The Groom Wore Plaid

by Gayle Callen

  She browsed the titles with awe. The Monadology by Descartes, Nova Methodus pro Maximis et Minimis by Leibniz. She eventually noticed they were grouped by subject such as astronomy, mathematics, natural philosophy. She picked up one on astronomy, thinking she liked to look at the night sky, but she was surprised at the level of mathematics involved, and how ignorant she felt.

  She finally found several books on the law, but they might as well have been written in a foreign language, for how little she understood. But she worked several long hours, looking up unfamiliar words, trying to find a legal way out of her contract. Nothing seemed to help, reinforcing her idea that getting Owen to break off the marriage might be the only way she could succeed in saving his life—not that she was finished trying to figure out her dream or decipher the book.

  After a while, she went to the window and stared out at the countryside. It was raining, a dreary drizzle against gray skies, a sight she was well used to. The rain wasn’t restricting her indoors so much as Owen’s edict after the arson. It was difficult to be confined after so many years of freedom in Edinburgh. At first, though she’d been away from her father’s influence there, he’d never been far from her thoughts, affecting every decision she made. Eventually, when she realized he seldom came to Edinburgh, she’d known true freedom, with no fear for the ugliness of his drunken behavior, or the worry about whom he’d next harm.

  But that part of her life was over. Her mother had always promised she’d have a say in her future, and it had come true, Maggie thought wryly. It had been her own choice to accept Owen’s proposal. She’d thought she was doing the right thing, desperate to help both her clan and her brother find happiness.

  She’d be much happier if that damned dream had come back to her last night.

  “There you are!”

  Maggie’s head came up, smacking hard into the open window.

  Owen’s sister, Cat, gasped. “I’m so sorry. Are you well?”

  Maggie nodded, closing the book she’d only been daydreaming over. She wanted to rub her head, but knew that would only make Cat feel worse.

  Cat walked over and stared at the cover. “Micrographia? What is that even about?”

  “I don’t know,” Maggie said heavily. “We didn’t have many books growing up, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity . . .” To avoid Owen.

  “I won’t keep you if you’re busy,” Cat said, “but I thought you might be interested in the competition going on right now.”

  “Competition?”

  “The men are swimming the loch. Ye didn’t know?”

  “They’re racing?”

  “Yes. It’s all in fun, of course, but I imagine the winner will think it more than that. And Owen is planning to lead the pack. Come enjoy the day with me.”

  So Owen had followed through on his plan. Maggie knew she should refuse, should play the disinterested bride, but Cat was drawing her by the arm, leading her outside to the stables.

  “Let’s ride,” Cat said, “in case the rain starts again.”

  At the stables, two horses were already saddled, and a clansman straightened up when he saw them, bowing deeply.

  Cat laughed and nudged his shoulder with her own. “Ivor here often accompanied me on journeys. He’s trustworthy.”

  The skinny young man went scarlet, and then nodded at Maggie without exactly meeting her eyes. Maggie hoped it was just shyness, rather than another Duff who despised McCallums. She hated feeling so suspicious all the time. She couldn’t trust Owen’s motives—how could she trust anyone else’s?

  The ride to the narrows of Loch Ard was peaceful, and when they reached open water, they could see the view of the bare craggy summit of Ben Lomond, the tallest mountain in the southern Highlands, rising high in the distance. It was a distant backdrop to her own hills, and it made her feel achingly closer to home.

  Many villagers and clansmen were gathered on the rocky shore of the loch, and Cat giggled at the men throwing off their coats, plaids, stockings, and boots. They stood wearing naught but their shirts, reaching to their hairy knees, good-naturedly boasting of their prowess to each other.

  Maggie remembered what it was like to laugh aloud at such a sight, to cheer on the men, and when she was younger, she sometimes joined the race herself. It had been a long time since she let herself wholeheartedly enjoy something. Suppressing one part of herself had made her cautious of anything that caused her to lose control.

