The Groom Wore Plaid

by Gayle Callen

  For the first time in years, she let herself go back farther, to other dreams she’d had, the last being when Owen’s first betrothed, Emily, had appeared to her, solemn and dripping wet, foretelling her drowning. There was nothing in that dream that she could have warned the woman about except to stay away from water, but even a bathing tub could have caused her death. Regardless, Maggie had been guilt-ridden that she hadn’t found Emily herself and warned her, though she would have looked a fool doing it.

  The guilt had never quite gone away, even though she’d had to move on with her life. Owen had never contacted her after she’d warned him. Seeing him again, she realized that the sting of his disbelief and disappointment in her had never truly dissipated. She’d always thought holding a grudge was pointless, but it seemed she couldn’t take her own advice. His abandonment of her had been a sign that she was better off without him, that they never would have suited. All that seemed to be left was anger and disappointment and a physical awareness that was awkward and uncomfortable and yet . . . arousing.

  With determination, she returned to her dreams, going farther back, past Emily. They rose up in her mind as if coming out of water, surfacing intact, practically bobbing, ready for her to pick from them. She saw the little boy shivering under the cliff, the girl who’d killed herself after Maggie’s father had abused her, then back farther still, to her childhood, when she hadn’t understood that her dreams were something that might come true.

  With a gasp, she remembered the little boy who’d come to her occasionally in those dreams, her secret friend, she used to call him. It was as if she’d looked through a window into his life, saw when he scraped a knee, when he’d hidden from his father’s wrath, when he escaped the castle to—

  And suddenly she turned her head and stared hard at Castle Kinlochard—the same castle as in her dreams. The little boy had lighter hair then Owen’s sandy color, but many children’s hair darkened through the years.

  Was it possible she’d been connected to Owen throughout her life?

  Guards paced along the battlements, and horse-drawn carts rattled over the bridge. Clouds scudded across the sky, giving the building a forbidding yet vibrant backdrop, as if framed in reality as it was framed in her mind.

  What was she supposed to make of this new twist? When she’d been hiding from her drunken father, thoughts of her dream friend had consoled her. When she’d watched her brother take a beating in her place, memories of her dreams were what she’d retreated to.

  As she’d grown, so had the little boy, and she’d seen him less and less. Her dreams had become scarcer, and only truly powerful ones appeared to her, like the girl who’d killed herself. She’d told herself that she’d simply outgrown the need for a make-believe friend in her dreams, but there’d always been a part of her who’d missed him.

  And as if her thoughts had conjured him, she saw the Duff chief himself striding through the heather, his blue and green plaid swaying above his bare knees. And in that moment, she remembered what it was like to be with him when she was a young woman, the excitement building as he came toward her, the breathless wonder of being in his company, basking in his humor, admiring his dedication to learning, something she knew was forbidden to her. It was still so thrilling to be the focus of his intense gaze, to feel a clenching deep in the pit of her stomach that made her feel weak, betrayed by her own body.

  As she sat upon the rock, his eyes swept over her as if he could see beneath her skirts. She kept her legs tightly together, though she wanted to lean back, languid with longing, brazen enough to display herself for him.

  “I wondered where you’d disappeared to,” he said.

  “Ye didn’t confine me to the castle, now did ye?” To her relief, she sounded almost normal.

  “I would not do that. This is your home now.”

  Home. Just the thought shocked her back to her life, but instead of the truth she knew she had to say, she mused, “I’ve never been sure where home was.”

  She quickly looked away from him, back to the beautiful picture of the double arches of stone over the calm moat waters, the castle rising up behind like a solitary mountain. She shouldn’t be talking to him about this, but the words had just . . . spilled out.

  “Because your father had so many estates?”

  She shook her head. “Larig Castle was the home of my childhood, and although it means much to my clan, it has sad, frightening memories for me.”

  He came to stand beside the rock she sat upon, gazing where she did, at the castle. It was a relief that he wasn’t intently studying her.

  “I think I was too shy to tell ye the details when we were younger, but my mother took Hugh and me away to Edinburgh to live with her family,” Maggie said slowly. Since she was about to tell him of her dream, she wanted him to know something about her, to understand what formed her.

  “I remember you telling me your father was a drunkard.”

  “Aye, and that was the main reason. But she also wanted to take Hugh away from the friends he’d gotten into trouble with. Edinburgh was a good place for us. Ye remember our tenement—there were so many people to meet. But . . . was it home? Nay, it never seemed like it, though I’ve mostly lived there these last ten years.” She sighed. “Part of me longed for the mountains that cradled Loch Voil and seemed to rim my world.”

  “You’re back in the Highlands now,” Owen said. “Soon you will feel at home here.”

  She stiffened, knowing he’d given her the perfect opening. She stood up, speaking with cool determination. “I won’t ever be at home here, Owen. I cannot marry ye.”

  She faced him head on, but he was still looking at the castle. For a long minute neither of them said a thing. Then at last he turned and squared off against her, folding his arms across his chest and regarding her with narrowed brown eyes.

  “You’ve changed your mind already? You give fickle women a bad name, Maggie.”

