Chapter 27 #2
Margaret nodded once. "She is widowed now.
Livin' alone on the southern MacLaren lands.
It would be good for both of us." Her voice steadied slightly as she forced her mind to focus on the practicalities, pushing the howling grief back into the dark.
"It is less than an hour's ride from here if the lower paths remain clear of the smoke. "
Isobel frowned faintly, looking toward the window. "Margaret, the fire is still spreadin'."
"The wind has shifted north, away from the southern valley," Margaret said, hoping she sounded far more certain than she actually felt.
Truthfully, she did not care very much about the physical danger at the moment; the numbness inside her was too vast. That realization frightened her a little, but she pushed it aside.
"Alba will take me in," she continued quietly. "And Lilly."
Her voice nearly broke on the child's name, the sudden fracture catching in her throat. She looked down immediately, blinking rapidly against the burn behind her eyelids. Lilly slept on, blissfully unaware of the storm.
"I ken I have nay right to her," she said, the words coming out low and precise, as though she had already argued this with herself and lost. "She was left at his door. She is his ward. He is her guardian in law and by obligation. I ken all of that."
She looked directly at Isobel. "But he has spent nine months learnin' to tolerate her presence, and I have spent nine months learnin' her.
Who she is. What frightens her. What makes her laugh before the sound even comes.
I ken every sound she makes in her sleep.
" Her voice thinned to a thread. "I am nae askin' for permission, Isobel.
I am askin' for time. If he wants her back, he kens where to come. "
Margaret closed her eyes briefly, a phantom ache tearing through her womb. Leaving her, even for a few hours, felt physically unendurable. But she knew she could not ride fast enough or safely enough carrying an infant through uncertain, dark mountain paths while smoke spread across the hills.
"I'll go ahead first," Margaret said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Alone. I'll prepare Alba's house for us. Then, please, Isobel... arrange a covered carriage and bring Lilly after me tomorrow mornin', once the roads are safer and the smoke has cleared."
Isobel stared at her, her eyes shining with unshed tears. "Ye shouldnae have to do this alone, Margaret. Let me send a guard with ye."
The deep tenderness in her sister-in-law's voice nearly shattered the last of the fragile control Margaret held together. She looked away quickly, focusing on the dark wood of the door frame.
"I have done everythin' else beside him," Margaret said, the profound ache finally slipping fully into her voice. "This I must do for meself."
Silence filled the bedchamber.
At last, Isobel exhaled a long, shaky breath. Then, she nodded once. "I'll help ye."
Margaret nearly wept from the sheer relief of it. Instead, she crossed the short distance between them and embraced Isobel carefully, tilting her body so she wouldn't crush Lilly between them.
Isobel held her tightly, her arms strong and reassuring.
When they pulled apart, Margaret moved quickly. She knew with absolute certainty that if she stopped moving now, or even sat down for a moment, she would collapse onto the floor and never get up again.
Within minutes, Maisie was called, her eyes wide with shock as she quietly packed a small travel bag of essentials. Isobel slipped out of the room to arrange for two trusted, tight-lipped stable hands to prepare Margaret's favorite mare at the south gate, away from the chaos of the main yard.
Margaret donned a heavier wool riding cloak, her fingers numb and clumsy as she fastened the silver clasp at her throat.
Every familiar object in the room suddenly appeared completely different to her.
Temporary. Alien. The heavy oak bed where she had lain in his arms just an hour ago.
The chair beside the hearth where he had left his boots.
The neatly folded little linen gowns Lilly had already outgrown.
A life. Half-built. Left unfinished in the dark.
Lilly woke just as Margaret fastened the leather hood of her cloak. The child blinked sleepily up through the dim candlelight, her tiny face screwing up before she immediately reached her small hands upward, her fingers brushing against Margaret's cheek.
Margaret gathered her close, burying her face in the baby's soft neck. And that finally hurt enough to crack something open deep inside her chest, a physical tearing sensation that made her gasp.
"Oh, me sweet love," she whispered shakily, her tears finally overflowing, hot and fast against Lilly's skin.
Lilly pressed her face into the hollow of Margaret's throat with complete, uncritical trust.
Margaret held her tighter, her heart breaking into a thousand jagged pieces. For one terrible, weak, entirely selfish moment, she thought about abandoning the entire plan. Staying in the castle. Waiting in the great hall until Fergus returned from the fire, hoping for just a crumb of his affection.
But then, Fergus's cold, level voice returned to her mind, cutting through the weakness like a broadsword.
Ye are a distraction to me.
And beneath the pain of the memory lived something even worse: fear.
A deep, sickening fear that one day Lilly would grow old enough to look at her adoptive father and hear something similar.
A fear that Fergus would spend the rest of his life loving them both from behind a high stone wall, forever convincing himself that love itself was a weakness that would cost him.
She would not let Lilly learn that survival meant accepting coldness.
Margaret kissed Lilly's forehead, her lips lingering on the soft skin. Then, with a brutal effort of will, she carefully handed the child over to Isobel.
The physical separation felt completely wrong, like tearing flesh from bone. Lilly immediately frowned, her small brow furrowing in the candlelight as she realized she was being moved. A small, distressed, questioning sound escaped her wet lips.
Margaret's hand hovered in the air, her fingers trembling. She almost reached back.
Almost.
But she knew that if her fingers touched the child again, she would never find the strength to walk through that door. And if she stayed tonight, she might stay forever, slowly turning to ash.
"Only for a little while, me lamb," she whispered to Lilly, her throat burning so intensely she could barely breathe.
Isobel adjusted the child gently against her shoulder, rocking her rhythmically. She was quiet for a moment. Then she said, carefully: "He may come for her, Margaret. He may come before mornin'."
"I ken." Margaret pulled her cloak closed at her throat, her fingers steady now in the way that follows a decision made past the point of grief. "If he comes for Lilly and nae for me, then at least I'll have me answer."
A pause, her eyes dropping briefly to the child's face. "And I will give her back to him without a fight. She is his. She has always been his."
Isobel's eyes shone. She said nothing. She simply nodded.
Margaret nodded once, her jaw clenched tight. She could no longer trust her voice to form words. She turned, threw open the door, and walked out.
Minutes later, she descended the narrow south steps, stepping out into the freezing night air.
The south courtyard was dark and mostly deserted, the bulk of the clan having moved toward the roaring orange glow of the western ridge.
Thick gray smoke still drifted faintly across the cold stars overhead.
A single dark mare waited near the small postern gate, held by a silent groom. Margaret mounted quickly, throwing her skirt over the saddle. The familiar, rhythmic movement of the horse beneath her steadied her frayed nerves slightly, pulling her back to her senses.
The guard opened the iron gate without question.
Margaret gathered the leather reins in her gloved hands. Then, despite everything, she stopped. Her hand froze on the leather.
Because a small, foolish, dying part of her soul still expected him to appear through the gloom. Expected him to come riding back through the thick smoke on his great bay stallion, to stop her mare, to pull her down from the saddle, and to finally, truly understand what he was throwing away.
The courtyard remained completely empty. There was only the distant, muffled sound of shouting from the west. Only Isobel stood near the dark stone archway, holding Lilly beneath the flickering light of the wall torch.
Margaret looked at them once, carving the image into her mind. Then, she turned her horse toward the southern hills and rode hard into the black night, without looking back.