Wild Wicked Scot
Page 30
Arran stared at her, his expression wild with hope. “You’ve never said it,” he said roughly.
“Yes, well, that’s another mistake in my very long list of them,” she said apologetically. “But in this, you must trust me. Arran, for heaven’s sake, you must, at last, trust me. I love you, and not because our fortunes were aligned. Because in this little lodge, you taught me what is important. You taught me what it meant to care for someone. I don’t care about balls and society. I care about how many potatoes the earth will yield, and how I might mend the hole I put in your shirt, and if you will love your child as much as you love those wretched dogs at Balhaire.”
He bowed his head, sighing with relief. “Margot... Diah—”
She took his face in her hands and made him look up at her. “You became the beginning and the end of my world here, and I choose you. I will always choose you.” She kissed him tenderly.
Arran pulled her hands from his face and peered at her, his eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, then, you hope I love my child as much as my dogs?”
Margot smiled. “Just that you are unnaturally attached to those dogs, aren’t you? The child will need your attention, too.”
Arran’s frown deepened. He cupped her face. “Diah, Margot, you must speak plainer than this. Do you carry my child?”
Margot laughed. “I think so,” she said hopefully. “Yes, I think I am.”
Arran lurched forward, reaching for her waist and tumbling back into the bed with her. “Woman, you canna be rid of me now,” he said gruffly. “A child!”
He began to kiss her, every inch of her, muttering how happy she’d made him, and Margot thought, as she smiled up at the rough, wood-planked ceiling above them, that this was just the beginning of her new world.
EPILOGUE
Balhaire
1713
THE LAD WAS nearing his second birthday, and already the old dogs waddled after him as if he was leading them into battle. Naturally they would think so, because the boy wielded his wooden sword everywhere he went.
They’d named him Cailean after Arran’s father. He had the look of the Mackenzies of Balhaire—big for his age, a crop of auburn hair like his mother and the stark blue eyes of his father.
“He’ll break hearts across Scotland one day,” Margot predicted.
“He’ll break noggins,” Arran said with gruff pride as they watched him terrorize Fergus with his little sword.
Arran helped ease Margot into a chair—she was heavy with child again, and he could scarcely contain his excitement. The midwives said she would deliver him a girl, and secretly, Arran hoped it was so. He had in mind to give his daughter the sort of life Margot had been given, with balls and ponies and pretty gowns.
“I hear the pipes, Arran,” Margot said.
“Aye.” He signaled Sweeney to wrangle Cailean. The wedding party was nearing the great hall.
“We didn’t have a procession for our wedding,” Margot mused as the doors swung open and the first of the revelers entered.
“Would you like a procession, then, mo gradh? I’ll give you one.”
“What I would like is for this child to proceed to be born,” she said with a sigh, and rubbed the bottom of her belly. “She’s a hellion, always kicking.”
“Patience.”
“That’s quite simple for you to say, isn’t it, a man quite at his leisure without a small piglet in his belly?”
He squeezed her hand fondly. “Uist, now, the bride and groom are coming.”
The bride and groom entered the hall behind the standard bearer, the groom dressed in a plaid and standing very tall, a head taller than anyone, and the bride in a wreath of flowers and a sash of plaid. “I don’t believe it!” Margot exclaimed. “She wore the plaid!”
“Did you think she’d no’?” Arran whispered.
“No! Nell is quite opposed to Scottish customs, you know,” she said. “She says they are for heathens, and that Jock is the biggest heathen of them all.”
“Aye, that he is,” Arran agreed. “But a gentle heathen. And she doesna seem unhappy.”
“No,” Margot said, smiling fondly. “On the contrary, she seems indescribably happy.”
It was true—Nell was beaming. And so was Jock. Arran had never seen a smile as wide as the one he wore now.
They reached the dais, and Jock bowed to Arran. Arran stood up to receive the couple and bless their union. He stood aside as the vicar received their vows and proclaimed them husband and wife. He turned them back to the crowd gathered and pronounced them as Mackenzies of the clan, and the round of toasts, as was the clan’s custom, began.
Margot touched his leg.
“One moment more—I must give the final toast, aye?”
“You’d best be quick about it,” she said.
“I know you’re uncomfortable, but we must let them have their day.”
“Of course. But someone else is going to have her day, too.”
Confused, Arran glanced down. Margot arched her brow and pointed at her belly.
Vivienne Mackenzie was born twelve hours later, her little wails so loud that the crier was not needed. When Cailean was brought in to see his baby sister for the first time, he said, “Leamsa.”
Margot didn’t understand at first. Arran told her that the word that sounded like loomsa meant mine in English.
“Oh no, she is not yours, my love,” Margot said, catching Cailean’s little hand before he could grab the infant’s hair.
“Leamsa, leamsa!” he crowed.
For the first year or so of her life, Vivienne was known as Loomsa. Arran and Margot tried everything to convince the boy his sister was not his property. They gave him puppies. Ponies. More wooden swords. But the lad would not be persuaded. Little Vivienne, his Loomsa, belonged to him.
When a third child was born, the name Loomsa was passed to the baby boy, and Vivienne was restored her rightful name.
All of the children that would come after Cailean, four more, were, at some point, called Loomsa. And a few dogs. A bird and at least a pair of ponies.
One night after Vivienne’s second birthday, when a gentle snow had begun to fall on Balhaire, Arran drew his wife to his warmth. “Leamsa,” he whispered into her hair.
Margot closed her eyes and sighed with contentment. “I am that,” she assured him. She was exhausted—she was carrying her third child and had spent the day milling soap with Mrs. Gowan. Her lids began to close.
But Margot was rudely awakened by the sudden weight of a beast. She opened her eyes with a cry, and Cailean giggled as he fell onto her, his little arms around her neck. He was followed by his sister and two dogs, all of them crowding into the bed with her and Arran.
“You heathens will no’ sleep here,” Arran said gruffly. “No’ all night, you willna.” But he was covering them with a thick wool blanket as they jostled for position between them, kicking and giggling.
“Quiet now,” Margot said. “Your poor mamma needs her sleep.” She sighed and clung to the very edge of the bed, aware of the little foot in her back. But she smiled. She was safe in the arms of the beginning and the end of her world.
* * * * *
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ISBN-13: 9781459294066
Wild Wicked Scot
Copyright © 2016 by Dinah Dinwiddie
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