"So why did you allow me to do what I did?" demanded Aidan. "Why did you embrace me so, kiss me just as I kissed you? Or will you tell me now that I forced you?"
She was out of the bed, putting as much distance between them as she could. Aidan was up and after her, his hand closing tightly on her wrist. He couldn't stand to have her away from him just then, couldn't take having her walking away as if she meant to leave him.
"I do what I do for my own reasons, and I do not have to explain them to you. Perhaps I was practicing for my future husband. Are all men as easy to bring down as you?"
He had thought that she would not be able to say anything more brutal than what she had already said. When she brought up the idea of another man touching her, of her belonging to another man, something inside him snapped, and he snarled. It made her draw back in shock, and Aidan realized that he needed to leave, immediately, before he did something he would regret.
He pulled on the rest of his clothes and turned away from her, slamming the door behind him as he went.
The inn below was well into a lively evening, and he stuck himself back in the corner, calling for the maid to bring him something stronger than ale.
No matter how much he drank, however, the specter of what he had done and what Margaret had said haunted him, and he knew that for as long as he lived, it would always stay with him, haunting his nights and his dawns.
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chapter 13
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After Aidan slammed out the door, Margaret was up in a trice, latching it after him and propping a heavy chair against it besides.
Then she ended up back in bed, giving up on fighting the tears that had been threatening ever since Aidan had started his self-righteous speech. The fury had evaporated when he left the room, leaving behind a feeling of grief and sorrow.
I am just a duty to him, she thought dismally. I am just... a burden he has taken on.
It was a refrain she was well-used to the refrain. Even when she was a young girl living with her mother, there had always been the feeling that she was a burden, a memory of her mother's indiscretion with an English traveler. Her mother loved her, she knew that, but their few journeys into the MacKinnon crofts had told her how isolated they were.
She had never asked her mother, never had the nerve to, if she would live differently if Margaret didn't exist.
When her father had appeared eight years ago, before the war had reached its full heat, he had come with an offer. He would take her back to England with him. She would have a place, not as a burden, but as a daughter, albeit as a natural one rather than a legal one.
And still, she might not have done it if not for that stormy night, the one where she had come into her mother's croft all wet from the rain, only to find her mother gone calling on a neighbor and, in her place, the old Laird MacTaggart, waiting for her with that terrible look on his face...
Margaret shook her head as if she could shake that memory out, but she knew that she would never be able to. It was one of the worst memories that she had, another night when she had been called a burden and an obligation, and she would never allow herself to be that. Could not, and keep her soul.
After a while, she rose from the bed and wearily pulled the chair away and unlatched the door. It wasn't as if Aidan couldn't force his way past the flimsy barrier if he wished to do so anyway, and she could at least spare him the bother.
If he were anyone else, I would worry about whether he would come back at all. But he is Aidan, and I know he will.
With a little more space, she could even see how another girl, one without her troubled past, would have thanked all the heavens and the saints for Aidan's offer. The North was easier about such things than the South was, but an unmarried girl caught doing what she was doing would be shamed for it, perhaps even punished by her father or her clan's laird. Aidan's offer would have saved her from shame and the disgust of those nearest and dearest to her, and a part of her warmed toward him.
Aidan would always do the right thing, and everyone knew it. She could not allow him to do it for her.
The evening's activities and then the fight afterward had tired her, and with a sigh, she lay back down in the bed. The moment she did so, she could feel all of the memories of what Aidan had done to her body almost as if he were touching her again. The pleasure he had given her made her blush, but there was no shame about it. Instead, there was only a low and urgent need for him. At the same time, there was the tearing pain of knowing that if she wanted what was best for both of them, she could never allow it to happen again.
She thought she would never sleep again, but in a few moments, she could feel her eyelids growing heavy. She fell into dark and cloying dreams, holding her down even as somewhere close by, she knew that someone was laughing at her.
Then, in her dreams, came a moment where she walked in from the cold and found someone's arms around her. Something relaxed inside her, something that felt as if it had been tense her entire life. The relief of being in their arms was so great she almost started to weep again, but they were telling her that it would be all right, there would be no more fear, no more pain, nothing but sweetness and safety and love.
“I don't know if I believe in love,” she confessed to the presence who held her so sweetly. She could almost feel him smile as he pressed a gentle kiss against her hair.
“It's all right. I will be here. I will always be here, and your belief can follow as it needs to.”
Margaret awoke with tears on her cheeks. The frigid feel of the air told her it was at least a few hours until dawn. A sound from the floor made her look down.
Aidan was sprawled on the floor by the side of the bed, sound asleep. Twice, she reached for him, wanting to touch him, and twice, she drew back. She wanted to drag him into the bed with her, and whatever happened, would happen. She wanted to smack him and shout at him for calling her a burden. She wanted to tell him, yes, yes, she would marry him, burden or no, because Heaven above, she loved him. She had loved him since she was a sixteen-year-old girl well below his notice. She had loved him at eighteen, even as her heart was breaking. She loved him now, even after what he had said, even after everything that was between them.
