"Try to deserve it in the future," Aidan suggested.
Margaret grinned.
"Good luck, Nicholas. Perhaps we will meet again sometime soon."
It was an abbey, with no room for those not in need, and though they could have made camp in the shadow of the abbey's tall walls, they decided to keep moving for a while, venturing toward the sound of running water nearby.
Margaret, finally well and rested after her stressful flight from Maras Castle, found that she enjoyed the sounds of the late autumn, the way the darkness came on with a kind of velvety sweetness, the way her breath misted the air.
The nights were growing colder. Colder than it was even a few days' journey south.
Her dress was made of sturdy wool, and her shift underneath was linen, but she had given her cloak up to send their pursuers south. She was just wondering if it would be possible to buy something with the coins she had when Aidan came up behind her and dropped his cloak over her shoulders. It was an enormous thing, so long that she had to hitch it up if she didn't want it to drag on the ground.
"Aidan!"
"Take it. I'm tired of listening to you shiver."
"I wasn't!" she protested, but Aidan kept walking, and she had no choice but to walk faster to catch up. She couldn't deny that Aidan's cloak, which might have been the same one he had worn all those years ago, kept her warmer than her dress would have. It was wool, patched in places, felted in others, but it kept off the wind, and perhaps there was a guilty part of her that liked it so well because it smelled like him.
They came to the rushing stream just as the last rays of the sun were fading from the sky. Full dark would come on very shortly, so they built their fire and filled their water bags as quickly as they could, making their camp in the lee of an outcropping of tall stones.
"We're getting closer to Scotland," Margaret said, touching the bare rock. "There's less of this by Maras Castle."
"Rocks, cold, and plenty of both," Aidan said. "Will you still be able to bear it?"
"I am as much Scottish as I am English, Aidan MacTaggart," she retorted. "If I could bear learning to fence from my father, I can bear some rocks and some cold."
Aidan blinked, and then to her surprise, he laughed.
"What, are you saying that you can fight? Are you serious?"
She made a face.
"I specifically said that I could fence, not fight. My father was French-taught, and he hired a teacher to come to Maras Castle to teach me."
"Waste of money," Aidan snorted. "It cost Laird Blair nothing to make Ava Fitzpatrick."
Margaret blinked.
"Ava Fitzpatrick? She's still around?"
"You remember her? Aye, still around, still causing trouble."
Aidan laughed and Margaret wondered why there was suddenly a burning ember in the bottom of her belly. She remembered Ava, tall and leggy with a grin that seemed as wild as the North itself.
Ava was a few years younger than Margaret, but she had come with the other Blairs to a cattle fair, a big one that had been held in Harrowdown before the war disrupted everything. Margaret remembered a beautiful young girl dressed as a boy, crude but strong.
At the time, she had only been struck by the novelty of a girl in trews.
Now, however, a distinct feeling of jealousy came over her, making her frown both at her thoughts and herself.
That's the kind of woman Aidan needs, Margaret thought, wondering even as she did about her sudden bitterness. Not a wife he takes on out of guilt and obligation, but who could only live in the North, just like him.
"She was at the inn where you were healing," Aidan said, dragging a fallen log close to the fire and sitting down on it.
There was plenty of space on the log for her, but Margaret instead pretended to fiddle with her bag, not sure she wanted to be close to Aidan right then.
"What was she doing so far south?"
He shrugged.
"I doubt any saint would even take a guess. She roves as she pleases, and I only think Blair knows where she is when she brings him cattle. She's on her own at the moment, her men dispersed for the winter. This time of year, I don't think anyone tells her what to do."
Margaret was silent, because she was not sure if she trusted her voice just then. She had learned more than needlework and fencing when she was in the South. Her stepmother, before she died, had taught her a great deal about making sure that the keep functioned well, and both her parents taught her something of the politicking necessary to keep a large number of people happy.
One of their first lessons was that before she spoke, she had better be very clear what she was going to say and what she wanted.
Right this moment, she couldn't think to be that clear. Her thoughts felt as scattered as a handful of dandelion seeds spilled to the four winds, and instead, she concentrated on making sure her bag was tied tightly and securely.
“What's the matter with you?” Aidan asked curiously, watching her from across the fire. “You know Ava, don't you?”
“Of course, I know her. Before I left, it would be difficult not to hear about her antics.”
Aidan watched her, and she found herself unable to keep from looking at him through the flames. There was something almost sinister about him in that moment, something predatory, perhaps even slightly cruel in his smile.
“Her antics? I would say she was riding and fighting and raiding better than men twice her age at that point. We kept her out of MacTaggart lands all right, but it was always enjoyable to hear that she'd made off with some of the MacRaes' stock.”
“She sounds wonderful,” Margaret said, and now she was aware that she was speaking through her teeth.
“Come sit over here,” Aidan said, and she seethed at the conciliatory note in his voice. Had he thought he had ruffled her? Did he think that he had found some sort of... of feminine weakness he could prod at?
