CHAPTER 11
Margaret felt as if she were still at sea and the ground was rolling under her feet as she attempted to cross the wooden dock at Aberdeen.
Finn caught her arm and steadied her. So much for her plan to keep a respectful distance between them after she’d practically glued herself to him on the boat for the last two days and nights.
Naturally, now that they were on shore, the skies cleared.
“Are ye ready to meet a good friend of mine?” Finn asked Ella as they started into the town. “Most lasses are quite partial to him.”
Margaret’s pulse jumped. “Someone else is traveling with us?”
“Don’t fret, lass, I’m only speaking of my horse,” Finn said. “I boarded him with a tavernkeeper here when I sailed from here to Edinburgh to find you.”
She thought she’d kept her alarm from her tone, but Finn was disturbingly perceptive.
“I named him Ceò, which means mist,” he told Ella, “because he’s gray and can creep up on an enemy like a Highland mist.”
After paying for his horse’s keep and extra oats inside the tavern, Finn took them around to the stables behind it. A handsome gray horse snorted and stamped its foot as soon as it saw Finn.
“I know you’re annoyed with me for leaving ye, gràdhan,” darling, Finn murmured to the horse as he rubbed his nose and fed it a handful of oats, “but I told ye I’d be back.”
Margaret sighed. Finn was even charming to his horse. Did he have to make it so difficult to remember she must not let her guard down and trust him?
He saddled Ceò and tied on his blanket and supplies. When he attempted to tie Ella’s enormous basket as well, the horse shied, stepping sideways with wild eyes.
“Ye can’t blame a fine animal like Ceò for refusing to be treated like a mule,” Finn said and carried the basket himself as he led the horse out of the stables.
They continued through the town until they reached a church that sat on a small square.
“There’s something we need to discuss, wee one,” Finn said, crouching down beside Ella.
“Ye see that woman over there on the steps of the church holding a babe? Looks to me as if she hasn’t got much and could use a bed for her babe.
As you’ve grown too big for your basket, I wondered if you’re willing to part with it. ”
Ella sucked harder on her thumb as she shifted her gaze to the woman in the ragged cloak. This was a battle he was sure to lose. Margaret was tempted to intervene, but Ella was not afraid of Finn, and he would not push her too hard.
“I’m taking ye to stay in a big castle,” he said, stretching his arms out wide. “You’ll have a fine bed to sleep in with piles of blankets and soft feather pillows.”
After turning to look at the woman and babe one more time, Ella gave a slow nod. He patted her on the back. When he stood up with victory shining in his deep blue eyes, Margaret’s heart actually fluttered. The man was sinfully handsome and dangerously charming.
“My mother warned me about silver-tongued devils like you,” Margaret told him in a low voice. “Do ye always succeed in persuading females to do what you want?”
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“I do my best,” Finn answered with a wink.
But if he were that persuasive, he and Margaret would be in bed in a room above the tavern right now. By the saints, having Margaret in his arms during the storm had driven him to the point of madness. When they finally got off the boat, he wanted to kiss the ground, grateful his torture was over.
Margaret responded with an amused smile as she gave Ella the rag doll and blanket from the basket to hold.
They were so ragged and dirty that Finn wondered again about the woman Margaret had entrusted with her daughter.
At first, he assumed Margaret was more concerned with keeping her secret than with assuring her daughter’s wellbeing.
Now he knew she was just too damn trusting, for she was clearly devoted to the bairn.
“I’ll take the basket to the woman,” Margaret said, and picked it up.
Finn watched her carry it across the square to the church, exchange a few words with the woman, and coo over the babe. Before Margaret set the basket down, she slipped a small leather pouch out of it and hid the pouch inside her cloak. He was curious what was in it that she did not want him to see.
When they resumed walking through the town, Finn kept catching himself about to run his hand down her back or around her waist. It was only because he’d become accustomed to touching her on the boat—and lust, of course.
As they passed the townsfolk on the street, women gave them warm smiles, and men looked at him with envy, believing Margaret was his wife. It felt odd to have people look at them and think they belonged together, that they were a family. He would never be that man, the husband and father they saw.
Tomorrow they would reach Huntly Castle, and he’d be on his own again, as it should be.