  She took a deep, steadying breath and resisted the urge to insult him back. “I thought I could marry ye. Though I was angry about everything that had happened between us, and having to fix everyone else’s mistakes, I accepted my role in all of this. But last night changed everything.”

  “Last night,” he echoed with sarcasm.

  “Owen, I dreamed a terrible dream.”

  He simply blinked at her as if confused.

  “Don’t tell me ye don’t remember.” As anger rose up inside her, hot enough to make her ears burn, she pushed at his chest and he barely moved. “Ye don’t want to remember. I have dreams, Owen, vivid haunting dreams that come true. I’ve never known them not to come true. I had dreams of ye when ye were just a laddie. You were the secret friend of my childhood.”

  She was spilling it all and he was just regarding her as if she were a new species of plant life. And that made her even more furious.

  “I’ve spent my life hiding what I am from people,” she continued, words flowing fast, “knowing I could be accused of being a witch. It kept me from deep friendships, from being myself. And then after everything that happened with ye ten years ago, I pushed it all down inside me, learning how to force myself not to dream, even learning to wake myself up if I felt it happening. Getting a decent night’s sleep took a long time to achieve. I thought I was over this curse—until ye told me ye’d have me to wife. And then I dreamed.” She shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself, and the dream unfolded in her mind as if it had been waiting to spring up and terrorize her. “When I screamed, ye woke me from the dream of our wedding day.” Her voice became rough. “I’m in my wedding clothes, and ye’re covered in blood, lying on the floor, white with impending death. I fall on ye and my gown becomes spattered with your blood . . .” She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t think, might never feel warm again. The terror of it was so real, overwhelming, incapacitating.

  And then she came back to herself to find him shaking her.

  “Maggie.” He looked exasperated and angry. “This is why you won�
�t marry me? You’re allowing a foolish nightmare to upset you?”

  Her head jerked away from him as if he’d slapped her, and he let her go.

  “And now ye see why I hesitated to tell ye,” she said. “Ten years ago ye reacted even worse. Ye don’t have to take my word for it. Ye can ask my brother, my mother—oh, silly me, they’re not here to confirm my story, don’t ye ken.” His disbelief had haunted her all these years, and it was there again. “Aye, you try to tell the mother whose child is thought drowned that I don’t have dreams that come true. I was the only one who never gave up; I saw where he was, led them right there. Do ye ken how often my dreams saved Hugh and me from terrible beatings?” All the emotion pouring out of her left her drained, and she regarded him with an exhaustion that seemed older than time. “Ye haven’t changed one bit, Owen Duff. Ye still think ye ken all there is in the world. But ye didn’t ken enough to save Lady Emily when I warned ye to.”

  “I cannot believe you’re bringing up that tragedy,” he scoffed.

  “At least ye didn’t remind me what a jealous liar I am.”

  He shot her a look. “I did not—”

  “Ye did. And when my dream came true, and the poor lassie died, ye never acknowledged it, did ye.”

  “I don’t acknowledge coincidences.”

  “Is that what ye told yourself? How ye slept at night? I never got over the guilt that I trusted you to do something to help her, when I should have gone to her myself.”

  He clenched his jaw. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

  “That ye’ll help me find a way to salvage this marriage contract between our clans.”

  He stared down at her. She well remembered when they’d been together in their youth, when they’d hunched over a snake for an hour, and she’d thought Owen would take notes, he was so intent. She felt that way now, except she was his science experiment.

  “You will mention this foolishness to no one,” he commanded.

  She was disappointed by his attitude, but for once they were in agreement. “Aye, ye think I want to be called a witch? But what are we going to do, Owen?”

  “Do? We’re going to marry, of course.”

  She groaned. “Do ye want to die?”

  “I won’t die, and I’m disappointed you think such a foolish thing will dissuade me. Do you doubt my intelligence?”

  “How can I doubt what ye never let anyone forget?” she shot back.

  A corner of his mouth turned up, as if he found her amusing.

  “Don’t make light of me, Owen, or this curse I’ve had to live with my whole life. I’m trying to help ye.”

  “Are you? Or are you somehow trying to help your clan? Was this your brother’s idea?”

  She took a step away. “Of course not! He was the one who tried to make the contract work when your father schemed to break it. Ye think I’d invent a story to avoid my responsibilities?”

  “It looks like it. Although I wouldn’t have believed it of you, it seems these last ten years have changed you.”

  “And they haven’t changed you at all!”

  They faced one another down, and Maggie realized she might never convince him of the truth. She was alone in this.

  “I don’t know what you thought you’d achieve with such a tale,” he said, “but it will not work. You agreed to marry me, and I’m holding you to it.”

  “Even if it means your death,” she said, feeling older, sadder, frustrated.

  “Threats, Maggie?” he asked softly.

  “I’m not going to kill ye! I don’t ken who tries—I didn’t see that part of the dream.” But perhaps that’s what she had to discover, if ever she was to convince him.

  “I’m not going to risk my clan’s future on your foolish whim.”

  “Is this guilt over the part your father played or determination to be nothing like him?” she demanded coldly.

