It was nearly evening when Bronwyn saw Morag again. The setting sun made the room dim. Rab stood close by his mistress’s side while she combed her long hair. “I see you had a visitor this afternoon,” she said as if it were of no importance.
Morag shrugged.
“Did you speak of anything interesting?”
Again Morag merely shrugged.
Bronwyn put down her comb and went to the window seat where Morag sat. “Will you answer me!”
“Ye’re a nosy one. Since when do I have to make an answer about my private conversations?”
“You’ve been drinking in the afternoon again. I can smell it.”
Morag grinned. “That boy can certainly hold his whiskey. I bet he could drink a Scot under the table.”
“Who?” Bronwyn demanded.
Morag gave her a sly look. “Why, yer husband of course. Who else would ye be houndin’ me for answers about?”
“I am not…!” Bronwyn calmed herself. “He is not my husband. He doesn’t even bother to speak to me much less appear for his wedding.”
“So that’s what’s still botherin’ ye. I figured ye’d see us together. Were ye plannin’ to snub him while you had the arm of young Chatworth?”
Bronwyn didn’t answer.
“I thought so! Let me tell ye that Stephen Montgomery isn’t used to being snubbed by any woman, and if he does decide to marry ye after the way ye’ve carried on with Chatworth, ye should consider yerself fortunate.”
“Fortunate!” Bronwyn managed to gasp. It was all she could say. Another word from Morag and she just might wring that scrawny little neck. “Come, Rab,” she commanded and left the room.
She hurried down the stairs to the garden below. It had already grown dark, and the moon shone brightly over the trees and hedges. She walked along the paths for quite some time before she finally sat down on a stone bench in front of a low wall. How she wanted to go home! She wanted to get away from these foreigners, out of these foreign clothes, away from foreign men who looked at her only as a prize of war.
Suddenly Rab stood and gave a low growl of warning.
“Who’s there?” she asked.
The man stepped forward. “Stephen Montgomery,” he said quietly. He looked larger in the moonlight, towering over her. “May I sit with you?”
“Why not? What say do I have in any matter concerning the English?”
Stephen sat beside her and watched as she controlled Rab with a single hand gesture. He leaned back against the wall, his long legs stretched before him. Bronwyn moved closer to the edge of the bench, away from him. “You’ll fall if you move any farther.”
She stiffened. “Say what you want and have done with it.”
“I have nothing to say,” he said easily.
“You certainly seemed to have ‘nothing’ to say to Morag.”
He smiled, the moonlight showing his even, white teeth. “The woman tried to get me drunk.”
“And did she succeed?”
“You don’t grow up with three brothers and not learn how to drink.”
“You merely drank and had no conversation?”
Stephen was silent for a moment. “Why are you so hostile to me?”
She stood quickly. “Did you expect me to welcome you with open arms? I stood in my wedding gown for six hours waiting for you to come. I have seen my entire family slaughtered by the English yet I am told I must marry one. Then I am disregarded as if I did not exist. And now you make no apology to me but ask why I am hostile.”
