Chapter 26 #2
Margaret crossed the gravel toward his horse immediately, her stride unhurried but purposeful.
"I can help organize the lower hall, Fergus," she said, looking up at him.
"If the families from the western cottages need shelter, we'll need food prepared immediately, and the bairns kept away from the gates. "
Fergus reached down from the saddle and caught her arm. Firmly. Too firmly. His calloused fingers dug into the soft fabric of her sleeve.
She stopped abruptly, her breath hitching. The sudden, harsh movement startled Lilly enough that the baby whimpered softly, burrowing her small face deeper into Margaret's shoulder.
Fergus barely heard the child's cry. The surrounding noise suddenly seemed to fade into a distant, muffled hum.
Everything blurred beneath the violent, irregular pounding of blood in his ears.
He pulled her a few steps away from the traffic in the yard, guiding her toward the shadowed, cold edge of the stable wall.
"What are ye doin'?" she asked quietly. Her hazel eyes searched his tight face. There was deep concern in them.
"This happened because I wasnae thinkin'," he said.
The words came out rough, like grinding stones.
They were harsh enough that she blinked, her chest hitching.
"I should have stayed in the courtyard after the toast. I should have checked the bonfires meself.
I should have made certain the men banked the embers properly with damp peat before the wind turned. "
Margaret frowned, her brow furrowing in the orange light. "Fergus, ye cannae blame yerself for a sudden gale."
"I left." His jaw tightened until the muscle leaped hard against his skin, aching with the strain. "Because I came back to ye."
The words landed heavily between them, stark and ugly. He watched the meaning strike her. He watched the deep, unmistakable hurt arrive in her eyes before her proud Lowland dignity could rise to hide it. And still, he could not stop the bleed. Because fear had a tight hold of his throat now.
"Ye are a distraction to me," he said quietly, the words cold and level.
Margaret went completely, utterly still.
Fergus felt the weight of it immediately in his gut.
It was like watching himself drive a clean blade somewhere soft, right through her ribs.
But the orange fire still burned beyond the ridge, casting bloody light across the sky.
His men were waiting at the gates. And the guilt kept twisting deeper into his heart with every passing second he wasted.
"I cannae afford that," he finished, his voice dropping into the dark.
Margaret stared up at him. Fergus had seen her angry before. He had seen her sharp-tongued, defiant, teasing, and fiercely proud. He had even seen her hurt by his coldness in the early days of their marriage. But this, this looked entirely different.
Because she truly did not understand the cruelty of it. And perhaps that was the most devastating part of the blow he had dealt.
She had spent months standing beside him in this bleak northern keep, helping him and strengthening the broken pieces of his clan in ways he hadn't even realized were needed.
She had given him her full trust in the dark of their room, and still, his first instinct when struck by fear was to push her away and blame her for his own choices.
"Ye think I weaken ye," she said. Her voice was remarkably quiet, stripped of all color.
"Nay." The answer came too fast, too defensive.
Her hazel eyes flashed in the shadow of the stable wall. "That is exactly what ye think."
Fergus dragged a rough hand through his dark hair, his palm coming away smelling of ash. He could smell the burning peat everywhere now. He could hear the fire roaring louder, eating its way through the western hills. "There's nay time for this, Margaret."
"There was time enough for ye to say it."
God.
The quiet, ragged pain in her voice struck him harder than any angry accusation could have. Lilly moved restlessly between them, feeling the stiff tension in the arms that held her. Margaret tightened her embrace around the child, pulling her close without once breaking her gaze from his face.
"I stand beside ye," she said.
The words trembled just a little, only a small amount. It wasn't weakness; it was the sound of a deep, held-back emotion being controlled by sheer force of will.
"I have stood beside ye since the very moment I came north.
Through the hostile clan meetin's, where they looked at me like a stranger.
Through the winter storms. Through every difficult, cold thing ye placed before me.
" Her throat moved as she swallowed hard.
"And still... still ye look at me as though I am somethin' pullin' ye away from yerself, instead of somethin' helpin' ye hold together. "
Fergus felt the truth of her words cut through his anger.
It was strong enough, deep enough, to make him want to dismount and take back what he said, to press his mouth to hers and beg her to forget them.
But fear and stubborn Highland pride had already tangled inside his chest, forming a tight knot he couldn't undo in the face of danger.
"Stay here," he said instead, his face hardening into an impenetrable mask. "This is nae for ye."
The second the words left his mouth, he knew he had gone too far.
Because Margaret's face changed instantly. Not dramatically. There were no sudden tears, no sharp intake of breath, no furious shouting. It was something far quieter. More devastating.
Fergus felt a sudden, icy cold wash over his skin, despite the waves of heat rolling across the gravel yard from the west.
Margaret looked at him for one long, unbearable moment, her gaze cutting straight through his armor to the cowardice beneath it. Then, she nodded once. It was a tiny, controlled movement of her chin.
"Of course," she said softly.
The softness of her voice hurt worst of all. It carried the weight of a door closing.
Lilly made a small, distressed sound between them, her tiny hand clutching at Margaret's collar.
Margaret turned away before he could speak another word, before he could attempt to fix what he had shattered.
There was no further argument. No fight left in her.
That silence frightened him more than any rebellion would have.
She walked back toward the open doors of the keep, carrying Lilly against her shoulder. Her spine was perfectly, flawlessly straight, her head held high in the torchlight.
Fergus watched her go, his knuckles turning white where he gripped the leather reins.
Something deep inside his soul screamed at him to stop her.
To swing down from the saddle, go after her into the hall, and explain the terror that had driven him to speak so brutally.
But another loud shout rose from beyond the western ridge, followed by a violent flare of orange light that painted the stone walls of his castle in the color of blood.
Duty closed around him again like an iron shackle.
Alasdair rode toward him through the swirling smoke, his stallion frothing at the bit. "We need to move now, Fergus! The flames are hittin' the timber line!"
Fergus tore his eyes away from the empty stone steps of the keep. "Aye."
He turned his bay stallion sharply toward the open gates, digging his spurs in.
The men gathered behind them immediately, a dark column of horses and sweat.
Torches flared against the darkness; axes and iron buckets swung from the sides of the saddles.
The smell of burning pine and heather thickened with every passing second, choking the night.
As they rode out through the massive iron gates and descended the steep hill, Fergus looked back once. Only once.
Margaret stood at the very top of the keep steps, illuminated by the flickering light of the wall torch.
She still held Lilly and watched him ride away.
He was now too far to clearly read her face through the rising haze, but he sensed the distance anyway.
It felt like a vast, terrifying chasm opening between them, expanding with every stride of his horse.
Then Alasdair urged his black mount forward into a gallop, and the sight of her was swallowed by the dark.
The land beyond the keep glowed a bright, hellish red under the smoke-filled sky. They rode quickly toward it. Toward the roaring fire. Toward the dry fields. Toward everything Fergus believed he was still solely responsible for holding together.
And all the while, Margaret's terrible, quiet silence followed him through the dark like an open wound he could not yet bring himself to touch.