Page 31 of Wild Wicked Scot
“You made that choice three years ago, did you no’?”
“That’s not true!” she cried, loud enough for the men to hear. Arran spurred his horse forward, forcing her smaller one to come along, moving them out of earshot of the men.
“All right, ofcourseI understand why you might have come to that conclusion,” she said, suddenly agreeing with him as she clung to her horse. “Ididmake a wretchedly uninformed choice when I left.”
He snorted.
“But on my life, it was a mistake! A horrible, wretched, awful mistake, and I am terribly sorry for it now. I am desperate to make amends! Won’t you at least allow me to try? Did last night mean nothing to you?” she asked, reaching for his gloved hand.
God, how he wished she wouldn’t touch him. He was weaker when she touched him, and he yanked his hand free. “Bedding a beautiful woman doesna change the fact that I canna believe a word that falls from your lips. There is no reason you’d come back to me now, save some abominable purpose that I donna care to know.”
Margot looked stricken.“Abominable!”she repeated, making the word sound far more vile than he’d intended. “I’ll tell you what isabominable, sir! Banishing me without even bothering to say goodbye—thatis abominable! Having a change of heart for the good most certainly isnotabominable.”
“You say change of heart. I say duplicity,” he said with a flick of his wrist. “Alas, we’ll never know which it is, will we, for I donna intend to play along with your charade, Margot. Fare thee well, wife. Give Norwood my compliments.” He let go of her horse and moved to slap its rump, sending it back to its oat bag.
But Margot suddenly lunged for him. It startled Arran, and he surged forward, catching her before she fell between the two horses and was crushed. He caught her under the arm and hauled her up, but the horses began to shift and move, and he had to drag her onto his horse to keep her from falling. “Diah, what are you thinking?” he demanded roughly. “You might have been trampled!”
Margot made a sound of despair and threw her arms around his neck. “Was last night just a dream? Will you really send me away when I’ve bared my heart to you?”
He tried to dislodge her arms from his neck. “You bared your body, no’ your wretched heart.”
“Let me prove it to you,” she said quickly, and turned her head to kiss his cheek. “Please, Arran—I’ll prove it to you.”
“Provewhat?” he asked with great exasperation as she kissed the skin of his neck just above his collar, sending a white-hot shock through him.
“That I’ve come back to repair our broken marriage. To begin again! We can start anew, we can, because I’ve changed. I swear to you that I have.” She kissed his cheek again. And his jaw. And his ear.
“Donna kiss me again,” he said sharply. He was already distracted, already losing his ability to focus on the words she was saying, and managed to push her back so that she could not kiss him. “Why should I believe you’ve changed? On what grounds? For what reason?” He roughly cupped her face. “Why in God’s name would I believe a word you utter, then? You made a bloody fool of me, Margot. You rejected my clan. You despised my professions and my occupations. You complained there was no society for you here. But this is where I live. I am the laird here. I do as a laird does, and I always will. That will never change, and neither will you. I donna trust you, aye? I willnevertrust you.”
She paled. Her arms slid from his neck. “I know you don’t trust me,” she admitted dolefully. “How could you? But I’m not the girl I was then. I want to show you I’ve changed.”
He snorted.
“And I want a child.”
The moment she said those words aloud, she looked as if she wanted to gulp them back. Arran’s gaze narrowed skeptically on her. “You would use that to persuade me?” he asked scornfully. She knew his desire to have a child; she knew it very well. She knew his disappointment each month when her courses came. And he knew her happiness that they had.
“Please don’t look at me like that,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment. “Idowant a child. I want to be a mother. I want to be a wife. I was too young before. I was too naive. But you are my husband, and you need an heir, and I want a child of my own.”
She had just said the one thing that could cement her hold on him—she wanted his child. More than anything he wanted children, squads of them, hanging from rafters, filling the old bailey and bouncing on his bed. He would give everything he had to his children. Could she ever understand how difficult it had been for him after she’d left to suppress his own needs so that he’d not bring an illegitimate child into this clan? Could she understand how, if she were to give him a child, he would live every waking moment fearing she would flee once again with that child?
But Arran saw something in her green eyes in that moment. It was the same thing he’d seen last night—the sorrow.
He glared at her, furious with her.
“Please don’t banish me,” she whispered.
He curled his hand into a fist and held it tight against his thigh. “All right, then,” he said, slowly nodding. “Prove to me that you want to be my wife, Margot. No’ the wife of some English dandy, mind you, butmywife. A woman who is no’ afraid of feast or famine, of toil, of trouble. AHighlander’swife. And you a Scot. Can you bethatwife to me?”
“Yes!” she said. But the confidence in her voice belied the look of alarm in her eyes, and for that, he had to endeavor to suppress a wee bitter smile.
CHAPTER NINE
MARGOTHADN’TBEENat Balhaire even twenty-four hours, and she’d already made a shamble of things. Mostly by lying to Arran after he’d expressly warned her against it.
Achild, she’d said!
It wasn’t a complete lie, because Margot truly wanted children. But that was not why she’d come back, and frankly, she could think of nothing worse than conceiving a child with a traitor to the crown. Unfortunately, her pride had gotten the best of her, and she’d said a desperate thing in a desperate moment.
