“Gilbert is resting,” Una said in a hushed voice, which was the same thing she’d told him the last time and the time before that. “Sleep is the best healer.”
He needed to be doing something. Anything. Instead of pounding his fist into the wall, he climbed the stairs to wait for Margaret in their chamber. When he opened the door, he found Curstag lying on their bed.
“What in the hell are ye doing in here?” He spoke in a harsh tone before he remembered she was a grieving widow.
“I can’t verra well be in my own bed, now can I?” she said, and sat up. “Isabel has locked herself in there again, weeping and smelling his clothes.”
Finn tried and failed to get that image out of his head.
“I’ll let ye be, then,” he said, but when he started to go, she leaped off the bed and grabbed his arm.
“Talk to me,” she pleaded. “I can’t bear to be alone just yet.”
Jesu. Curstag was the last person he wanted to have a conversation with, aside from his mother. But he did not want to be heartless, so he let her pull him inside.
“Ye know what this means, don’t ye?” she asked.
He had no notion what she was talking about.
“It means,” she said, running her hand up his chest, “we can be together at last.”
“What?” Finn said, and pushed her away. “Bearach is barely in the ground.”
“Ye know you’re the one I wanted,” she said. “I only married him because he had the title and lands.”
No one could accuse Curstag of being subtle. The lass did not have a kind or sensitive bone in her body.
“Ye can’t blame me for making a good marriage,” she said. “Any lass with an ounce of sense would do the same.”
He did not fault her for choosing the position and security she believed his brother could give her, but for toying with him when he was too naïve to know that would inevitably tip the scales against him.
“But now that you’re the heir,” she said, tilting her head in a way he once found fetching, “there’s nothing to keep us apart.”
“Nothing?” he said. “You’re forgetting I have a wife.”
“You’re only handfasted,” she said. “Ye don’t have to wait the whole year to set her aside.”
“Maggie is the only woman I’ll ever want,” he said. “Don’t ye understand? I love her.”
The words that fell out of his mouth were true. He was hopelessly in love with Margaret. No other woman would ever do for him now.
“Love? Ach, you’re still the romantic ye were at sixteen.” She gave a light laugh and shook her head. “I give it a month before ye tire of her and come begging—”
“Don’t let me find ye in here again.” Finn pushed her out the door and shut it behind her.
Ironically, he had reason to be grateful to Curstag. In the midst of so many dark days, she had given him hope by pointing out that the barrier that kept him from making Margaret his true wife was gone. He was no longer a landless warrior who must always live by his sword.
He was his father’s heir.
###
Margaret lay sprawled on the bed beside Finn, unable to move her limbs. This was so unfair. Just when she had decided it was time to ask Finn to take her to her sister’s, he tore down the wall he’d erected between them and made love to her until her body felt like soft wax melded to the mattress—and he held her heart in his hands.
She could not leave him while his aunt, uncle, and brother were dying, nor while his father’s fate was uncertain. But now the dead were buried, and his father, though still weak, was recovering. Sadly, there was nothing Finn could do for Alex until his cousin came of age.
The crises were passed. It was time to leave.
And yet she did not want to go.
“Your father has been asking for ye,” she said. When he groaned in response, she kissed his shoulder and brushed the back of her fingers along the side of his face. “I know things have never been easy between the two of ye, but he’s lost a brother and a son. He needs you.”
“Ye take care of everyone, whether they deserve it or no.” He gave her a tender kiss on the lips. “I promise I’ll talk with him.”
She groaned her objection when Finn got out of bed, but he was back a moment later and pulled her up to sit up beside him on the edge of the bed.
“The blacksmith helped me make this for ye,” Finn said, and handed her a small wooden box.
“A gift?” she said. “Ye needn’t have.”
She hoped he had not wasted what little money he had on jewelry he could ill afford. She once owned jewels worth a small fortune, but the only piece that meant anything to her was the onyx pendant her mother gave her. The others were ornaments given not out of affection, but to accentuate her beauty and enhance her status as a worthy prize.
“Just open it,” he said in an indifferent tone that did not fool her.
The lid fit snugly, and it took her a moment to work it off the box. When it suddenly gave way and she saw what was inside, she gasped.
“Ye don’t like it?” Finn asked.
She blinked back tears as she picked up the brooch and ran her fingertip across the shiny black stones embedded in a circle made of silver. The irregular broken pieces of her onyx had been transformed into a thing of beauty.
“Ach, I knew I should have asked ye before I did this with your bag of stones,” Finn said, misunderstanding her tears entirely. “I can melt it down and remove the stones.”
Her throat was too tight for her to choke out words to reassure him, so she just put her arms around his neck and wept.
“Does this mean ye like it?” he asked.
When she nodded with her face buried in his chest, he enfolded her in his arms and kissed her hair.
“I wanted ye to wear your magical onyx for protection, as your mother intended, instead of hiding it in a bag under the mattress,” he said. “The silver adds extra protection from witches and fairies.”
“’Tis the most perfect gift you could ever give me,” she said, and kissed him softly on the lips.