  Maggie saw Owen almost at once, one of the taller clansmen, set apart as if the rest of his gentlemen didn’t want to crowd him. He didn’t see Maggie and Cat, and Maggie was able to study him from afar. He joined the men as if he truly believed himself one of them, regardless of the aristocratic title that should have set him apart. His confidence was far too attractive.

  All the men lunged awkwardly into the water, walking like teetering giants until they got past the rocky shore. And then they started swimming, and she could see their war chief, Harold, standing on the shore as if checking for fairness. Arms folded across his barrel chest, he didn’t seem happy or disturbed or—anything, by the youthful race.

  When the cheering faded a bit since the splashing men could no longer hear it, Cat turned to eye Maggie. “I do believe you’ve set me thinking about what it’s like being a McCallum in a Duff household.”

  Maggie blinked at her. “Why?”

  “I’ve seen how difficult it’s been for you in only a few days, but you’ve got Owen to look out for you.”

  Maggie didn’t say anything to that.

  “But my cousin Riona, on the other hand . . .” Cat trailed off, frown lines etched across her forehead.

  “She has Hugh,” Maggie pointed out, defensive on her brother’s behalf. “I’ve never seen a man so in love as he is.” And probably never would again.

  When Maggie was near the two of them, she could feel their devotion and tenderness. Even when their eyes met, there was a connection so deep, no one else mattered to them.

  Cat gave a wistful smile. “Well, I’m thinking it’s good to hear how much your brother loves Riona, of course, and I did enjoy their wedding, but . . . what now? How is she? A letter will find me soon, I hope, but . . . I’d feel better seeing things for myself. I think I’ll go visit for a week or two. I’d like to be part of the peace between our clans. I can help your people see that Duffs are honorable, too.”

  It seemed strange to go back so soon, but all Maggie said was, “Have ye discussed it with Owen?”

  “Not yet, but the hard one to convince will be my mother.”

  “She won’t want ye to go?”

  “She won’t want to go with me, but go with me, she must.” Cat gave her a very pointed stare. “I’m thinking you don’t need her hovering around, protecting her boy.”

  Maggie was surprised and touched by Cat’s intuitive reading of the situation. Their absence would have helped if Maggie planned to jump right into marriage. But perhaps it would be best if those who loved Owen the most weren’t around when Maggie played the incompetent bride and forced Owen to publicly end the engagement.

  CHAPTER 6

  After crossing the narrows and back, Owen came out of the water close enough to the front of the group to feel satisfied, to show he wasn’t the most powerful, that he was one of them. Several women cheered, and he nodded to them. When they giggled and waved, he looked down at himself and thought it was time for his plaid to cover the soaked shirt before he gave the women ideas.

  Fergus followed him up the rocky embankment, wringing water out of his shirt, flashing a lot of flank. “I’ll fetch your garments, my lord.”

  “I know where they are. Go find your own, Fergus.”

  He’d lost the leather tie from his queue in the loch, and was brushing his hair out of his face when he saw Maggie talking with his sister. So Maggie had come to watch. He hadn’t told her about the contest, but couldn’t be surprised his sister had. Had Cat dragged Maggie along? He found his garments where he’d left them and,
surprised by the good-natured taunts of the men he’d beaten, tried to respond in kind. Such banter didn’t come easily to him. He was a serious man focused on serious research, including preparation for his first session in Parliament next year. But this was his clan; these were the men he’d lead into battle if it became necessary. He was determined to know them better.

  But all the while he dressed and bantered, he kept glancing at Maggie. Once he caught her staring. She quickly turned away, and he felt the satisfaction of knowing he unsettled her. To his surprise, his sister turned away quickly, too, a sure sign of guilt. What was Cat doing to feel guilty about?

  “Mistress Maggie,” called a round-faced young woman near the fire. “Come have some oatcakes.”

  Maggie hurried away, and Owen was able to catch up to his sister—who still didn’t meet his gaze.

  “Cat, is something amiss?” he asked. “Who is that woman with Maggie?”

