“I am not, s—” She almost called himsiragain, then stopped herself with a small smile. “I was found as a wee infant, you see. An old farmer named Fergus found me in his field one morning, if you can imagine such a thing. He raised me until I went into service here at the castle. To this day, I have no idea who my parents were or why they had left me there. Some said that I was carried there by fairies.”
“As fair as you are, I could easily believe you were born into their number,” Brodie said.
Margaret blushed, and he scolded himself. He thought of kissing her, but to do so with this woman would not make him the man and the leader he wanted to be. It would insult his host, and it would shame his clan. He knew that he had to reserve such flirtations for Isla.
“You must not say such things to me, sir,” Margaret urged, as though reading his very thoughts. “You must know that if any were to overhear, I would be in quite a lot of trouble.”
“None could faultyoufor things thatIhave said, surely,” he replied.
She gazed into his eyes sadly. “But they would just the same, don’t you see? I would lose my position here, and it is all that I have. More than that, I would do great harm to my lady Isla, and I would not risk that for anything in the world, for she has been ever so kind to me.”
Every word she said was right, and Brodie knew it. Even so, the thought of relenting seemed as fundamentally impossible to him in that moment as walking through a closed door.
“I understand,” he said with great difficulty, “and I would not wish to bring trouble upon you. I apologize.”
She paused for a moment, then reached out timidly, brushing her fingertips against his cheek. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”
Brodie dearly wished she would continue to grace his skin with the softness of her touch. He wished that instant between them could last a lifetime. He wished that neither of them ever needed to leave that library.
Instead, though, Margaret caught herself, pulling her hand away and running from the room as though afraid of what she might do if she remained.
For the rest of the day and into the evening, Margaret carried out her duties. When the time came for her to serve wine at dinner, she kept her eyes averted from Brodie’s and managed to pour and leave without embarrassing herself again. She brushed Isla’s hair before bed and studiously listened to the girl fret about whether she should commit herself to going through with the marriage or hold out hope that she might yet become Andrew’s bride.
Or, at any rate, she meant to listen. Truly, she did.
But she could not stop thinking about the way Brodie’s eyes gazed at her. The way he’d spoken of duty to his clan the previous night at dinner, the manner in which he spoke and carried himself. If she concentrated hard enough, she could still feel his arms around her, the warmth and safety she had felt when he’d kept her from falling.
And when she bid Isla goodnight and went to her own bed in the servants’ quarters, she hoped to dream of a life in which she might not be forbidden from enjoying the comfort of his arms forever.
