Page 101 of Wild Wicked Scot
“Will he hang?” Arran asked flatly, and Margot’s heart squeezed. She was as disillusioned and hurt as she’d ever been in her life, but she did not want to see her father hang.
“No,” Knox said with a shrug. “Although he may well wish he had. The queen has stripped his title and bestowed it on me, and has decreed his holdings to be divided between his only daughter and his bastard son.” He glanced at Arran. “Begging your pardon, laird, but the queen refused to bestow any of the English holdings on a Scottish laird, not with all the unrest.”
Arran shrugged indifferently.
Margot suddenly sat down, the weight of this news too much to hold. “What of Bryce?” she asked weakly.
Knox smiled thinly. “I suggested he look into the vicarage.”
“The Mackenzie name is cleared, then,” Arran said.
“I cannot speak for your side of the border, but your name has been exonerated in England,” Knox said proudly.
Arran looked at Jock. “Ach, you know as I do that Highlanders are a distrustful lot, aye? There are those who still doubt you,” Jock said. “But more who donna doubt. It’s safe to return to Balhaire.”
Arran shifted his gaze to Margot. She could see the same conflict in his eyes that she felt swirling in her. “Well, then,” he said. “This is quite a lot of news, is it no’, Lady Mackenzie?”
“Quite,” she managed. She should have been happy to be freed from this exile, but she felt only an overwhelming sense of melancholy. She was grief-stricken at the loss of her father, devastated that he’d wrought this tragedy in their lives. She felt grief for the loss of the life she’d once had and uncertainty about what came next. But her agony went unnoticed—Jock had brought ale, and the men drank, exchanging tales of what had happened in the last few weeks.
It was decided, given their mean surroundings, that they would leave on the morrow. Leave this place of peace, she thought morosely, where she and Arran had, for the first time, really, lived as a married couple ought. The sense of loss was now overwhelming, and Margot excused herself, retiring to the small room she shared with Arran.
Arran joined her sometime later and wordlessly slipped into bed with her. Margot had not slept; her mind had been racing with the sudden change in their existence. She felt his hand seek hers, lacing his fingers with hers. They lay wordlessly on their backs beneath a woolen plaid, staring up into darkness, each of them, she supposed, trying to take in all the astounding news. After living on the edge of emotion and fear, to have it all suddenly released from them was not as freeing as she might have imagined.
“You must be relieved,” Arran said at last.
Was she relieved? She felt sick with sadness. “Do you know that I really rather liked it here.”
Arran squeezed her hand. “Aye,” he said. But he suddenly let go of her hand and sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and bracing his hands on either side of his knees.
Margot sat up. “What’s wrong?”
“The same that’s been wrong for far too long—I donna trust you.”
Margot blinked, surprised. “Surely now you know I had nothing to do with it.”
He shook his head. “You donna understand me. We’ve existed, you and I, these long weeks, aye? You’ve done your best, God knows you have, but now, Margot, now you’re a rich woman in your own right, are you no’? And I’m a Highlander. You might do as you please and I...Diah, to this day, I donna know that it pleases you to live as a Highlander’s wife.”
“But I—”
He stood up and stalked to the window, as if he didn’t want to hear what she would say. He opened the window to the night breeze. “I’ve loved you since the moment I laid eyes on you. You’ve astonished me, you have. You’ve become a woman I never thought you’d be, aye?A Diah, it only makes me love you more. But you are free now, Margot, and I donna trust you to stay true to me.”
Her heart squeezed with trepidation. “Are you... Are you sending me back to England?” she asked disbelievingly.
“England?”He turned from the window and looked at her over his shoulder. “Do you no’ understand me yet?” He suddenly came back to the bed and went down on one knee before her, his hands clasped together on the bed almost as if he was praying. “I’m no’ sending you away, Margot, no—I’m on my knee, begging you no’ to leave me. Never leave me, do you hear me? No man will ever love you as I do. No man will ever honor you as I will all my days.” He groaned and closed his eyes, anguished. “I will always love you, but I’m begging you now to release me as I’ve released you. If you donna mean to remain in Scotland, then donna torment me. I canna live my life fearing that you will go.”
Margot pressed her clasped hands to her mouth. Her heart was racing, and with a silent sob, she leaned over this man and stroked his face. She could see the terror in his eyes—she recognized it because she was feeling the same terror. It had struck her the moment she saw riders approaching—the terror of living a single day without this man. When she had seen them coming, she knew how much she loved him. “I understand,” she said, and Arran’s eyes welled with tears. “But, Arran, my love, you will never love me as much as I love you.”
Arran stared at her, his expression wild with hope. “You’ve never said it,” he said roughly.
“Yes, well, that’s another mistake in my very long list of them,” she said apologetically. “But in this, you must trust me. Arran, for heaven’s sake, you must, at last,trustme. I love you, and not because our fortunes were aligned. Because in this little lodge, you taught me what is important. You taught me what it meant to care for someone. I don’t care about balls and society. I care about how many potatoes the earth will yield, and how I might mend the hole I put in your shirt, and if you will love your child as much as you love those wretched dogs at Balhaire.”
He bowed his head, sighing with relief. “Margot...Diah—”
She took his face in her hands and made him look up at her. “You became the beginning and the end of my world here, and I choose you. I will always choose you.” She kissed him tenderly.
Arran pulled her hands from his face and peered at her, his eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, then, you hope I love my child as much as my dogs?”
Margot smiled. “Just that you are unnaturally attached to those dogs, aren’t you? The child will need your attention, too.”
