Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Margaret did not cry.
Not when the heavy iron-studded gates slammed shut behind Fergus.
Not when the thundering drum of horse hooves dissolved into the thick, smoke-laden dark beyond the high ridge.
Not even when the gravel courtyard slowly emptied around her piece by piece, the terrifying urgency of the fire pulling every able-bodied man and woman outward.
She simply stood frozen beneath the flickering, orange glare of the wall torch. She held Lilly pressed so tightly against her chest that she could feel the tiny, rhythmic thump of the babe's heart through the damp wool of her shift.
Ye are a distraction to me.
The words kept hitting, like a blacksmith's hammer striking an anvil.
Again. Again. Again.
Margaret closed her eyes, her long lashes dark against her pale cheeks.
For a terrible, bleeding moment, she saw him as he had been less than an hour ago in the silver moonlight.
Warm and heavy against her. His bare skin smooth beneath her palms. The possessive, demanding bruise of his mouth on hers.
She remembered the rough, raw honesty in his gravelly voice when he spoke of his childhood, his stolen birthright, and the heavy obligations he carried inside himself as if they were wounds stitched shut too quickly with coarse thread.
She had thought—God help her, she had truly thought something had finally broken open between them. She had believed they were finally standing on the same side of the wall.
Lilly whimpered softly against her shoulder, a tiny, distressed sound that shattered the memory.
Margaret snapped her eyes open. The child's little fingers had tangled desperately into the fine linen near her collarbone, holding on with a sleep-heavy, instinctive terror.
Margaret gently rubbed a trembling hand over the baby's back, her movements automatic, driven by a deep, protective instinct unrelated to her own agonizing pain.
"There now, me lamb," she whispered. Her own voice sounded entirely foreign to her ears. Thin. Distant. It wasn't broken, but it was dangerously close to the edge of a precipice.
Around her, the courtyard still churned in a hazy blur.
Men carried supplies through the south gates; older kitchen maids shouted orders over the din; gray ash drifted faintly on the wind from the western hills, settling like snow on the flagstones.
And somehow, standing directly in the center of all that frantic noise, Margaret felt abruptly and completely alone.
It wasn't because Fergus had ridden headfirst toward danger. She was a daughter of the Lowlands, but she had been raised to understand the harsh, unyielding nature of duty. She had always understood what a man must do to protect his name and his land.
What hollowed her out from the inside, leaving her chest cold and empty, was the terrible, undeniable realization that even after tonight—after every quiet moment built slowly and carefully between these ancient stone walls, after the winter nights, after Lilly's first laughs—Fergus would always reach for distance the exact instant fear touched him.
He would always see weakness in her. He would always push her away first to preserve his armor.
As though loving her, as though needing her even a fraction, would utterly destroy the soldier he had built himself to be.
Margaret swallowed hard, a painful lump throat-dry and burning.
No.
Not this time.
She had survived the humiliation of her wedding night, left behind like an unwanted piece of furniture.
She had survived long months of waiting, wondering if she was entirely unlovable.
She had survived the brutal process of learning how to belong to Clan MacKenzie without ever being chosen by its Laird.
But she would not survive spending the rest of her life begging a man to see that standing beside him in the dark was not the same thing as dragging him down into the mud.
Something inside her soul settled then.
She turned on her heel and walked back into the keep, her spine turning to iron.
The great hall reeked heavily of peat smoke, damp wool, and hurried panic. Servants hurried through the wide space in every direction, carrying bundles of blankets and iron lanterns. No one stopped her. Most, caught up in the threat of the fire, hardly noticed the Lady of the castle at all.
Margaret climbed the steep spiral stairs steadily, her bare feet numb against the stone. One step. Then another.
Lilly had fallen asleep peacefully now, utterly worn out from her fit of coughing and crying, her warm little body heavy and relaxed against Margaret's shoulder.
That familiar, gentle weight nearly broke her defenses.
She briefly pressed her lips to the child's soft, copper curls, inhaling the scent of milk and lavender before continuing down the dark corridor toward Isobel's chamber.
The heavy oak door stood half open.
Isobel was inside, her face pale under her dark hair, securing a thick wool cloak around her shoulders as one of the younger maids fetched extra blankets from a nearby chest. She looked up immediately when the floorboards creaked.