  Not that he was looking at Cat as he spoke. He was watching Maggie, who wore a smile he hadn’t seen in ten years, as she broke apart an oatcake, then blew on her fingers. Her hair was tight to her head, but he was remembering the wavy curls of her girlhood, the curls he’d once spread upon the ground and admired.

  “That’s Kathleen, the maid assigned to her,” Cat said.

  He’d almost forgotten his own question, so engrossed had he been with Maggie and his memories. “So that’s Kathleen,” he murmured. “She doesn’t look much like her brother.”

  “She did when she first arrived,” Cat mused, “but she’s had a hard time adjusting to life here. Their deprivation in the colonies has made her . . . overly hungry here. Mrs. Robertson and I thought it would be good for both her and Maggie to be with someone else who’s a newcomer.”

  “Speaking of Maggie, I should thank you for bringing her down today. I looked in on her before I left, and she was so engrossed in the library that she didn’t hear me. I left her in peace.”

  “Perhaps you should have intruded,” Cat said, eyeing Maggie with worry. “She seems . . . unsettled. You need to be alone with her, so I’ve decided to take our mother and go visit Hugh and Riona for several weeks.”

  Owen regarded his sister with surprise. “Have you told Maggie?”

  “I have.”

  “And she didn’t beg to accompany you?”

  Cat winced. “It’s as bad as all that?”

  “Almost. She’s not happy about the marriage.”

  “I suspected as much, even though she agreed to marry you.”

  “Agreement isn’t quite the same thing as gladness and excitement.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t be all that glad to marry a man I hadn’t seen in ten years. But Maggie seems a brave woman, and I admire her. I want her to be happy, and perhaps she can be, if you give her time. Woo her, Owen. Treat her like a woman who has a choice instead of making her feel trapped.”

  He frowned. “I do not make her feel trapped.”

  They were both trapped.

  “Not deliberately. But I think once Mother and I are gone, you’ll be free to make her feel wanted.” She cocked her head. “Maggie mentioned that the two of you spent time together one autumn long ago. Maybe you need to make her remember it. Now go be with her.”

  She gave him a push, as if he were a young man at his first dance. When he frowned at her, she rolled her eyes. He sensed she was barely holding back from sticking out her tongue. The edge of his mouth quirked up, and by her laughing eyes, he knew she’d seen it. She always could bring out the humor in every situation, a trait he didn’t have.

  He saw Maggie walking toward the loch, solemnly eating another oatcake, and he approached her. Her gaze roamed down his damp shirt, and the haste with which she looked back at his face made him feel satisfied. She might be resistant to marriage, but there was no doubt that she wasn’t immune to him. And he wasn’t immune to her.

  “You look good here, among my people,” he said, reaching up to slip a lock of her hair back behind her ear.

  She gave a start, her eyes wary. “You think flattery will help ye get your way?”

  “It’s worth a try. Didn’t some man try to work his wiles on you before now?”

  She narrowed her eyes, but didn’t answer.

  “Why did you not marry?”

  She didn’t say anything for a long moment, just stared out across the water at the bare hills to the north, the direction of her home.

  “I felt I’d know the right man when I met him,” she said at last, then arched a brow at him. “It never happened.”

  “Perhaps because you’d already met the one man meant to be your husband—me.”

  She gave a snort that was anything but amusement. “Even you don’t believe that. If ye did, ye’d have come to court me long before now.”

  “Do you wish I would have?”

  “Nay, I’m saying that we aren’t destined to be together.” She lowered her voice. “My dream is apparently trying to prove the truth of that in the worst way possible.”

  He ignored her reference to the dream, refusing to play along with her game by offering another rational argument every time she brought it up. “Were you angry that after Emily died, I didn’t come to court you?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I was eighteen, Maggie. I was sad about Emily’s death, but relieved not to have to marry a woman I didn’t choose. My education was my focus in those years, as it should have been.”

