She shook her head frantically. “No, you can’t leave me here. If you will not listen to reason then take me with you. I can’t stay here any longer without you.”
His chest tugged, hearing the desperation in her voice. “I would if I could, but it’s impossible. Where we are going is no place for a woman.” Bruce had sent his own wife, sister, and daughter away. Lachlan “Viper” MacRuairi was leading them and the Countess of Buchan east to Kildrummy Castle.
“I don’t care. I swear I will not be a burden. Just don’t leave me here alone. Please,” she cried. “I can’t bear it.”
Coming here had been a mistake. He was only making the situation worse. Her voice was verging on hysterical. He tried to soothe her panic by taking her in his arms, but she was stiff and unyielding.
“I would if I could. You have to believe that.”
She wrenched out of his arms with a hard jerk. “I’m tired ofbelieving. I’m tired of waiting here, while you disappear for months without telling me anything. We’ve been married almost a year, and we’ve spent less than three weeks of that together and shared a bed but one night.One night, Eoin. You can’t leave me here. I won’t allow it. Either stay or take me with you or...”
Eoin knew she was upset, and he was trying to be understanding, but he didn’t like ultimatums. “Or what, Maggie? What choice do you have? This is the way it must be.”
Her mouth pursed stubbornly, and she turned her head from him in the candlelight. He could almost hear what she was thinking, and it infuriated him. Fin’s words of warning came back to him. Why did she have to be like this? This wasn’t easy for him either. Couldn’t she at least try to understand without making demands? Lady Barbara would have known her duty. This was war, damn it.
But she was young and impatient—he’d known that.
Taking her chin, he forced her gaze back to his. “You are my wife, Margaret. You will stay here and wait for me—where you belong.”
“I don’t belong here! Not without you. I can’t do this anymore.”
His chest pounded from the blow. She didn’t want to be married to him. His jaw was locked so hard, he could feel the pulse in his neck ticking. “Maybe so, but as it’s too late for second thoughts, I suggest you do your best to live with it. Who knows, maybe you’ll get lucky, and King Edward will put you out of your misery.”
She gasped, staring at him with a stricken look on her face. Tears filled her eyes, but he was too angry to offer her comfort.
“How could you say something like that? The fear of something happening to you has haunted me every hour of every day that we’ve been apart. I love you, it’s just that I can’t...”
But she had to. They both knew that. She was his wife.
She gazed at him helplessly, tears streaming down her cheeks.
The anger seeped out of him. He drew her into his arms again, and as he could say nothing to comfort her, he just held her as she sobbed. They made love almost out of desperation, but it only seemed to widen the chasm between them.
When he left a short while later, she would barely look at him. He felt like he was ripping apart. He’d come home to make things better and had only made them worse. And he feared that time and separation were cleaving a distance between them that he would never be able to bridge.
Not wanting to make it worse, he didn’t tell her about Fin.
What am I doing here?
Margaret stood on the ramparts staring forlornly out to sea, wondering how her life could have changed so much in one year. She wasn’t the “fair maid” of Galloway anymore, she was the abandoned wife of an outlaw. She wasn’t living with a father and eight brothers who loved her, she was a pariah among strangers—most of them hostile. She wasn’t the laughing, lighthearted hostess who’d presided over her father’s table with confidence, she was the “unfortunate” mistake who sat below the salt and rarely spoke to anyone other than Tilda. And she wasn’t the lady of the castle who was busy helping to run a fiefdom for her father, she was the formerly irreverent girl who’s work at a convent was the only thing that kept her from going mad with boredom.
And what was it all for? Was she waiting here for nothing? Where was Eoin? When would he come back?Wouldhe come back?
After the way they’d parted the last time, she wasn’t sure he’d want to. It had been nearly a month since that horrible night when her husband had appeared like a phantom in the dark to tell her of his plans. She deeply regretted some of the things she’d said, and the way she’d responded to his news with demands. But she’d been upset, frustrated, and desperate for him not to abandon her once more in this miserable place where she was cut off from everyone and everything that she loved—even the husband who’d brought her here.
But it had been his words that haunted her. How could he suggest—even in anger—that she would wish for his death to escape this marriage? Shelovedhim. She only wanted to be with him.
But he was right. What choice did she have? She turned away from the sea to return to the tower. No matter how much it beckoned, she could not leave.
She didn’t understand how everything could have gone so wrong. How could the marriage that had seemed so romantic and perfect feel like such a mistake? It seemed as if nothing had gone right since the moment they’d spoken their vows in the cottage. The world had turned against them. And there was nothing romantic about being married to a man whose misplaced loyalty had taken him away from her side for a year.
All for a lost cause. She still couldn’t believe that he’d chosen to stay with Bruce. Even Eoin’s foster brother had surrendered to the Lord of Lorn. Fin, John MacDougall’s newest toady, had arrived at Gylen Castle as its keeper a week ago. With the MacLean laird and his son being declared outlaw rebels, the clan’s lands had been forfeit to the crown—theEnglishcrown. As sheriff of Argyll—the English king’s authority in the area—Lorn had given Fin command of the castle.
At first Margaret had been horrified by the news of Fin’s return, until she’d learned the reason why. Fin had been given Marjory as a bride. The marriage that Eoin’s sister had always wanted would be hers as soon as the banns could be read.
Margaret tried to be happy for her. She desperately hoped that she was wrong about Fin. He seemed to be doing his best to avoid her, for which she was grateful—and relieved.
It wasn’t until the night of the betrothal celebration that Margaret learned he’d only been biding his time. Despite the happiness of the bride-to-be, there was a pall cast over the occasion by the absence of the laird and his sons—none of whom had been heard from since Eoin had left. Though the clansmen had been forced to swear to their new overlord, their loyalty was still with their laird, and they looked on Fin as something between an opportunist and a traitor.
