“What else do you expect the daughter of a laird to wear?” she asked, and Alexander had taken the question as rhetorical until, when he looked at her, he noticed a sort of softness to her expression that made him wonder if the question was not said out of scorn, but rather genuine curiosity. Before he had fully realized it, though, and come up with a suitable answer, she left the room in search of Ann.
That same look of curiosity was on her face again now as she asked him about Rob. Alexander examined it, hoping to memorize each of her expressions so that he could identify them without pause in the future. If her words never would reveal the truth of her soul, he would have to rely on the flashing expressions that slipped through the fog of unknowing that she had put between them.
“Everything that comes out of Rob Fraser’s mouth is a strange thing to say,” Alexander answered as he mounted his horse. “Are you ready to leave?”
“Aye,” Margaret replied, casting one look back at the house, her gaze moving up to a window, where two young girls stared down at them.
“Who…” Alexander started, though he stopped when Margaret turned back to him, her face pale and mortified.
“Oh, them? They are nobody. Well, they are the ones that braided my hair this morning,” Margaret rushed to say, her fingers reaching to curl around a lock of copper waves, as she seemed to do so often, but finding none free from the very braid she was describing. “I’m sure they just are hoping to see if their work is holding up. Shall we go?”
Alexander nodded slowly, eyeing his new bride. There was something else there, hidden beneath the surface that she was trying so desperately to hide from him. He wanted to push into her now, to rip the truth away so he could have some peace and understanding for once, but he let the matter drop, turning away to whistle down the line of carts to signal their departure instead. Prying away her defenses and forcing himself inside would only hurt her. He could only hope that with time, and a bit of patience, she would one day open her gates to him.
As the party rode away from Braemore, Alexander did his best to keep them moving at a quick pace. It would take them two days to get back to Dirlot, even with the carts heavily weighed down with Margaret’s, and a bit of Ann’s, things. While this made the trip as a whole a fairly simple affair, it would be far more challenging to cross far enough into Mackay lands before nightfall, where the whole party could camp safely. He did not doubt that Laird Gunn would be reining in the men he usually sent at Mackay travelers with alacrity, but that was not enough to comfort Alexander and his men after so many years of nighttime attacks and murdered friends.
So, while Alexander rushed up and down the line of riders and carts, ensuring that all were keeping a steady pace, he found it nearly impossible to maintain any sort of conversation with Margaret. Thankfully, his brother Jonah rode beside her and Ann. Jonah had always been high-spirited and excitable. With his shaggy blond hair that always looked unkempt, and his wide, dazzling smile that so often showed off his dimples, he so rarely ran into any consequences for being a bit too eager in a conversation. This meant that today, while the party rode along, Jonah was able to barrage both Margaret and Ann with endless questions, each more outlandish than the last, without either of them hesitating to answer. Alexander was of half a mind to lecture his brother on proper decorum in holding a conversation, but he was far too appreciative of being able to return to the group just as a new question was being asked, meaning he had a chance at participating in the conversation.
Of course, after a few hours of travel, he realized that even when given an opportunity to participate in the conversation, he was incredibly unable to focus on most of what was being said. Whenever Margaret was answering whatever inane question had come to Jonah’s mind, such as her favorite season or color of hair ribbon, he found himself paying more attention to the way her lips formed the words than to the words themselves as subtle flashes to the night before kept coming to him.
He had gone into her room last night with the intention of being patient, to leave her be until he knew more of who she was, as well as her level of comfort with him. But then she kissed him, pushing aside his sense with nothing more than the feel of her pink lips against his. From there, though, he had taken it too far, and he felt that she had been perfectly within her rights to push him away. It would have been better, though, not to know the feel of her if he was going to continue to resist. Because now all he could think about was the firmness of her skin beneath his fingers, and how desperately he wanted to discover her softer places.
Blood was pulsing beneath him, and he quickly set his hand over himself to conceal his arousal. If she looked over at him now, while he was in this state, and caught his eye, he would have no choice but to throw her from her horse and take her then and there. And then who would he be to lecture his brother about proper decorum?
“What about this then, ladies… what is something guaranteed to make you shed a tear?”
“Shed a tear?” Ann asked, raising an eyebrow. “An unusual question with an answer that I canna imagine gives ye much understanding of us.”
“On the contrary,” Jonah said. “I’ll ken what to do in the future to prevent it, if tis within my power.”
Alexander snorted at his brother’s obvious flirting, but neither Ann nor Margaret seemed to notice.
“Well, then if ye must ken, I always cry when I think of my family and miss their company,” Ann said, allowing Jonah the opportunity to promise her his assistance whenever she wished to go visit them. Ann rejected the offer, saying her family was more likely to disown her than appreciate a visit if she showed up on their doorstep with a Mackay in tow.
While Jonah countered her argument with pouts, pleadings, and his belief that the marriage between Margaret and Alexander superseded such concerns, Alexander turned to Margaret and asked, “And what of you? What should I expect to make you cry?”
“On that point, I must disappoint you. I choose not to cry, ever, due to a vow I made to myself some time ago,” Margaret said firmly, her green eyes flashing with conviction.