  “Enough, Maggie. We will marry. And then I will spend my nights making you glad for it.”

  He spoke with promise, his voice husky, his eyes intense.

  He was going to die, and all he cared about was having his pleasure. She whirled away and began to march back toward the castle, feeling him fall into step at her side, though she refused to look his way.

  “August is the month for lovers in Scotland,” he continued.

  She stared at him, infuriated. He was going to ignore her warnings—again.

  “This is the month that the harvest approaches, that trial marriages begin,” he continued, lecturing her. “It’s a new season for many things—and it will be for us, too.”

  He gave another one of those faint smiles that looked as if he didn’t remember how to laugh; he certainly hadn’t been so closed off as a young man.

  He was so firm in his beliefs about the world. One would have thought a man who fancied himself a scientist would accept that there were things he couldn’t yet prove. Or did a frustrated scientist cling even more firmly to only what the logic of science could tell him?

  Being with Himself as she walked through the courtyard was a different experience. She saw how his people nodded respectfully to him, how the men training with their swords seemed to show off their parries and thrusts.

  But she was still thinking about Owen and how he’d changed. She remembered him in her childhood dreams. Had that been fate’s way of allowing her to know him from the beginning? She’d been granted rare insight to the stubborn boy with a passion for learning, who also adored the outdoors and his Highlands.

  He was still stubborn, but he had the power of a chiefdom, an earldom, behind him now. He could try to force her to wed, and though she would resist, she had to be prepared to fight him with the truth. She had to determine how the dream ended. She could not take lightly that she’d been connected to him her entire life—perhaps it had all been so that she could save him, fool that he was.

  CHAPTER 4

  Owen knew the moment his bodyguard fell into step behind him in the courtyard. As the daughter of a chief, Maggie probably took it for granted, because she only bid Owen a good afternoon, then headed for the towerhouse. Owen stood still a moment, watching her walk away. The sway of her hips was an age-old siren song to a man, especially to a man who knew he would be married to her.

  But not if she had her way.

  He gave a frustrated sigh. What the hell was she thinking? He knew as well as she did that their sort of marriage was not one of love. He’d once thought her a practical girl and had hoped she didn’t expect unreasonable and blind devotion from a husband. When he’d offered for her, he’d been remembering the laughing girl who’d explored Edinburgh at his side, who could carry on an intelligent conversation, who’d lain with him in the grass and kissed him with an innocent passion. Even her recent guardedness and suspicion were understandable. He knew women wanted romance and undying love, something seldom found when marrying to beget heirs for titles or unite warring clans.

  But her reaction was beyond the pale. Refusing to marry him? Pretending some sort of nightmare was a portent of the future? Had she not matured in ten years? It didn’t bode well for the peacefulness of their marriage.

  Or was it as he’d accused her, part of a plot concocted with her brother to get Owen to break the contract, so they’d have their whisky land back? Once he wouldn’t have believed it of her, but their friendship had been too brief for him to assume he knew her.

  But if she was the sort to punish him for forcing her into marriage, she could have told his sister the details of how he’d let himself kiss her when he’d been betrothed, honor-bound, to another woman. But Maggie hadn’t. She’d kept their arguments between them. He could respect her for that, at least.

  He’d keep this argument between them as well, while he figured out what she was up to. Because although he could believe her fickle, or afraid, or part of a conspiracy, he could not believe her daft.

  Behind him, Fergus, his bodyguard, cleared his throat, and Owen realized he was standing stock-still in the
courtyard, watching the door through which Maggie had already disappeared. Owen started walking.

  Fergus importantly swept past him, eyeing everyone with narrowed eyes and a lowered brow, as if he’d never seen the members of his own clan before. Owen had seen more than one man snicker behind Fergus’s overly serious back. Owen could only hope that Fergus struck fear into other clans, because he struck no fear in his own, at least with his behavior. He’d been assigned his duties by the war chief—Owen’s father’s war chief. Owen wasn’t ready to start countermanding orders just because he’d recently inherited the chiefdom.

  Fergus followed him up through the castle to the chief’s solar, where his father had kept to himself often. Fergus took up his station outside the door, his back to the ancient stone walls, and faced the wall opposite as if he could stare there all day.

  Standing in the doorway, Owen eyed Fergus. “You know you don’t have to spend your afternoon here.”

  “’Tis my place, my lord, and proud I am to be manning it.”

  “And grateful am I, of course, but when you need to rest, you have my permission to leave.”

  Fergus just stood at attention, hand on his pistol just in case he had to draw it quickly and use it on whoever came up the circular stairs.

  Shaking his head, Owen entered the solar. Fergus pulled the door shut for him, regardless of what Owen wanted. But he was beginning to understand the need to have a place to be alone. He’d spent part of each year in London, while his father served in the House of Lords. He’d found being a bachelor viscount in the city satisfying enough. He could attend the occasional dinner or musicale when he wished the companionship of young ladies, but during the day, he was more often than not to be found at the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge—a long-winded title for scientific fellows who gave lectures or witnessed experiments. He liked his time to think, or to write his thoughts about the topics explored. Constant closeness with all his clansmen always took some time to get used to.