Page 61 of Wild Wicked Scot
He was also annoyed by the amount of bickering between his two best hunting guides. The brothers were perhaps the best stag stalkers in all of Scotland but could scarcely abide one another. Their discord went back many years and was centered, naturally, on a lass. Arran didn’t know what had happened, precisely, or when, but it had become part of the legend of the two men. Now they were known as hunters without parallel, and for their constant strife.
Arran circled his horse around and held it back so that he wouldn’t hear the sniping and could walk alongside Margot’s pony. His two hunting dogs trotted alongside them, their noses to the ground, their tails high.
Margot smiled cheerfully at him as he pulled in beside her, but her cheeks were stained with the exertion of the effort to hold her seat, and her breath was short.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with this pony today. I had a much easier time of it yesterday when I rode down to the cove.”
There was nothing wrong with the pony. The fault lay completely in the hands of the rider. “The road down to the cove is flat and the distance shorter,” he said. “We’re moving upglen to Lochbraden on no road at all. It’s a harder course.”
“Lochbraden! I thought perhaps we were riding all the way to England,” she said pertly.
He smiled. “We’ve no’ gone more than three miles,leannan. Another mile and we’ll come down to hunt. How is it that you’ve never learned to ride properly, then?”
She looked surprised. “But I am riding properly!”
Her fingers curled around the reins so tightly he wondered if she’d be able to straighten them. “It seems a wee struggle for you.”
Margot groaned. “It is more than a wee struggle,” she sheepishly admitted. “I was never taught to ride. My father was a very busy man, and my brothers’ education took precedence over mine.”
That didn’t surprise Arran. He supposed the same was true at Balhaire.
“Did your father teach you?” she asked curiously.
“My da was killed when I was a lad,” Arran said matter-of-factly. He’d been struck dead instantly when a yard aboard a ship broke free and hit him in the head.
“Oh, yes, of course,” Margot said, remembering that detail of his life. “You were fourteen years of age, were you not?”
“Twelve,” Arran said. “My ma dead no’ a year later.”
“I had forgotten how young you were,” she said. “I can’t imagine how you must have suffered those deaths.” She looked out over the landscape, her expression thoughtful. “You were raised by Jock’s parents, weren’t you?”
“Aye, Uncle Ivor and Aunt Lilleas raised me up to be laird of Balhaire, as was my birthright, alongside Jock and Griselda.”
“No wonder you and Jock are completely inseparable now,” she mused, and smiled wryly at him.
Arran smiled at that. “We’re no’ inseparable. You did no’ see him in our bed last night, did you?”
Margot snorted. “He would have been there had you allowed it. You may trust that is so.”
Arran laughed roundly at that. It wasn’t far from true—Jock was intensely loyal and protective of him.
“Your people do love you so, Arran. How I envy you that.”
“They areourpeople,” he corrected her. “And you were loved in England, as well.”
“Me?” She shook her head.
“Ach, I have it on excellent authority that you are well admired by the gentlemen, Margot. And that you’re particularly proficient at the gaming tables.”
She laughed. “I suppose I was admired by some. And I ammorethan proficient at the gaming tables. I am really rather good at it. I scarcely ever dance, so what else might I do?”
Arran chuckled. “In this, I believe you—you are indeed a bloody awful dancer.”
“Thank you!” she said with delight. “At last, someone has admitted what I know very well to be true. Someone is forever assuring me I am not as bad as I fear. Nevertheless, I accepted any invitation into society after I returned to England. I made the best of my situation, just as I’m certain you did here.”
Arran shrugged. She would never know that for days after she’d left, he’d stumbled about, his thoughts on her, on the things he’d regretted saying, on the things he wished he’d said. He’d felt almost drunk, so much regret and pain slushing around in him.
“You did,” she insisted lightly, taking his silence for argument. “You expanded your trade with France after all.”
