Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
He had been putting it off for three weeks.
Angus mentioned it first, carefully, the way Angus mentioned things he knew would not be well received.
Then two of the senior clan members came to him separately, on different days, wearing the expressions of men who had been patient longer than they should have been.
The disputes had been building up since before he took the Lairdship, with land boundaries blurred by years of neglect under the previous man, grazing rights argued over in doorways and across fences, a debt between two families that had turned into something uglier than money.
They need to see ye decide.
Fergus understood this. He had stood at Alasdair's shoulder through a dozen of them, watching how it was done, how a laird listened without appearing to wait, how he held the room without raising his voice, how he found the line between mercy and weakness and walked it without flinching.
He had thought, then, that it looked straightforward enough.
He had been wrong about a number of things.
* * *
They came to him after breakfast. Three of them, senior clan members—the kind of men who had survived the previous Laird by keeping their heads down and their opinions quiet. They were not keeping their opinions quiet now.
Fergus let them in and did not sit.
"The MacAllister boundary has been disputed for two seasons," the eldest said. His name was Edward, gray-bearded, deliberate, the kind of man who chose every word like he was paying for it. "And the matter of the Brennan debt willnae hold much longer. There are others."
"I ken there are others."
"Then ye ken a gatherin' cannae wait." Edward looked at him steadily. "The clan needs to see ye decide, me Laird. Nae just hear that ye have."
The other two said nothing. They did not need to. They were here because they agreed with Edward, and their presence was the agreement.
Fergus moved to the window. Below, the yard was already busy, with two men loading timber and a woman crossing toward the well with a basket.
His clan. His responsibility. Every one of them had something that needed settling, something that had been left to fester under the man who had ruled this land before him.
Fairness is never clean. Fairness demands cruelty. It demands that ye look a man in the eye and tell him he is wrong and nae flinch from what that costs him.
He had watched Alasdair do it. He had stood at his shoulder and observed the particular weight of it. He had thought he understood.
He had not understood.
"I'll call it," he said, without turning from the window. "Give me three days to prepare."
Edward exhaled. Not relief exactly. The sound of a man who had come ready for a longer argument and was adjusting. "Aye, me Laird. Three days."
"And Edward." Fergus turned. "Anyone who comes to that hall with a grievance they havenae first attempted to settle between themselves willnae find me sympathetic."
Edward nodded once. "I'll pass the word."
They filed out. The door closed behind them.
Fergus stood alone in the room, gazing at the yard below and contemplating fairness—specifically, its shape and how it demanded caring enough to create enemies among people he otherwise would not want to oppose.
Three days, he thought. Get it done.
* * *
The loch was hers for exactly twenty minutes before she heard him.
She had not planned for company. She had told Maisie she was walking the east path, had deliberately taken the long way around the birch stand, and had waited until the castle sounds faded behind her before she let herself breathe.
The afternoon was warm and close, and the water when she waded in was a relief so immediate it bordered on indecent.
She had been floating on her back, her hair spread around her, staring at the sky, thinking about nothing at all for the first time in weeks, when a branch cracked at the tree line.
She righted herself immediately, water rushing to her shoulders.
Fergus stood at the edge of the birches. He had not looked away and was not pretending he had just arrived. Standing with his arms at his sides and his jaw clenched, he looked like a man who had made a decision he was not entirely at peace with.
"Fergus." Her voice came out steadier than she felt.
"I saw ye leave," he said. "The path behind the east wall."
"And ye followed me."
"Aye."
The water covered up to her chest where she stood, her arms crossed loosely at the surface.
The evening light was low and gold across the loch, the hills darkening behind him.
She waited. He had come here with something.
She could see it in the set of his shoulders, the way he was still standing at the tree line as though he had not yet decided how far in he was going.
"They want a gatherin'," he said. "Donal came to me this mornin'. Three of them, callin' for a meetin' before I'd finished breakfast."
Margaret said nothing. She waited.