As Finn set up camp in the growing darkness that night, he realized just how wrong he’d been to think his torture was over when they got off the boat. Having Margaret’s sweet bottom between his legs all day on the long ride was bad enough, but tonight would be worse.
He and Margaret would be alone all night, except for Ella—and Ella slept like the dead.
Before they took the boat, Margaret was so uneasy around him that there was no risk of anything happening between them, but she had warmed toward him considerably since then.
Even if she wanted to, it would be wrong to roll around the blanket with her when she was his captive.
Wouldn’t it?
After supper, they sat side by side in front of the roaring campfire with Ella fast asleep on the blanket behind them.
Tension sizzled between them hotter than the flames.
It was not just him. The sidelong looks Margaret gave him made the air crackle.
He was more than ready to give in to temptation, but he waited for her to make the first move.
And waited.
He sighed. Evidently, she did not wish to act on the attraction between them. While this was verra wise on her part, he hoped to God she changed her mind.
He remembered the wistfulness in her voice when she said she understood wanting a home. Naturally, she would miss being mistress of her own grand castle, but did the husband she lost still hold her heart? Was that what held her back?
“If ye don’t mind my asking, what happened to end your marriage?” There must be more to that story, for he could not imagine how her husband could leave her.
“I failed to give him an heir.” She wrapped her arms around her knees and stared into the fire. “Once my family fell from power as well, I was no use to him at all.”
What a sack of shite to leave her when she most needed protection.
“He said I was worse than useless,” she said softly. “I was a rope around his neck.”
“The cruel bastard! How could he say that to his wife?” Especially to a sweet lass like Margaret. Finn wanted to gut him with his dirk and leave him for the wolves to finish off.
“’Tis not so very different from what you said,” she said.
“What I said? I’d never—” Then he remembered comparing a wife to having an anchor tied to his neck. “The difference is I don’t have a wife. And if I did, I’d never say that to her.”
“Ye wouldn’t have to say it,” she murmured as she stared into the fire. “She’d know.”
“He had no excuse for mistreating ye like that,” Finn said, and rested his hand on her arm. The bloody idiot should have thanked his lucky stars to have such a woman.
“I put his lands and position in danger.” Margaret turned and gave him a sad smile. “So, ye see, he had no choice.”
Finn winced, for he’d used the same excuse of having no choice the night he took her from the cottage. She did not throw his words back to him in anger but with a sad resignation that made him feel worse. They sat in silence for a long while, but eventually his curiosity got the better of him.
“If ye lived together as man and wife for years,” Finn asked, “how could your husband obtain an annulment?”
“We’re third cousins, which is within the church’s prohibited degree of consanguinity.”
“But he must have known that before ye wed,” Finn said.
“Of course he did. Half the marriages among the nobility are the same.” She poked a stick into the fire. “Still, ’tis grounds for a nobleman who is wealthy and well connected to rid himself of a barren wife.”
A barren wife. If her husband believed that, then neither of them must have known she was with child when he abandoned her. And Finn had blamed her for not telling the bastard about Ella later.
“You’re well rid of the horse’s arse, but I’m sorry ye lost your home.” His words felt painfully inadequate.
“That was the least of what I lost,” she said in a faraway voice.
“What else did you lose?” he asked.
She just shook her head and looked so full of sorrow that he regretted asking.
“I have Ella. I won’t ask for more,” she said, then she lay down beside her daughter. “Good night, Finn.”
If he was hoping she would succumb to his charms, he could not have picked a worse topic of conversation than her broken marriage.
While Margaret’s interest in him had faded to nothing, his desire had not lessened one whit.
He’d never wanted a woman this much—not even Curstag, who he’d followed around like a starving dog when he was a lad of sixteen.
With her long, fair hair glinting in the firelight, Margaret looked like a faery queen who had fallen asleep on his blanket. Even in her sleep, she cast her magic over him, and he stayed awake just to watch her.
He had told Margaret she was not his kind of woman. But the truth was that he was not her kind of man. He had no castle, no servants, no means to provide her with fine gowns and jewels. If they had given in to temptation tonight, Margaret would surely regret it.
And he could not have borne to see that regret in her eyes in the morning.
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