Chapter 14 #2
Callum stood looking down at the man for a moment, breathing heavily as he recovered from his exertions, letting his anger cool down while making sure that the thug was truly unconscious.
Meanwhile, Margot had gently taken his victim into her arms and wrapped both of them in her cloak, since the girl was shivering both with cold and fear. At first, she pushed Margot away before she realised she was not going to come to any harm.
“Shhh…” Margot whispered tenderly. “I am Margot, and I’m here to help you. Don’t be scared. You have nothing to fear now. The Laird has made sure of that.”
The young woman said nothing, but her sobs racked both her and Margot’s bodies as she cried her heart out. Margot began to weep with her as she heard and felt the girl’s anguish, and watched as Callum bound her cruel husband’s hands behind his back and tied his ankles tightly together.
Callum stood up, stretched his shoulders, then turned around and walked back to them then knelt down beside them. “Jessie,” he said softly, “it’s Laird Callum here. You have no need to be afraid of me. I am going to make sure you are safe. He will never harm you again. You have my word on it.”
Very cautiously Jessie raised her face from the shelter of Margot’s arms and looked at him. Her blue eyes were red and swollen from weeping, but as she gazed at Callum, something about him must have reassured her, for she gave him the ghost of a smile and whispered something Margot could not hear.
Callum smiled back and helped her stand up, lifted her into his arms and made his way outside.
Slowly Callum and Jessie made their way out of the hut.
Any wandering eyes turned back to their business with one withering look from their Laird.
Slowly they walked to one of the other cottages and knocked on the door with a series of rhythmic taps which Margot realised was a code of some sort.
It was opened by an old woman with pure white hair and eyes as dark as Callum’s. As soon as he saw her, Callum set the young woman down and the old lady wrapped her arms around her. “There, now Jessie,” she said softly as she kissed Jessie’s hair and drew her inside. “Ye’re safe now.”
“I have taken care of that swine,” Callum growled. “He is unconscious, but when he wakes up the next things he sees will be my castle’s dungeon walls. My guards will come for him.”
The old lady nodded, and something about the way her eyes fixed on Callum suggested that she was passing him some kind of signal. “She will be taken away an’ they will take good care o’ her. Thank ye for your kindness, M’Laird. Ye are a good man.”
“Thank you, Mary,” he said, smiling. “You are a good woman. Let me know how Jessie fares.” He reached out and stroked the young woman’s hair gently. She turned her head and smiled faintly, but seemed unable to speak.
The old lady closed the door, leaving Callum and Margot alone again.
Margot was stunned, both by the sight of the traumatised young woman and the treatment Callum had given to her despicable husband. She was of the firm belief that the man was a sadistic bully and deserved all the punishment he had received, but she had been astonished at Callum’s brutal efficiency.
Granted, she had seen him fight other men, but there had been some other quality about this encounter. It had seemed personal, as if his opponent had attacked someone dear to his heart.
“How did you know that was going to happen?” Margot asked as they rode along.
“Because I have been watching that swine for months,” he replied, his voice still husky with rage.
“I have warned him before, and for a while, there was no trouble, but when there is a ceilidh there is always strong drink, and Alec is a violent drunk. I decided I would come and see what was going on—just in case, and it was a good thing I did. Heaven knows what would have happened to Jessie if I had not.”
At that moment, Margot realised that Mary was Callum’s spy, and she kept him informed of the goings-on in the village. That was how he always knew whom to warn and whom to punish and when to intervene if the need ever arose, as it had now.
She was stunned. He was like a father looking after his children. However, he was not the sort of uncaring, self-absorbed parent they both had. No, he was the loving, solicitous kind who put his children’s welfare before his own—the personification of what fatherhood should be.
Margot was silent for a long time. She was trying to put the pieces together. No aristocrat she’d known back in London would have risked their well-being to protect their people. No one would risk their reputation that way. But not Callum. He was different, and there had to be a reason for it.
“There is something else,” she said bluntly. “Something you’re not telling me.”
He sighed and ran his hand backwards through his hair in a gesture of agitation.
“My father was like that man,” he explained.
“Cruel and vicious. His wife could not give him an heir, so he took a mistress, and I was the result.
But my mother was just a commoner, and therefore unworthy of his regard, so when I was a little boy, and she was on her deathbed he tore me away from her.
He died years later of the same fever that killed my mother. I hated him then, and I still do. I look after the villagers in my mother’s honour because I know that she would want me to do it.”
Margot was staring at him in awe. Without taking a moment to think about what she was doing, Margot pulled Callum’s face down to hers and gave him a hard and passionate kiss, pouring all her love and admiration into it.
Her heart was bursting with love for him, but she could not tell him in words—this was the only way she could think of doing it.
When Margot stepped back, she seemed to have realised what she’d done.
It was the second time she’d initiated such intimate contact, even though the first was to distract him from pain.
Callum’s dark eyes looked into hers for a moment with an unfathomable expression.
He watched slowly as she retreated back into the guarded version of herself.
He did not pull her back nor push her for more.