Page 20 of Highlander’s Torn Bride

“Apologies, I’ll try to be bonnier when I am next stolen away by outlaws.”

Without another word of reply, the man bent over and slung her back over her shoulder, ignoring her renewed attempts at freeing herself, which could now be nothing more than her wiggling like a fish on a dock. No matter how much Margaret protested, screamed, and wiggled, the men would not say anything further. Only occasionally did they pass any comment between them, and that was usually a remark on whether or not they thought any of the men that they had left behind would return unscathed and, if so, whom.

When the attack had come, Margaret had done her best to follow Alexander’s instructions. But, before she could follow Ann under one of the carts, these men stopped her and told her that it would be better if the two women hid under different carts. Margaret—who had since realized that her father had put too much emphasis on frivolous things in her education, such as business and mathematics, rather than more practical things, such as defensive war tactics—had believed them. But they hadn’t ever let her hide under a cart, for the had grabbed her and made a break for the trees as soon as Ann could no longer see their feet.

The pair carried her through the forest for well over an hour, and the sun had turned the shadows long by the time that she started to hear other voices. Some were in pain, she knew, from the way they grimaced or cried out. Others were jovial, unsympathetic to their friends dying beside them. Margaret did her best to look around from her vantage point, but it was now far too dim in the forest to see anything but the bright light of their campfires cutting through the trees.

The man carrying her paused for only a second before she heard him grunt and then heard a soft, groaning creek of a door being opened in protest. The man carried her inside the building and then dropped her again. Margaret prepared herself for the sharp contact of the ground, but her landing was soft, and her nose immediately detected the smell of freshly cut hay.

“Where are you going?” Margaret shouted after them, as she watched their silhouettes depart.

They, of course, said nothing.

Margaret was alone, though, for only a second. As soon as her captors disappeared through the doorway, the frame became filled with the bright light of a torch. Margaret blinked her eyes rapidly, trying to get them to adjust, but the man carrying the torch was approaching so quickly that her eyes did not stand a chance of aiding her.

“Stay back,” she shouted, hoping to sound threatening. But her words were only met with a laugh.

“Are ye sure ye wish me to, lass?”

Margaret stopped struggling. She would have known that voice anywhere, even in unexpected places such as this. “Gavin?”

“Aye,” he replied and, now that her eyes were catching up, she began to make out his face in the warm orange light of the torch. He was smiling at her, infuriatingly bright and innocent. “I am so happy to see ye.”

“Then,” she hissed, “untie me.”

Gavin stepped forward, pulling a knife from his belt and slipping it between her arm and torso. With one swift yank, he sliced through the ropes and let them fall into the hay around her.

“Sorry about that. I told them not to be rough on ye.”

“Where the hell are we?” Margaret shouted. There were far more important questions to ask, but this was the only one that she thought may have an answer she could comprehend.

Gavin looked up at the cobwebbed rafters of the small building. “I suppose tis my home away from Thurso. Tis a base camp we use when your uncle sends us out to work along the border.”

“Well, thank you for having me over. Now, if you would excuse me, I believe my husband will be looking for me.”

“Ye have no husband. Not yet.”

“Funny, I thought I saw you at the wedding.”

“Ye are not married, not truly,” Gavin replied, the smile on his lips extending even further.

“How do you figure?”

“Ye havena let him bed ye. Yer uncle’s chambermaid told me there was no blood on yer sheets this morn, so you canna tell me you didna keep yer promise, not that I thought ye capable of breaking it.”

“Aye, I kept my promise, against better judgement, what of it?”

“Donna ye see, lass? Now we can be wed,” Gavin said, reaching out to take her hands in his.

Margaret shook her head, a trembling laugh escaping her lips. So, this was his plan, then? With no proof of consummation and Margaret far from Alexander’s side, Gavin saw her marriage as annulled.

“When you had me make that promise, you ken of this plan to attack the Mackays.”

“Of course, lass, I planned the attack. Started planning it just as soon as ye told me of yer fate. I couldna just let a Mackay have ye, and these men agreed to right the wrongs. They didna wish to see the lass I cherished taken from me, especially by a Mackay.”

Two days ago, nothing would have made her happier than to have Gavin steal her away with such honeyed words as these. Now, though, his words burned her like hot coals against her skin. She did not want to be cherished by a man like this. Not anymore. Margaret was about to tell him so, to throw her abandoned care into his face as if they were coals of her own. But that would not do well, and she checked the impulse.

“Gavin,” she whispered, trying to make her words sound as if they were dripping with sadness. “Tis all a good plan, but what of Clan Gunn? The queen shall not stand for such an insult. My family, your family, all of those brave men out there, the queen will put them to the sword for this.”