Instead, she lay back down in the bed and tried to go back to sleep. Margaret knew that the road ahead would only get worse, and that she should treasure whatever nights of comfortable rest she had left.
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chapter 14
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There was no innkeeper, no matter how understanding, who wouldn't be suspicious of a couple who needed to travel at night rather than in the daytime, so Aidan woke Margaret a little after dawn so they could resume their journey. He had been afraid that the embers of their fight would still be hot after the night before, but to his surprised, it felt as if nothing had happened at all.
Margaret blinked at him and then nodded, struggling into her clothes and packing her things efficiently. A tide of relief washed over Aidan when he saw how strong and quick she was. Having her collapse on horseback was something that had frightened the wits out of him, and he never wanted to see anything like that again if he could help it
She slipped down to the main room before he was done getting ready. When he went to find her, Aidan found her deep in conversation with the innkeeper, the motherly woman who had helped him so when Margaret was still insensible.
"Oh, aye, we're turning due south soon. The Holy Land calls, you see, and I am only so glad my man has allowed us both to leave our lives to do this."
Aidan stilled, blinking a little as he heard the Northern burr in Margaret's speech again. When he had first met her at Maras Castle after all that time, he had thought that she was every inch the Englishwoman, the North scrubbed from her mind and her voice. Now, he found that it was still there.
"He seems a good man, if overly fond of his cups," the innkeep
er said, a tinge of disapproval in her voice.
Aidan winced, because there was still a slight pounding in his head that said that he had drank more than he should have the night before. Why in the world did it bother him that this woman thought that Margaret was married to a drunk?
"Oh, that's not common to him at all. I'm afraid that I caused a bit of a fight last night. Don't worry, it is settled now. Only..."
"Only?"
"Only sometimes, I wonder if he thinks this is all foolishness, and if duty didn't bind him to me, whether he would be here at all..."
Aidan felt a little sick at the waver in Margaret's voice, but the innkeeper swept her into a tight hug.
"Don't fret, dear. It's a long journey you have in front of you, and no mistake, but believe me, he would not have come this far, nor tended you so well if it were not love that kept him. He was as white as old chalk when he burst in here with you, and from the way he was carrying on, I thought you might be dead."
Margaret laughed, a wet thing but with strength behind it.
"I wish I could have seen that. But thank you, Mistress, for everything."
Aidan came the rest of the way down the stairs, and from the look on Margaret's face, calm and only a little wary, she had no idea how much he had heard.
"Good morning," she said, her voice slightly subdued, and he nodded. It felt as if there were a dozen things they needed to say to one another, but none of that could be said here and now.
"Are you ready to go, Meggie?"
"I am. And the mistress was good enough to give us some provisions for the road, so we can be spared eating at your stores.'
"All right. We should get going, then."
After his rest, Bram was pleased to see them both, and though Margaret hesitated when he offered to boost her up on the gelding's back, she accepted with grace.
There was something right about having Margaret, his Meggie, settled against his back again, and Aidan took Bram up to a trot as they left the inn. As they did so, Aidan couldn't help feeling as if they were leaving a safe place to venture into something completely unknown, some wilderness where dangers lurked under every leaf.
I should be well used to it. It is only the way of the world, Aidan tried to tell himself, but with Margaret with him, it felt as if the stakes had become a great deal higher.
Despite the danger, Aidan had to admit that there was something relieving about being back on the road, out of doors in the increasingly brisk late autumn weather with Margaret behind him. There had been a terrifying lassitude to her body when she was sick, as boneless as sleeping cat. To have her mounted behind, hanging on to him again, was both a pleasure and a relief.
What they had done hung between them, and if Aidan were honest, it still stung. He tried to tell himself it was just his pride, but if he allowed himself to think on it, it went far deeper than that. It reminded him far too much of being twenty-two again, wearing his heart on his sleeve and then having it slashed to ribbons when she came to him and told him she was leaving for England, of all places.
The anger that still lingered from that incident simmered closer to the surface than he cared to allow it, and he was slightly shocked by the urge to bring it up.
Heaven above, are you a man or still a wounded boy? Let it go, do what you need to do, and then go back to the life you were meant to live. Do not say something that you are going to regret.
They took the road for a short distance, and then Aidan pulled them off onto the wooded tracks. He didn't know them like he knew the ones closer to Crinnan's Mountain and his home, but he knew their kind well enough. They would take him north, and after they crossed the border, there would be no problem with riding along the main roads.
They were unlikely to meet anyone on the deer trails besides poachers or outlaws, and just as he thought that, he felt Margaret stiffen behind him, shifting a hand to his shoulder to get his attention.
“Over there. In the bushes.”
“What?'
“Look closer. See the little bit of blue?”