And she stopped dead.
"Margaret," Isobel breathed, letting the cloak drop from her fingers.
Margaret stepped inside and shut the door quietly behind her, cutting off the noise of the hallway. "I cannae stay, Isobel."
The words came out perfectly calm, level as a frozen lake. That eerie composure frightened her far more than if she had broken apart and screamed.
Isobel went rigid. The young maid glanced uncertainly between the two noblewomen before slipping silently from the room, keeping her head down as she closed the heavy door behind her.
For a long, agonizing moment, neither woman spoke.
The peat fire crackled softly in the hearth, throwing long, dancing shadows across the tapestries.
Lilly stirred slightly in Margaret's arms, exhaling a soft breath against her neck.
Outside, somewhere far below, another chorus of frantic shouts echoed across the yard.
"I cannae do this again," Margaret said at last, her voice dropping into the quiet space.
Her throat tightened unexpectedly, burning around the words.
"I gave him time. I gave him patience. More patience than I even kent I possessed.
" A weak, ragged breath escaped her lips.
"And every single time it matters most, he pushes me away as though I am somethin' dangerous to his survival. "
Isobel watched her, her dark eyes filled with a heavy, sorrowful pity.
Margaret looked down at Lilly. The child slept peacefully now, one small, perfect hand curled loosely against Margaret's chest, completely unaware that her world was fracturing.
"She deserves better than this uncertainty," Margaret whispered, her eyes burning with unshed tears. The words hurt worst of all because they were an absolute truth. Not only for Lilly. For herself.
Isobel crossed the room slowly, her skirts rustling against the rushes. "What happened out there, Margaret? What did he say?" she asked softly.
Margaret laughed once under her breath. A sharp, terrible, humorless little sound that cut through the room like broken glass. "He told me I was a distraction."
Margaret looked away, staring blindly at the dark window. "The fire started, and suddenly it was as though everythin' between us vanished in a single breath. Every moment we shared in that bed. Every promise. Every touch."
Her jaw tightened until her teeth ached. "I stood there tryin' to help him, tryin' to stand by his side, and all he could see when he looked at me was a weakness that had compromised him."
"That isnae what he meant, Margaret. Fergus is a soldier; he handles fear with a sword."
"I ken."
She understood Fergus far too well now. She knew the brutal words had come from a place of raw terror, from guilt, from a man who still fiercely believed that love and vulnerability were fatal luxuries he could not afford to survive.
But understanding the mechanics of his fear no longer made the blade hurt any less when he drove it into her chest.
"It doesnae matter anymore what he means," Margaret said quietly, her voice hardening. "Only what he does. And he leaves. Or he drives me away."
Isobel's eyes softened so completely that Margaret felt herself wavering, her throat tightening under the unexpected weight of that kindness. She quickly crossed the room, moving toward the small writing desk by the narrow window before she could totally lose her fragile composure.
"I need paper, Isobel."
Isobel didn't argue. She didn't offer empty platitudes. She simply went to the drawer, pulled out a clean sheet of parchment, and handed it over along with an inkwell and a quill.
Margaret sat down with stiff movements. Lilly stayed peacefully asleep against her shoulder, a heavy, warm weight.
She dipped the quill into the black ink.
The candlelight flickered slightly across the page, casting jagged shadows over her hand.
Or maybe her hand was the one trembling. She could not quite tell anymore.
The words came rapidly, bleeding onto the page once the ink touched the fibers.
Not because they were easy to write, but because she had already spent months swallowing them, choking on them in the quiet of her empty rooms. When she finished, she didn't read them over.
She couldn't. She folded the letter carefully.
She stood up and handed the folded parchment to Isobel. "Please give him this when he returns from the ridge."
Isobel accepted the letter slowly, her fingers brushing Margaret's cold hand. Then she looked properly into Margaret's eyes, reading the finality written there. She understood. This wasn't an act of petulant anger. It wasn't an impulsive tantrum. This was a departure.
"Where will ye go?" Isobel asked quietly.
Margaret hesitated only briefly, her jaw setting. "To Alba."
"Yer cousin?"