Page 28 of Highlander’s Torn Bride

“Break some bones so they canna come after us with any force. We are going back to Dirlot.”

Dirlot Castle was situated at the top of a small hill, a river defending it from one side, and a dug trench defending it on the other. Though it was not the largest castle, it had been his home since Mary de Guise, the current Queen Mary’s mother and longtime reagent, had torn down the family’s Varrich Castle nearly a decade prior.

When her anger had subsided and the Mackays had regained favor with the crown by assisting Queen Mary with the Gordons, Alexander’s father had gone to Tongue to oversee plans to build a new, larger home for the family. In the meantime, though, Dirlot, with its large, white bricks and excellent view of the countryside, was their home.

Designed to withstand attacks from any side, Alexander never imagined any battle raging within its walls. Not until today.

Alexander marched himself down the narrow halls, not finding it within himself to even try and avoid the servants that came scurrying past. Jonah was behind him, trying to get Alexander to slow down and take a breath.

“You’ll ruin more than you’ll earn,” he said when Alexander rounded the final corner, placing him mere steps from his bedchamber door.

“I do not ken what there is to ruin,” Alexander snapped in reply.

Alexander did not need to open the door, for Ann did it for him, emerging from the interior of the room looking pale and bewildered.

“I’ll let you question her, Jonah. I’m sure she kens more than she’ll admit,” Alexander said, pushing past Ann and slamming the door to the chamber behind him.

Margaret was sitting on his, well, their, bed, tracing her finger along the pattern in his quilt. She was dressed in a pale blue cotton dress, with a crisscross of lines embroidered across the chest, interrupted only by the laces that went from the hollows of her slight cleavage down to her waist. It was, perhaps, the most understated thing he had ever seen her in, and also, the most beautiful he had ever found her. He wondered if she had known that she was donning such powerful armor against him when she had dressed.

“A man holding a dagger… the Mackay coat of arms?” she asked, not looking up from the quilt.

“Manu Forti,” he said. “With a strong hand.”

She nodded and looked up at him briefly before her eyes scanned the rest of the room. Alexander had always taken great pride in his powers of decoration, even if his father and brother had thought him silly for it. The quilt, which had been a gift from his mother, was set with Mackay blue and green, colors which he had then brought out to match the rugs and velvet draperies. The tapestries on the walls depicted seas and hills and fields of flowers, things he could look at whenever he felt himself trapped inside for too long. Along the mantel were trinkets from his time as a boy: the antler from his first buck, a piece of amethyst he had found on his first battlefield, and a small portraits of his parents in iron frames—iron that had been taken and recast from the remains of Varrich castle. To think that he had been excited to see her in this room, sitting on that quilt, even.

Alexander crossed the room and dropped himself into the chair, pouring himself a cup of wine from the silver pitcher on the table beside him and draining the goblet in one gulp.

He set the goblet back on the table with a crack that made Margaret flinch. Just by the way that she looked at him, he knew that she knew that he had discovered the truth. All she had left to figure out was the extent of his knowledge, and how far his displeasure would drive him.

If you ken what I had planned for you, he thought to himself, but shaking his head before he wasted away the afternoon thinking up empty threats.

“Well, were you pleased to see me coming up the hill?”

Margaret looked up at him, confused by his starting point. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be pleased?”

“I thought you may have preferred to see Gavin. He was your betrothed, no?”

Margaret paled, but didn’t look away. He wished she would. Looking into her eyes now was painful. Looking into her eyes made him want more from her. And it made him think she maybe wanted more from him.

“It was a different time, Alexander. In a way, it was a different life.”

“Poetic words, you’ll forgive me for not giving them much meaning.”

“Tis not as if you did not have involvements with other women before you met me.”

“Aye, but my involvements were far from engagements.”

She grimaced. “While I understand that, you ought to trust me. I am your wife, after all.”

“Aye, a pill of duty you swallowed remarkably well. Donna worry, duty is the only reason I wed you, too,” he said, the coldness in his voice feeling like a winter wind blowing off of the sea. “It shows a good, noble character to do one’s duty, even when pining for another.”

“I’m not pining for another,” Margaret snapped.

“Then what is Gavin to you?”

“A past mistake,” she said. “And I must ask you now not to ask anything further about it. Please, out of respect for me.”

He laughed now, trying not to let his shaking gasps turn into cries, for he was not going to shed a tear before a lass that was strong enough to hold them back.