###
This was going well so far. Surely Margaret knew what he meant by this gift.
“I think,” he said, and cleared his throat, “we ought to stop pretending we’re husband and wife.”
“Why?” she asked, her eyes going wide.
In for a penny, in for a pound. “We ought to pledge ourselves. Become truly handfasted.”
Finn held his breath as he waited for her answer. He hoped she was not remembering that he’d offered this once before when he was just desperate to bed her. This time, he meant it. He wanted it with all his heart.
“Ye don’t have to do this just because ye took me to bed,” she said. “That’s no reason.”
“I’m asking because I want to take ye to bed for the rest of my life,” he said. “I want ye to be my wife.”
“We can’t marry,” she said softly, and touched his hand. “I’ll not have ye bind yourself to me.”
Finn felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach.
“But I’m heir to Garty now,” he said, sounding desperate to his own ears. “I can give you a home.”
“A home you don’t want,” she said. “You told your mother you never wanted to see it again.”
“I’d do it for you,” he said, clasping her hands between his. “For you and Ella.”
“You need a wife who can give you children,” she said. “Especially now that you’ll have a title and property, you need heirs, and I can’t give them to you.”
Finn knew what she really meant. He still was not good enough to be her husband. She put it as though she was refusing for his sake, but those were just words. Though she was different in other ways from Curstag and his mother, just like them, she would never willingly accept a husband beneath her.
“And you, Maggie? What do you need?” he asked, angry now. “A man to pleasure ye until ye find a husband who can give ye the kind of life ye had before?�
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“I don’t need a husband,” she said. “And I want one even less.”
“There is one thing ye do want from me, isn’t there?” He pulled her against him and kissed her hard on the mouth. She melted into him, but he forced himself to release her.
He wanted everything from her—her head on the pillow beside him at night, her smile in the morning, her counsel in times of trouble. And most of all, he wanted her heart.
He wanted it all, and he wanted it every day for as long as he lived. And all she wanted from him was a few nights of passion before leaving him. She could not love him.
###
That had gone terribly wrong. Margaret had not meant to wound Finn’s feelings. She wanted to make him understand why she could not face the pain of marrying again, even to him. Perhaps to him most of all. She could not live through the years of always hoping she would become pregnant—and fearing it at the same time—and then suffering the disappointment, both hers and Finn’s.
Perhaps if Finn knew how hard her miscarriages had been for her, it would help him understand her fears.
“Ye said ye hoped one day I’d trust ye enough to tell ye the whole story of when my pendant was shattered,” she said. “If ye still want to know, I’ll tell ye now.”
He was silent, which she took as an aye. She wrapped a blanket around herself and went to the window to stare out at the sea. Then she began her sorry tale of being caught in Edinburgh during the Battle of the Causeway.
“Everyone knew trouble was brewing,” she said. “I’d wanted to stay home, but William insisted I come with him to the city.”
She winced as she remembered the sounds of the fighting outside the shuttered windows.
“My cousin Lizzie was with me,” she said. “When I started to bleed, she went to fetch the midwife.”
“The midwife?” he asked.
Lost in the terrible memories, she told him about losing the child and William returning soon after. She could not bear to repeat all the horrible things he’d shouted at her, especially the worst one.
At least it was just a girl.
“William was angry and smashed my pendant with his axe.” Such a simple statement could not begin to convey the horror of that moment. Before she could finish her tale, Finn spoke and pulled her out of her memories.
“You were with child?” he asked.
Startled by his angry tone, Margaret turned around to face him.
“I thought ye could not conceive,” he said. “Ye told me so yourself!”
“I never said that.”
“Ye led me to believe it,” he said. “Ye said your husband had your marriage annulled because ye couldn’t give him an heir.”
“I couldn’t give him an heir,” she said.
“If ye couldn’t, then how is it ye were pregnant?”
“I lost the babe!” How thick headed could a man be?
“But if ye can conceive,” he said, “that means ye could be carrying our child now.”
Aye, and she would lose this one too. Tears stung her eyes, and she had to bite her lip to hold them back. She started for the door. She had to get out and away from him before she broke down completely.
Finn caught her wrist and pulled her back. “Are ye with child now?”
“I don’t know,” she said, which she knew was a mistake the moment the words left her mouth. Why had she never learned to lie easily? She wrenched her arm free and went to the door.
“Ye can’t go now,” he said. “We need to talk about this…this…situation!”
“There’s nothing to discuss,” she said without turning around. “Ye needn’t trouble yourself about me or the situation.”
“But we must do something,” he said, his voice full of alarm. “There’s no choice now. Ye must marry me.”
No choice? She must marry? When he used the same words as the men who had controlled and used her before, a burst of anger exploded in her chest.
“Nay, I don’t have to,” she said.
“Ye do,” Finn said, leaning forward with his hands on his hips.
She would not be ordered to wed. She would not put herself under a man’s thumb, to be told what to do and when and how. Never again.
“I’m going to my sister Sybil and the MacKenzies,” she told him. “If you can’t take me, I’ll find someone who will.”
