She did not look at it. “Will I be forced to go to the Orkney Islands?”
“Where else could ye go? ’Tis no secret that ye have joined Queen Elisabeth, defying Buchan. All of Scotland knows ye refused to marry Sir Guy when ye ran from Castle Fyne.”
He was right. If the queen went, taking her ladies with her, she would have to go with them. She had nowhere else to go. “I am afraid, Alexander.”
“I ken. Margaret...” He stopped.
“What? If you have something to say, please, say it!” she cried.
“I have so many questions,” he said sharply. “And even now, I dinna like it when yer afraid.”
What did that mean? She knew she must stop being emotional. But she wanted to cry—and rush into his arms—and demand her own answers. “I will answer all your questions—you must merely ask them,” she managed to answer.
He took her arm and guided her away from the tent, toward the outskirts of the camp. Margaret realized Isabella had already wandered away from them. She did not look back to see where she was, as she could guess. “I do not like this awkwardness,” she said. “How can we have become strangers?”
He glanced at her as they approached a pair of majestic fir trees. “It has been three months since we last spoke.”
“I wrote you a letter. You did not reply.” She cringed at hearing her own desperation!
“I dinna ken what yer asking me, Margaret,” he said abruptly.
“You were fond of me. You once wished to marry me. Is there another woman you wish to wed—one with a real dowry?” She could not look away from him now.
“No. We’re at war,” he said, quite unnecessarily.
“Bruce wanted us wed, once. Has he changed his mind?”
He stared for a moment. “Castle Fyne remains my ambition.”
What did that mean? And he hadn’t answered her question.
“And what of ye, Margaret? Have ye decided to fall in love with someone—Sir Neil, perhaps?”
There is only one man I love, she thought, but she was surprised that he would ask her such a thing. “No,” she said.
He flushed. Then, “If ye dinna love someone else, then why did ye write me such a letter?”
“I am uncertain of your meaning, Alexander.”
“Ye wrote me as if we were strangers! I hardly believed ye wrote it.”
She inhaled, struck by his words. “Is that why you did not write me back?”
“The lady who wrote me was not the same woman I held in my arms,” he said with finality.
She began shaking her head. “Should I have written to you, proclaiming my eternal love? Begging you to return my affections when you left me so angrily? I am a proud woman, Alexander. Without my dowry, I have no value as a bride and we both know it. Most men would have lost interest in taking me to wife once Sir Guy conquered Castle Fyne. You are not most men, yet surely, you wish a bride with lands.”
“Is that what ye wished to ask me—if I cared still? If I still wanted ye as a bride?”
“Yes.”
His eyes widened. A long moment ensued, and he said slowly, “And do ye love me—eternally?”
She trembled. “I do love you, Alexander. Of course I do.”
A fierce look covered his face. “I have missed ye, Margaret.”
And before she could utter another word, Alexander crushed her in his arms, his mouth upon hers. Margaret held on to him, as tightly as she could, kissing him back. They stood that way for a very long time.
