have seized the moment...but Margot guessed these men would probably have a jolly laugh about her in the days to come. They’d tell their children about the time the laird’s wife came back from England and he sent her home straightaway. Ballads would be written about this monumental occasion and the story would grow...but not before she had a word with the man who didn’t have the courage to banish her himself.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THERE WAS AN art to training men for hand-to-hand fighting. It required a balance between distracting one’s opponent and a relentless assault on their defenses. Arran rode slowly around the field, calling out suggestions and warnings, corrections and encouragement as he watched the men go through their paces.
His more experienced men were engaged when he noticed that several of them had stopped fighting and were looking in the direction of Balhaire.
Arran glanced over his shoulder to see what had their attention, half expecting an invading English army. Or a funeral procession. Or a comet. What he did not expect to see was his wife riding astride a bay as if running from a fire. Her gown was hiked up around her knees, and her slippers were in the stirrups. Her hair had come partly undone from her coif, and she had no hat. He recalled that she was not a particularly experienced rider and wondered who had given her this horse.
Arran wheeled his much larger horse around. Son of a devil, what was she doing here? And why the bloody hell had someone not intercepted her?
She reined to an unsteady halt, slipping to one side but somehow managing to keep her saddle. “There you are!” she said with breathless cheerfulness.
“What are you doing here? This is no’ a place for a woman.” For an English buttercup, he meant, as any woman from the Highlands would be quite at ease with a bit of brawling.
“And why not?” Margot asked, leaning over to stroke the horse’s neck. “It’s grown men, punching each other. Nothing untoward in that, is there?”
She said it as if she rather enjoyed a good fight, which he knew could not be further from the truth. Arran looked past her to Balhaire. He expected to see Jock riding after her to corral her like a stray ewe. But no one was coming. Where were his men?
“Splendid day for it, too,” she continued breezily. “A day so splendid that one might expect a man to accompany his wife on a picnic.” She arched a brow.
“A picnic,” he repeated slowly. He was fairly certain that was the first time in his life he’d ever uttered that word aloud.
“Or...or if not a picnic, then perhaps a walk about the gardens. Or an afternoon stroll along the shore. We’ve so much to disc
uss, haven’t we?”
He had never wasted a single day of his life with picnics or strolling gardens. “I’ve work to do,” he said flatly.
“Of course you do!” she said, her smile slow and easy, which he considered to be a practiced bit of women’s sorcery. “You may rest assured I’ve not forgotten your preference for work.”
He tilted his head curiously to one side. “I must be losing my hearing, aye? For when you said work, it sounded a wee bit sharp.”
“Did it? My apologies,” she said with a graceful nod that caused her loose tresses to fall into her face. “But I thought perhaps that as I have only just returned, we might enjoy one another’s company today. Don’t you want to talk? Haven’t you anything you’d like to say?”
A cough behind Arran reminded him that they had an audience. He tried not to squirm in his saddle; he could think of nothing more undignified than squabbling with his wife in front of his men, but he could see from the high color in Margot’s cheeks that it was a definite possibility.
“Madam, I—”
“I thought we might, mind you, but then I heard the most distressing news.”
He sighed.
“Would you like to know what I heard? I heard that you would like me to return to England.”
Arran opened his mouth, but she interrupted him before he could speak by raising a slender finger.
“Actually,” she said, “what I heard is that you are sending me back to England. That rather makes it sound more like a fait accompli, doesn’t it? A banishment of sorts. But as I said to the poor man who finally admitted this awful rumor, it couldn’t possibly be true, because if it were, you would tell me yourself. Is that not so?” She smiled fully then, quite prettily, too. Except that her eyes were staring daggers at him.
Arran groaned. He glanced over his shoulder. He had the rapt attention of a dozen men. “All right, carry on, then,” he snapped. “Do none of you have wives?” He leaned down to grab the bridle of Margot’s horse. He wheeled the beast about, pointing it in the direction of Balhaire. “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded as they pulled away from the group.
“Asking a legitimate question.”
“Have you lost your mind, then? Riding down here on a horse you can scarcely control to interrupt the training?”
“I can control it! Perhaps it was a bit rash, but you can imagine how confused I was. I will admit, in the spirit of complete honesty between us, that I was quite hurt you could think to banish me away after last night. I know you are displeased with me, Arran—”
“Displeased?” he echoed incredulously.
“But surely even your heart is not so hard that it can turn me away after I have humbled myself and we have come together as husband and wife again.” She arched a brow, daring him to contradict her.
“You think my heart is hard?”
“I only mean that you’re not as sentimental as some.”
“For God’s sake, woman—whatever this is about, whatever you mean to do here, I’ve no’ the time or the patience for it, aye? I canna guess what’s brought you back so suddenly after a three-year absence, but it’s no’ for good or any other reason you claim.”
“But it is!” she insisted, pressing a hand to her heart. “I mean only to be a good wife.”
“You made that choice three years ago, did you no’?”
“That’s not true!” she cried, loud enough for the men to hear. Arran spurred his horse forward, forcing her smaller one to come along, moving them out of earshot of the men.
“All right, of course I understand why you might have come to that conclusion,” she said, suddenly agreeing with him as she clung to her horse. “I did make a wretchedly uninformed choice when I left.”
He snorted.