“A vow not to cry?” Alexander asked, raising his eyebrow. With her so quick to fall back upon her spoiled nature, he had half expected her to use tears as a weapon against the word no. It was not an uncommon method, and Alexander had known several women who could draw tears faster than he could draw a sword. “But why?”
A melancholic look settled over her expression, reducing the brightness of her face despite the intensity of the afternoon sun. She opened her mouth, as if to speak, but then shut it again while she straightened in her saddle and fixed a new, stern expression on her face. “Crying makes my face awfully red and puffy. Plus, tear streaks always ruin my powder. I would forgive both if more people found tears endearing, but I ken several who find it silly.”
Alexander sighed, wishing he hadn’t pressed for an answer.
“Excuse me, all of you,” Margaret said. “I am going to go to one of the carts so I can fetch a different bonnet. This one is far too hot.”
Alexander watched her fall back. Jonah quickly told Ann to stay with Alexander and to relax, and he fell back to help Margaret with the chore. Ann thanked him before turning her fierce stare upon him, making Alexander shift uncomfortably in his saddle. He was tempted to reach for his sword, for the woman terrified him. Margaret had some sort of strange strength about her, so he could only imagine what Ann, who almost never gave a soft expression and who was significantly larger than his petite wife, could do.
“Tis not the reason, you ken, for her not crying,” Ann said.
“Oh?”
Ann’s gaze shifted back to Margaret, and Alexander couldn’t help but to do the same, watching as she pointed out a trunk to Jonah, who was clambering awkwardly through a cart. Now that she seemed to think no one was looking at her, her look of melancholy was back.
“She does not cry,” Ann said softly, so she could not be overheard, “because the last time she did, she was at the lowest point of her lif
e. She only wanted to rise from there, and so she decided that the next tear she shed would be one of joy.”
Alexander’s eyes flitted back to Ann, examining her face for earnestness. In the woman’s eyes, which were still firmly upon her friend and lady, there was a deep sense of sadness. It would be an unusual response, he decided, if the words were not true. And, in that case, it only deepened the mystery of Margaret Gunn.
“I’m only telling ye, mind ye, because the lass is too foolish to help herself and tell it to ye true on her own,” Ann said.
“What was her lowest point?” Alexander asked after a few moments of quiet, unable to contain himself when he had, perhaps, the one who knew Margaret best in front of him. And, he was starting to realize, Ann wanted him to understand Margaret more than Margaret did.
Ann looked back to him; her face now touched by a small, pained smile. Alexander was sure that she was going to tell him something important when he heard a loud collection of shouts and the crash of metal coming from behind them.
Without hesitation, Alexander yanked on his reins, spinning his horse around and sending it charging down the road. There were men upon them, at least two dozen of them. As Alexander drew his blade, he pulled to a stop beside the cart where Margaret still sat in her horse, wide-eyed and frozen as she watched the attackers descend. Jonah, for his part, jumped from the cart and began racing toward the attackers as soon as Alexander drew near.
“Margaret,” he said, grabbing her chin and gently pulling her to face him rather than the chaos. “Go back to Ann and hide beneath one of the carts.”
He waited for her to nod and dig her heels into her horse before he did the same, galloping off in the opposite direction.
The Mackay brothers had only brought ten men along with them, meaning they were half the force of the aggressors. This made Alexander grin, for that meant that this would be a damn good fight, and he hadn’t had one of those in a long time.
Alexander jumped from the back of his horse once in the thick of the fighting, tucking his chin in and rolling before regaining his footing and immediately arching his short-sword through the air, slicing through the stomach of a man who had swung an axe up into the air with the intention of killing one of Alexander’s own. The man on the ground thanked him while scrambling to his feet and adjusting his armor with nervous fear.
“Donna thank me yet,” Alexander said, standing and turning himself just as a sword came flying toward him, blocking the blow with a grunt.
With a few slashes blocked and parried, Alexander quickly gained the upper hand, pressing the man back a few paces before he raised his sword and dealt a blow so strong that it knocked aside the other man’s block. Alexander let his sword descend again, and this time it cut through flesh and bone and a filthy old piece of Campbell tartan.
Alexander froze, spinning back to the last man he felled. That man was wearing Stewart tartan. A man in front of him, dressed in Sutherland tartan, was pressing into Jonah. Alexander rushed forward and thrust his sword through his back. When he pulled the sword from the man, flicking the blade down to rid it of some of the blood, he took a moment to scan the field.
None of the tartans match, he thought to himself before he began to wonder about the reason behind it. None of the tartans were in good condition, meaning they had probably been discarded by their actual owners. But why had outlaws, most of whom always acted on behalf of their Laird Gunn and dressed in appropriately styled tartan, gone through the trouble of concealing their identities?
Had Laird Gunn ordered the change so as to conceal his involvement? Or, worse, had he lost control of his own men?
Alexander debated the possibilities as he fought on, cutting back man after man until the odds tipped in the Mackays’ favor. And then, almost as soon as the fight had started, the mismatched attackers let up a yell and retreated, sprinting back to the cover of the trees.