  “Ye don’t have to convince me of that. I knew how little a marriage mattered to ye, and how little faith or trust ye had in me.”

  He was not going to defend himself or his behavior again, especially since she was only trying to punish him. “It matters to me now. Only twenty-seven more days.”

  She turned back to the water, revealing nothing in her unusual eyes. Looking at her slim back made him want to put his hands on her, feel the narrowness at her waist give rise to the curve of her hips. Time to distract himself.

  “Did you enjoy the library this morn?” he asked.

  She faced him again, then reluctantly said, “Not as much as I’d hoped. The room proves that my education was sorely lacking. I find little I can understand. But I’m not giving up,” she added sharply. “There’s a book on contracts I mean to decipher.”

  “Go ahead. I won’t rescind your access to the library.”

  She thought him a monster, forcing her to marry, handing out rules on a whim. Did she not care that he was being forced to marry, too, losing the right to name his own wife? But she wouldn’t take such a reminder kindly, he knew. He was irritated that she wasn’t settling into her role, accepting her new reality. Surely she understood the duty of a laird’s daughter. But perhaps Cat was right, that he had much work to do if he wanted a comfortable marriage.

  “A library was the one way I felt that my father did right by me,” Owen said. “I would never deny you such a privilege. I look forward to introducing you to more when we travel to London early next year.”

  Those dark brows, so expressive, lowered again. “Travel to London?”

  “I am a member of the House of Lords with my father’s death, and I must take my seat there. I think you’ll enjoy the city. Have you ever been there before?”

  She shook her head. “Edinburgh is all I’ve known—all I need to know. I won’t be traveling to England.”

  He ignored that, speaking patiently. “The sheer size of London will astound you, and it spreads outward every year. More than half a million people live there, and it continues to grow so much it might outpace the entire population of Scotland.”

  “That is not possible,” she insisted.

  “When we marry, you can come with me to find out. There are pleasure gardens to wander through, where globes light up the trees at night and people from all levels of society walk about masked. Every day men and women have great discussions in the coffeehouses about politics and philosophy and science. Is that what you’d like?”

  “Ye cannot lure me into marriage with ta
lk of foreign cities, Owen. Talk is an easy thing to use against a person, and not very successful.”

  “You think I’m ‘using’ talk, as if I spout lies?” he demanded.

  “I think ye talk to try to get what ye want. Regardless, I won’t be traveling to London. I’ll never leave Scotland for the land of the enemy.”

  “It will be your duty as my countess.”

  “Then ye’d better find another countess,” she said sweetly.

  She moved to turn away and he took her upper arm, holding her close and leaning down. Their faces weren’t far apart.

  “I never took you for someone so suspicious,” he said. “What happened to you, Maggie?”

  “Life happens to all of us, Owen. You happened to me, too. Please release me so I don’t embarrass us both by pulling away.”

  He was watching her mouth, and knew what she said, but once again he was caught up in the nearness of her, the lavender in her hair, the moistness of her lips. “Don’t distance yourself, lass,” he murmured. “Give this a chance.”

  But he let her go.

  MAGGIE was grateful for the group of horses that slowly wound their way back down the glen toward Castle Kinlochard. It helped her hide her dejection at having to refuse a trip to London. She’d spent her life longing to explore and learn about the world, but going along with Owen’s plans would only make him think she would marry him.

  All around her, men bragged or teased, women laughed, and Owen remained at the center of it, and yet apart, their laird. He did not seem the sort to have an easy way with his people, which still surprised her. The boy she’d known for those few weeks ten years ago would have been far more at ease. What had happened to him? It couldn’t simply be maturity and responsibility.

  Over the next few days as Cat and her mother made preparations to leave, Maggie reluctantly spent time with them. If she wasn’t poring over the law book—confusing Cat but making Owen frown at her—she was sewing pieces of tattered lace and ugly trim to her plainest gowns. Once his family left, she’d be ready for the next part of her plan, making Owen lose his desire for her. Then at last he might try to help her find another way to satisfy the contract.