“But on my life, it was a mistake! A horrible, wretched, awful mistake, and I am terribly sorry for it now. I am desperate to make amends! Won’t you at least allow me to try? Did last night mean nothing to you?” she asked, reaching for his gloved hand.
God, how he wished she wouldn’t touch him. He was weaker when she touched him, and he yanked his hand free. “Bedding a beautiful woman doesna change the fact that I canna believe a word that falls from your lips. There is no reason you’d come back to me now, save some abominable purpose that I donna care to know.”
Margot looked stricken. “Abominable!” she repeated, making the word sound far more vile than he’d intended. “I’ll tell you what is abominable, sir! Banishing me without even bothering to say goodbye—that is abominable! Having a change of heart for the good most certainly is not abominable.”
“You say change of heart. I say duplicity,” he said with a flick of his wrist. “Alas, we’ll never know which it is, will we, for I donna intend to play along with your charade, Margot. Fare thee well, wife. Give Norwood my compliments.” He let go of her horse and moved to slap its rump, sending it back to its oat bag.
But Margot suddenly lunged for him. It startled Arran, and he surged forward, catching her before she fell between the two horses and was crushed. He caught her under the arm and hauled her up, but the horses began to shift and move, and he had to drag her onto his horse to keep her from falling. “Diah, what are you thinking?” he demanded roughly. “You might have been trampled!”
Margot made a sound of despair and threw her arms around his neck. “Was last night just a dream? Will you really send me away when I’ve bared my heart to you?”
He tried to dislodge her arms from his neck. “You bared your body, no’ your wretched heart.”
“Let me prove it to you,” she said quickly, and turned her head to kiss his cheek. “Please, Arran—I’ll prove it to you.”
“Prove what?” he asked with great exasperation as she kissed the skin of his neck just above his collar, sending a white-hot shock through him.
“That I’ve come back to repair our broken marriage. To begin again! We can start anew, we can, because I’ve changed. I swear to you that I have.” She kissed his cheek again. And his jaw. And his ear.
“Donna kiss me again,” he said sharply. He was already distracted, already losing his ability to focus on the words she was saying, and managed to push her back so that she could not kiss him. “Why should I believe you’ve changed? On what grounds? For what reason?” He roughly cupped her face. “Why in God’s name would I believe a word you utter, then? You made a bloody fool of me, Margot. You rejected my clan. You despised my professions and my occupations. You complained there was no society for you here. But this is where I live. I am the laird here. I do as a laird does, and I always will. That will never change, and neither will you. I donna trust you, aye? I will never trust you.”
She paled. Her arms slid from his neck. “I know you don’t trust me,” she admitted dolefully. “How could you? But I’m not the girl I was then. I want to show you I’ve changed.”
He snorted.
“And I want a child.”
The moment she said those words aloud, she looked as if she wanted to gulp them back. Arran’s gaze narrowed skeptically on her. “You would use that to persuade me?” he asked scornfully. She knew his desire to have a child; she knew it very well. She knew his disappointment each month when her courses came. And he knew her happiness that they had.
“Please don’t look at me like that,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment. “I do want a child. I want to be a mother. I want to be a wife. I was too young before. I was too naive. But you are my husband, and you need an heir, and I want a child of my own.”
She had just said the one thing that could cement her hold on him—she wanted his child. More than anything he wanted children, squads of them, hanging from rafters, filling the old bailey and bouncing on his bed. He would give everything he had to his children. Could she ever understand how difficult it had been for him after she’
d left to suppress his own needs so that he’d not bring an illegitimate child into this clan? Could she understand how, if she were to give him a child, he would live every waking moment fearing she would flee once again with that child?
But Arran saw something in her green eyes in that moment. It was the same thing he’d seen last night—the sorrow.
He glared at her, furious with her.
“Please don’t banish me,” she whispered.
He curled his hand into a fist and held it tight against his thigh. “All right, then,” he said, slowly nodding. “Prove to me that you want to be my wife, Margot. No’ the wife of some English dandy, mind you, but my wife. A woman who is no’ afraid of feast or famine, of toil, of trouble. A Highlander’s wife. And you a Scot. Can you be that wife to me?”
“Yes!” she said. But the confidence in her voice belied the look of alarm in her eyes, and for that, he had to endeavor to suppress a wee bitter smile.
CHAPTER NINE
MARGOT HADN’T BEEN at Balhaire even twenty-four hours, and she’d already made a shamble of things. Mostly by lying to Arran after he’d expressly warned her against it.
A child, she’d said!
It wasn’t a complete lie, because Margot truly wanted children. But that was not why she’d come back, and frankly, she could think of nothing worse than conceiving a child with a traitor to the crown. Unfortunately, her pride had gotten the best of her, and she’d said a desperate thing in a desperate moment.
God, but this was confusing—now she had to prove to Arran she wanted to be a good wife? As if she were one of a dozen debutantes vying for his hand?
Oh, but the charade would begin in earnest tomorrow night, apparently. He’d delighted in telling her that in honor of her change of heart, there ought to be a gathering with singing and dancing to celebrate her return to the clan’s fold. And then he’d sent a lad running up to the castle to inform Fergus of it.
“A splendid idea!” Margot had exclaimed with false cheer, and Arran, damn him, had knowingly smiled with the pleasure of having riled her.