Alexander raced after them, hoping to capture at least one for questioning. But the grass off this side of the road was tall and unruly, catching one of his feet and forcing him to stumble.
Thud, thud.
A pair of arrows landed only an inch before his toe. If he hadn’t stumbled and been slowed, they would have each been a perfect shot.
“Stop!” Alexander said, grabbing the next man who had gone running for the trees. They wouldn’t be able to cross the expanse between them and the trees under the fire of multiple archers.
But outlaws almost never left covering fire in the trees. They also never dared to attack in daylight like this, not unless it was a fight that they knew they would win with ease. They couldn’t have imagined that attacking a caravan composed of trained Mackay warriors would be any such situation, even with their superior numbers.
“That was odd,” Jonah said, in a way that Alexander thought was a particularly grave understatement.
“Aye. Tis as if they were planning on a retreat, and the attack was only a…” Alexander stopped and turned back to the caravan.
His feet carried him when his mind was too afraid. He ran to the carts, crouching as he went past them until he found Ann curled up beneath one of them.
“Where is Margaret?”
Ann looked up at him, confused. “One of your men took her.”
“No, all of my men were fighting,” Alexander replied, standing and turning quickly as he searched for any flash of copper hair. But it was to no avail. Margaret was gone.
6
“Unhand me!” Margaret cried for the hundredth time, lifting her elbow up to crack it down on the man’s back. He was wearing Mackay tartan, but that had clearly been a rouse, one she had realized too late.
“Christ, woman, knock it off,” he shouted in return before he stopped and dropped her.
“What’re ye doin’? We canna hurt her,” his partner said, though he contradicted himself by rushing forward to bind Margaret’s arms to her side with a piece of heavy rope before moving to then bind her legs together.
“Even a noble lass needs a good beating now and again,” the first said.
The man tying her, whose pockmarked face was far too close to hers, said, “We’re tryin’ to help you, donna ye ken?”
“Oh yes, this all seems like help to me,” Margaret replied. “The binding has given it away.”
“Tisn’t my feelings that matter,” the first man said, “but yer far bonnier when ye speak less.”
“Apologies, I’ll try to be bonnier when I am next stolen away by outlaws.”
Without another word of reply, the man bent over and slung her back over her shoulder, ignoring her renewed attempts at freeing herself, which could now be nothing more than her wiggling like a fish on a dock. No matter how much Margaret protested, screamed, and wiggled, the men would not say anything further. Only occasionally did they pass any comment between them, and that was usually a remark on whether or not they thought any of the men that they had left behind would return unscathed and, if so, whom.
When the attack had come, Margaret had done her best to follow Alexander’s instructions. But, before she could follow Ann under one of the carts, these men stopped her and told her that it would be better if the two women hid under different carts. Margaret—who had since realized that her father had put too much emphasis on frivolous things in her education, such as business and mathematics, rather than more practical things, such as defensive war tactics—had believed them. But they hadn’t ever let her hide under a cart, for the had grabbed her and made a break for the trees as soon as Ann could no longer see their feet.
The pair carried her through the forest for well over an hour, and the sun had turned the shadows long by the time that she started to hear other voices. Some were in pain, she knew, from the way they grimaced or cried out. Others were jovial, unsympathetic to their friends dying beside them. Margaret did her best to look around from her vantage point, but it was now far too dim in the forest to see anything but the bright light of their campfires cutting through the trees.
&
nbsp; The man carrying her paused for only a second before she heard him grunt and then heard a soft, groaning creek of a door being opened in protest. The man carried her inside the building and then dropped her again. Margaret prepared herself for the sharp contact of the ground, but her landing was soft, and her nose immediately detected the smell of freshly cut hay.
“Where are you going?” Margaret shouted after them, as she watched their silhouettes depart.
They, of course, said nothing.
Margaret was alone, though, for only a second. As soon as her captors disappeared through the doorway, the frame became filled with the bright light of a torch. Margaret blinked her eyes rapidly, trying to get them to adjust, but the man carrying the torch was approaching so quickly that her eyes did not stand a chance of aiding her.
“Stay back,” she shouted, hoping to sound threatening. But her words were only met with a laugh.
“Are ye sure ye wish me to, lass?”
Margaret stopped struggling. She would have known that voice anywhere, even in unexpected places such as this. “Gavin?”
“Aye,” he replied and, now that her eyes were catching up, she began to make out his face in the warm orange light of the torch. He was smiling at her, infuriatingly bright and innocent. “I am so happy to see ye.”
“Then,” she hissed, “untie me.”
Gavin stepped forward, pulling a knife from his belt and slipping it between her arm and torso. With one swift yank, he sliced through the ropes and let them fall into the hay around her.
“Sorry about that. I told them not to be rough on ye.”
“Where the hell are we?” Margaret shouted. There were far more important questions to ask, but this was the only one that she thought may have an answer she could comprehend.
Highlander's Torn Bride (Highlander's Seductive Lasses Book 2) Page 7