"Every dispute in the clan, they say. Every boundary, every debt, every grievance that's been sittin' since before I took the Lairdship." His jaw tightened. "They want me to stand at the head of the hall and decide all of it. In one sittin'."
"And ye daenae want to."
"What I want doesnae come into it." He looked at the water. "What I want is another month. Two. Long enough that when I stand up there and tell a man he is wrong, he believes I ken his land better than he does." A pause. "Right now, I am still learnin' their names."
"They ken that," Margaret said.
"Aye. That's the problem." He exhaled, slow and controlled.
He turned to look at her, and there it was again, the thing she had been watching for all afternoon, the unguarded face beneath the one he wore for everyone else. "I am still buildin' their trust, Margaret. Every day. Every decision. I cannae afford to get this wrong."
She looked at him steadily. "Then daenae get it wrong."
His expression shifted. "That is nae particularly helpful."
"I am nae finished." She held his gaze. "Ye are right to be cautious.
Rushin' into that hall before ye are ready serves nay one.
But they are nae askin' ye to be ready." She paused.
"They are askin' ye to be present. There is a difference.
Ye daenae have to ken every name and every boundary before ye stand up there.
Ye only have to show them that ye are tryin' to.
That ye see them." She tilted her head slightly.
"Ye already do. I have watched ye do it.
They have watched ye do it. They are nae askin' for a man who kens everythin'.
They are askin' for a man who will nae look away. "
Fergus was quiet for a long moment.
"Donal said three days," he said finally.
"Then ye have three days," she said. "That is enough."
He looked at her across the water, the evening light turning gold behind the hills, and something inside him that had been held all afternoon finally eased just a fraction.
"Ye should have been a council member," he said.
"I should have been many things," she answered. "Give me time."
He looked at her for a long moment. Something in him was very still.
"Ye understand it," he said quietly. Not a question.
"I understand ye," she said. "More than ye think. I see how strong ye are."
He crouched at the bank until his eyes were level with hers, his forearms resting on his knees, close enough that the distance between them was no longer a distance at all. His gaze moved over her face and then shifted down to her neck, lingering at the space just before her shoulders.
"Margaret."
"Aye."
He reached out. His hand found her jaw, his thumb tracing the line of her cheekbone with a slowness that stopped her breath entirely.
His eyes followed the movement, dark and intent, and she could see him choosing this, deliberately, without the storm or the dark to blame it on.
Just him, and her, and the quiet water between them.
She put her hand over his and held it there.
He exhaled, and something in him gave way.
He came into the water without taking his eyes off her, boots and all, the loch soaking through his clothes as he stepped in until he stood before her and the distance between them disappeared entirely.
His hands found her waist beneath the surface, warm against her bare skin, and she felt her breath leave her body.
"I am nae good at this," he said, his voice very low.
"I ken," she said. "Do it anyway."
He kissed her slowly this time. Nothing like in the rain, nothing sharp or sudden.
This was a deliberate, thorough kiss from a man who had decided to stop running and was taking his time to arrive.
She felt it move through her like warmth, spreading from the press of his mouth to everywhere his hands were and where they had not yet been.
His hands moved at her waist, learning the lines of her, and when she drew breath against his mouth, he made a sound low in his chest that undid her entirely.
The water shifted around them as she moved closer, her hands finding the front of his soaked shirt, the solid warmth of him beneath it.
His mouth left hers and found the curve of her neck, and she let her head fall back against the steady weight of his arm.
Fergus's hands slid from her waist, trailing down the curve of her hips beneath the water. He broke the kiss, his breathing ragged against the sensitive skin of her throat.
"Margaret," he groaned, the sound vibrating deep in his chest. "Ye are a distraction I cannae fight any more."
He sank lower into the water, his knees finding the soft silt of the loch bed. Margaret's hands remained in his hair, her fingers tangling in the damp, dark strands as he settled between her thighs. The water lapped at her breasts, but the heat rising within her was sharper than the evening chill.
"Fergus," she gasped, her spine arching as his face neared the junction of her body.