“I think I will lie down to sleep,” she said, gathering all of her dignity around her. “I don't see that there is any reason to stay up any later.”
She moved to lie down on the ground, but then in a flash, Aidan was around the fire and looming over her, his hand around her arm and holding her still.
The shiver that ran through her was not fear. She knew in her heart that Aidan would not hurt her, would never dream of it, but she could feel every place he had ever touched her, every cry he had drawn out of her. She knew that if he pushed her even a little, she would fall into his arms all over again.
“No, stay,” he said, his voice almost a purr. “Stay up and tell me, Meggie, why you sound like a jealous little cat when you were fawning all over Nicholas today.”
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chapter 18
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Aidan was responsible for more than two hundred people who lived on MacTaggart lands. Many of them were related to him through blood or marriage, but they all looked to him in times of trouble. He was used to handling challenges far beyond wondering where his next meal was coming from and whether it was time to use his sword, so why was the problem of Nicholas preying on him?
When Margaret reached up to take the man's hand, it had taken everything Aidan had to keep from toppling the Englishman off his horse and leaving him in the road. The moment he had that inclination, he had been disgusted with himself, because after all, the man was wounded, and it wasn't as if he had reached out to touch Margaret.
No, Aidan had clenched his fists and continued walking, telling himself the whole time that the faster they traveled, the sooner they would be rid of the man. That hadn't changed the way he felt when Margaret had smiled up at the English knight as if he were the very sun.
Aidan was darkly amused to realize that he was in fact angrier with the man for the way Margaret smiled at him than their differences during the war. The war had dragged everyone in, and even if it wouldn't stay his hand or his sword on the battlefield, it wasn't something he was concerned about drag
ging off the battlefield either.
And then there was Margaret. His Meggie.
He had intended to let it go. It would have been the proper thing to do, and in a short while, Margaret would be delivered, and that would be the end of all of this. However, that was before he had seen how Margaret had stiffened at the mere mention of Ava Fitzpatrick's name. He could hear an altogether too familiar edge in her words.
Despite his grip on her arm, Margaret drew herself up to her full height, staring at him as if he were a servant who had dared pluck the sleeve of a queen.
“I was not fawning all over Nicholas,” she said coldly. “I was merely being polite. He was wounded, and you knew that. Why shouldn't I be kind?”
Aidan snorted.
“Do you think that simply being among the English for a short time has left me as muddled as they are? Darling, an Englishman might believe you when you say such things, but I won't. I know what it looks like when a lass fancies a man, and it's all over your face.”
She colored, which sent another pang through Aidan. It told him that she had indeed been fascinated by the other man, and the emotions that let out in him were darker than he cared to examine.
“There is nothing on my face except for my rage at your accusations. So what if I thought he was handsome? Does it matter? I will never see him again. You'll probably bed Ava before I even see a man who looks like him again.”
Aidan stared at her, and Margaret, for her part, clapped her hand over her mouth in shock.
“You think I want to bed Ava Fitzpatrick?”
He had to give her this, she wasn't a woman who backed down from a fight.
“Of course. I might have spent most of my life in Scotland, but I'm not so simple that I don't know how a man looks when he wants a woman. A Scottish woman might be taken in by you, Aidan, but not me.”
Aidan almost wanted to laugh at how she had thrown his own words back in his face, but then she tried to pull away from him, and something about that made him growl. His fingers tightened on her arm, and he tugged her so she was hard against his body.
“And what if I do find that I'm jealous of your new friend? What if it was a pain in itself to see him looking at what I claimed as mine, laughing with you and touching you as if he had all the right in the world?”
“If I had the right to give myself to you last night, I have the right to pull back from you today,” Margaret snapped, high flags of color on her cheeks. “I do not belong to you, Aidan MacTaggart, not by English law or by Scottish law. A... a mistake does not mean that you own me for good.”
“A mistake? Is that what you call it?”
“Wouldn't you?”
It was as if she had pushed him over some kind of cliff. Aidan could almost feel himself falling, and then all he could do was grab on to her and hang on, press his lips to hers, run his fingers through her hair. None of their words made sense anymore; it was best to stop speaking if they were only reaching toward each other to wound.
It was only when she was in his arms, pressed against him, that anything made sense at all. It was only when they kissed that they gentled with each other. His mouth grew soft on hers, and he realized that she wasn't even trying to fight him. Why should she? She belonged to him, and at the core of him, at the core of both of them, there was something that knew it.
"Ah, Meggie, do you have any idea how beautiful you are?" Aidan murmured.
Margaret laughed a little at that, and then she laced her small fingers around the back of his neck, pulling him closer. When she tilted her face up so that he could kiss her more deeply, Aidan groaned, because he knew in that moment, even if he knew it no other, that this was the only woman there would ever be for him, in his arms, in his life, and it didn't matter what else happened or what life brought him.
"I want you," she murmured, her voice trembling slightly. "I have wanted you for what feels like forever."
"You have me, darling..."