###
Finn was so flummoxed by the news that Margaret could conceive—and might even now be carrying his child—that he was slow to grasp that she still actually intended to leave him.
When he heard her shut the door behind her with a firm click, he ran to catch her. He was so distracted, however, that he failed to notice his foot was tangled in the sheet.
“Ooomph!” He tripped and crashed to the floor. “Goddammit!” he shouted as he struggled to extract himself. Finally, he managed to wrap the torn sheet around himself and jerk open the door, but Margaret had already escaped into Una and Ella’s chamber.
He knocked on the door with laudable restraint so as not to awaken Ella. This was not an argument the bairn should hear. But, no matter how much Margaret wished to avoid it, this was an argument they were going to have.
Rap, rap, rap. He knocked again, a wee bit louder. “I know ye can hear me,” he said against the door.
“She won’t speak to ye tonight.” It was Una’s voice. “Go back to bed and let the poor lass be.”
The poor lass? He pounded a little louder.
Margaret opened the door just far enough to show her face.
“I understand all ye wanted from me was a bit of fun under the blankets,” he said. “But the pretending is over. Ye will marry me!”
“I will not be forced to wed anyone ever again,” she said.
“A child changes everything,” he said, trying to make the damned woman see reason. “Whether either of us likes it or no, we’re going to be wed.”
“I’ve been through this before, and I can get through it again if I must,” she said. “But I cannot do it with you. That would be more than I could bear.”
“You’ve done this before?” he said. “What in the hell does that mean?”
“I’ve been with child three times. Each time, I miscarried,” she said, speaking slowly as if to a slow-witted fool. “So there will be no child and no cause for us to marry.”
With that, she shut the door and slammed the bar across it.
CHAPTER 27
Finn stomped into the stables intent on taking Ceò out for a hard gallop. Margaret had slept on Una’s floor again last night and avoided him all day, not even showing her face at meals. She had never shown such stubbornness before. Apparently, she was not going to change her mind about marrying him.
“Finn!” he heard someone call to him from a dark corner of the stables.
He had his dirk ready in his hand but sheathed it when Una, of all people, emerged from the gloom.
“Your father needs to speak with ye today,” she said.
“Ach, ye came out here to tell me that?”
“Mind your tone with me,” she said as if he were still a bairn. Then she glanced behind them and said in a hushed voice, “I came to tell ye my grandson Lachlan has news from Dunrobin.”
Lachlan was wise to be discreet and send a message through his grandmother. Until they knew every single person who either played a part in the poisoning or sent word of it to George Sinclair, they had to assume there could still be a traitor inside Helmsdale.
“News about Alex?” Finn asked.
“Aye,” she whispered. “Lachlan is waiting for ye a half mile down the coastal trail.”
For an old woman, Una could move quickly when she wanted. Before he could ask any more questions, she was gone.
He found Lachlan pacing beside the trail. After looking up and down the path to be sure no one was coming, Lachlan signaled for Finn to follow him behind a clump of aspen where he had tied his horse.
From Lachlan’s grim expression, the news from Dunrobin was not good
.
“What’s happened?” Finn asked. “Is Alex all right?”
“I’ve learned that the Sinclairs plan to murder him,” Lachlan said.
“Murder? Why would they do that?” Finn said. “They need Alex alive. ’Tis only through him that they have control of Sutherland.”
“They don’t need Alex if they have his heir.”
“Mìle marbhphàisg oirbh Sinclairs!” A thousand death shrouds on the Sinclairs! “Barbara is with child?”
“It’s her lover MacKay’s,” Lachlan said. “But the Sinclairs will claim it’s Alex’s and say the babe came early.”
“How did ye hear this?” Finn asked.
“One of the Sinclair men got drunk and told a maidservant he was trying to bed,” Lachlan said. “First chance she had to leave the castle, she came and told me.”
“We can’t wait any longer,” Finn said. “We must rescue Alex.”
“Aye,” Lachlan said. “Ye can count on me and my clansmen.”
“Good,” Finn said, gripping Lachlan’s shoulder.
Finn was glad he could rely on the Murrays, who were longstanding allies of the Gordons, bound by their mutual hatred of the Sinclairs. It went without saying that they would have to rescue Alex without the help of any men who were at Helmsdale at the time of the poisoning, including the Gordon guards.
“If we could get word to Alex,” Finn said, “would he be able to meet us outside of the castle?”
“The Sinclairs never allow him to take a horse out,” Lachlan said. “But I’m told they let him walk along the shore in front of the castle.”
“Then we’ll ask him to meet us on the strand, down the shore from the castle,” Finn said. “We can have a boat waiting there and spirit him away.”
“The problem is getting the message to Alex,” Lachlan said. “We’re asking him to take a big risk running for it from the beach. I wouldn’t do it unless I got the message from someone I trusted.”
“Aye, you or I need to go into Dunrobin,” Finn said.
“Not you,” Lachlan said. “George Sinclair and his family know ye too well.”
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