Aidan tensed when he saw what she was gesturing toward, and he cursed himself for not knowing sooner. There was a patch of deep blue in the hedge close by, a color far too vivid to be found in nature, and once he had spotted it in the dense thicket, it was impossible not to see. A lapse like that could have cost him his life in the battlefield, his life and that of the men with him.
He drew Bram to a stop, hand on his sword and ready to meet whatever came, but nothing did. The patch of blue in the thicket did not move. There was nothing but stillness from the path ahead.
Margaret used his shoulder to steady herself as she peered around him, and when she spoke, her lips were right at his ear, sending a ripple of sensation through his body that was wholly inappropriate for the moment.
“The birds are still singing. Whatever's in front of us isn't bothering them at all.”
“Then it shouldn't bother us, should it?”
Margaret started to ask him what he meant, but then Aidan drew his sword.
“Stand and declare yourself. We want no trouble.”
“I want no trouble,” Margaret grumbled behind him. “You waving your sword around says something different, I would think.”
Aidan ignored her, and in the silence after his shout, they both heard it. There was a soft groan from the thicket, and they realized at once that it was a cry of pain.
Aidan hesitated, but Margaret didn't.
She slithered off Bram, and she was running for the thicket before he had any idea what she was doing.
“Margaret! You damned foolish...”
It didn't look as if she was going to be stopped, and with another curse, he threw himself off of Bram's back, running after her, fear and anger rising up in equal proportion in his chest as he saw Margaret once again throw herself into danger.
She paused at the hedge by the side of the path, thrusting it aside so that she could see what was behind it. Then she was through the hedge, fast as a rabbit, just as Aidan was reaching for her to pull her back. When he followed her, however, he saw that she had been right to hurry, and it was no bandit or outlaw behind the hedge.
The blue had been a cloak that was wrapped around a man, stretched out prone on the old autumn grass. There was a stillness to him that was far too familiar to Aidan, and his heart sank.
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chapter 15
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When Margaret had spied the blue by the side of the road, the moment she had realized that there might be someone who needed help, it was as if she couldn't think. Instead, all she could do was act on instinct, and that instinct did not involve waiting for Aidan's permission.
All right, perhaps there was a small bit of satisfaction in hearing Aidan's startled noise behind her, but then all she thought about was what might have happened and how she might be able to help.
She was smaller than Aidan, and she could twist her way into the hedge more quickly than he could. He was just coming through it when she was down on her knees by the man's side. There was a stillness to him that made her skin crawl, but she could see from the color still in his face and the way his chest moved up and down that all hope was not lost yet.
"Aidan, Aidan, help me turn him over."
She glanced up impatiently when Aidan did not move, watching the man with a dark look in his eyes.
"Margaret, we do not have the time to stop."
She glared at him.
"Without us, he may die. Look, he hasn't even stirred from being discovered."
In that moment, better than any other before, she could see the war flash through Aidan's eyes. Too many men on both sides who looked like this one did now, and only enough resources, enough energy, enough ability to care for those he knew. She saw it, and in that same moment, she forgave him, because it was part of who he was, for better or worse.
However, that did not mean she was giving up.
She crouched down close to the fallen man, taking his hand where it lay on the grass. It was warm, and to her relief, she felt his fingers twitch.
Help me, he seemed to say. Help me, please, I don't want to die.
"Margaret, get up. We need to go."
"I cannot control what you do, Aidan," she said softly. "You can leave if you must and let fate take care of me and this man. You can pry me from his side, lift me up kicking and screaming from him, allowing me to draw whoever may be following us right to this spot, and the moment you put me down, I will simply try to return to him anyway. Or... or you can help me."
Her speech was very brave, but she also knew how much stronger Aidan was. If he wanted to lift her up and carry her away, there was little she could do to stop him. She could make things inconvenient for him, but the only real force she had on her side was her ability to appeal to his greater sense and the goodness she knew lived inside him.
For a moment, she thought it hadn't worked, that Aidan would simply drag her away, perhaps even tying and gagging her when she protested. Instead, with a barely audible growl, he nodded. He didn't look happy, but she decided that she could worry about that later.
"Tell me how I can help."
"Good. Thank you. Help me pull his cloak away. I think there's a wound under there from the staining here and on the ground."
As Aidan tugged the man's cloak away, it occurred to Margaret how fine the wool was and how even the blue dye. It was a good-looking garment, belonging to a wealthy man, and a part of her wondered if they were buying more trouble.
When the cloak was removed, it revealed not just a wound but also the cause of the man's distress. An arrow stuck into the man's chest, high up enough that Margaret guessed it must have clipped his collarbone. When she touched the swollen flesh around the shaft, the man grunted and flailed, lashing out quickly enough that she was knocked back on her rear.
The Highlander’s Lost Bride (The Highlands Warring Scottish Romance) (A Medieval Historical Romance Book) Page 8