It felt too good; she was simply too tempting. Aidan lifted Margaret up, pushing her back against the cold surface of the rock that sheltered them. She squawked a little at the chill of the stone, but her eyes widened when he stepped close, tilting his hips so she could feel his body pressed hard against hers.
"Can you feel how very much I want you, Meggie?" he murmured.
He could tell from her slight nod that she did. When she carefully, experimentally twisted her body slightly between his and the stone, Aidan had to catch the savage sound that rose up in his throat. He thought he would go out of his mind with need for her, and he buried his face in her neck, nipping and kissing by turns. He was fast reaching the point where he would not care one way or another whether either of them should be doing this, but he wanted to hold off. He wanted to make sure that she wanted it with every fiber of her being just like he wanted it with her...
When he felt her body hitch a little, he thought it was desire, but when it happened again, he was struck with horror to see her eyes swimming with tears.
It was like someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over his head. Immediately, Aidan set her down on the ground again before drawing her to sit close to the fire. She was covering her face with her hands, and Aidan felt a chill of disgust run through him.
I am no better than the English think I am, he thought, and he knew that if he had hurt Margaret, really hurt her, he would never properly look himself in the eye again.
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chapter 19
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Margaret didn't know what swept down on her. One moment, her head felt as if it had been lit on fire with rage and then that rage had flared up into desire. The only thing that she had wanted was to kiss Aidan as viciously as he was kissing her, to exorcise the awful image of him with Ava Fitzpatrick.
The kissing was born out of rage and need in equal measure, but when he had pressed her against the stone, when he had called her beautiful as if she were the only woman in the world, it felt different.
Margaret could understand sorrow and pain. She could understand fury. The sweetness in his voice, the admiration there and the true passion was something else.
It's the voice a man ought to use with his sweetheart, not with... with whatever I am to him.
Margaret knew that she needed to be direct and clear. If she told Aidan that she did not want him, he would put her down and do it quickly. She trusted him, knew that his honor was as strong as steel and even if his honor was not, his pride was. He would never kiss her a moment longer than she wanted to be kissed.
She intended to tap him on the shoulder, and to make him let her go, but then something in her broke. Hot tears filled her eyes, and she was moving too slowly to conceal them
Aidan's words blurred into soft comforting sounds, and then he was settling her down by the fire. The November wind was coming in fast, and her back was too cold while her front was too warm, but that mattered less than simply being able to hide her face in her hands. She tried to tell Aidan that she was fine, that there was no need to worry about whatever this idiocy was, but when she tried to do so, he only sat next to her, throwing his arm over her shoulders and drawing her close.
For all that they had been on fire for each other before, now there was nothing in his touch but comfort, and that made her melt inside.
If he hadn't touched her, she could have remained cold and possibly retained a little of her dignity. As it was, when she felt the warmth of him and heard him whispering the softest gentlest words of comfort in her ear, she broke down and started to weep in earnest.
It seemed to go on forever, a violent storm of sadness, grief, anger, and need. In the end, all that she could do was hang on to Aidan, burying her fingers in the weave of his tunic and clinging as hard as she could. He was the only point of comfort in a universe that seemed to spin out of control.
Finally, her sobs turned to whimpers. After he offered her a drink from one of the waterskins and a cold wet rag to wa
sh her face, Margaret felt a little more human.
"I am so sorry about—"
Margaret's mouth closed abruptly when Aidan touched her chin, making her look up at him.
"You've done nothing to be sorry about, lass, and I am the one who should be apologizing to you. I was too rough. I touched you without your will, and I will never, ever..."
"No! That's not... not what's the matter at all!"
Aidan stared at her with surprise.
She shook her head.
"Aidan, I was not worried about you forcing me. Believe me. That was never a concern of mine at all."
He frowned.
"You needn't spare my feelings, Margaret. You looked as if the heart was getting cut out of you."
She flinched, shaking her head.
"It wasn't that, it was... Well. Too many things. We're both confused right now, I think."
"I am not confused in the least. I want you. If you will give me nothing else, I want you."
Margaret felt a surge of anger rise up from earlier in the day, and she fought it down again. She had always known that Aidan was himself, and nothing would change that.
"What we are doing right now... it is playing with fire, you must know that. You are not my laird; you are not my brother or my father or my husband. You have no right to control me."
"Margaret, you cannot think that I would seek to control you. I haven't that right, and if you've forgotten that, you've been gone from the Highlands longer than I thought. I do not want to control you. I want to take responsibility—"
"No! Do not dare say that again, or I swear I will jump into the river to drown myself."
She couldn't bear to hear him talk about her as if she were a duty, not again. If she wanted him to stop, if she wanted all of this to stop, she realized she would have to lie. If she told him the truth, she knew that they would be right back where they started.
"I don't want you," she said.
"That's not what it felt like a few moments ago," Aidan growled.
The Highlander’s Lost Bride (The Highlands Warring Clan Mactaggarts Book 2) Page 10