Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
He had lain in the dark long enough to know sleep was not coming.
His thoughts were doing what they always did at this hour: circling, doubling back, refusing to settle. He had learned long ago that the only cure for it was movement. He threw back the covers, reached for his boots, and went.
The walls were cold. He walked them anyway. The gate watch nodded as he passed, which was what he paid them for. Below, the grounds were still. Above, the sky was clear, hard, and indifferent.
He had been doing this for weeks. The walls provided him with something the bed could not—the feeling of purposeful movement, of covering ground—even if it was just the same forty feet of parapet he had walked a hundred times.
It is better than lyin' in the dark listenin' to me own thoughts argue with each other.
He came around the east corner and stopped.
A light—low and amber—was burning in the window of a chamber that should be dark at this hour. He knew the window. He knew the room. He should have kept walking, but instead, he stopped beneath the window and looked up.
Through the old, imperfect glass, he could see Margaret sitting close to the fire, Lilly against her chest. The bairn was restless, shifting, fighting whatever had woken her at this hour.
Margaret was holding her, with her cheek pressed lightly to the top of the bairn's head. Her lips were moving in a low and soft tune.
He leaned against the wall and watched.
She is half asleep herself.
And she was. Her eyes were closed, her shoulders curved around the child, and even as he watched, the tension in them began to ease, degree by degree, until she was simply breathing, and the bairn was simply breathing, and the fire was burning low, and there was a stillness in the room that he had not seen in any room he had entered in a very long time.
Something in him went quiet.
He did not know what to do with that, the sudden, unasked-for quiet in the middle of his chest. He stood against the cold stone in the dark, looked at the light in the window, and felt it anyway.
This is what it looks like. Easy. Natural. A thing that simply is.
He had never known what that felt like. Not as a child, woken in the night in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar house, learning early that comfort was not something the world distributed evenly or fairly.
Not as a boy growing into a man at Alasdair's side, where affection was real but always shaped around duty, around rank, around the careful distance that loyalty required.
Not as a soldier, and certainly not as a laird.
He had built himself out of what life had given him, which was discipline and endurance and the ability to keep moving when softer men would stop.
He had believed, for a long time, that this was enough.
That a man did not need ease. That needing it was a weakness to be corrected rather than a want to be heard.
Standing here now, looking at his wife asleep with his ward against her chest in the firelight, he was not so certain.
He allowed himself a moment—just one—of imagining crossing the yard, climbing the stairs, pushing that door open, sitting in the chair by the fire, and simply being in the room with them.
Fergus turned away from the wall. The yard was freezing, and the cold was finally cutting through his jacket.
He started toward the gate, fully intending to head to his own quarters and remain there.
But without thinking it through, he just turned around and walked back toward the stone stairs.
His boots were heavy on the steps, but he didn't slow down.
He reached her door and saw it wasn't fully latched. He pushed it open.
Margaret was leaning over the cradle. She was focused on the baby, her movements careful and quiet.
The floorboard groaned under his weight. Margaret stiffened and spun around. Her hair was down, falling in a mess over her shoulders. Her eyes went wide when she saw him standing there.
"Fergus," she whispered.
He stayed by the door. He didn't say a word. The silence in the room changed, getting heavy and tight. He watched her, and she didn't look away. The shock on her face started to fade, replaced by something much sharper. She looked at his mouth, then back at his eyes.
He took a step into the room.
"Ye should nae be here," she whispered. Her voice was shaky, but she didn't move.
"Why can I nae? Ye are me wife." His voice was rough.
He stepped closer until he was standing right in front of her. He could feel the heat coming off her body. Her pulse was jumping in her neck. He reached out and touched the line of her jaw with his thumb. Her skin felt hot under his fingers, and he heard her gasp.
"Margaret," he groaned.
The tension between them snapped tight. She leaned into his hand just a little bit, her breath hitching. They stood there, caught in the heat, neither one of them willing to pull away.
"Ye should be asleep," she whispered. Her voice was low.
"I couldnae sleep," he said. His voice was a rough scrape in the silence. "I saw ye through the window."
"And?"
"And I cannae stay away, Margaret. ‘Tis becomin' a problem."
His other hand gripped her waist, pulling her flush against him. The heat of her body soaked through his damp clothes immediately. He saw her eyes go dark, the pupils blowing wide. She didn't pull away. She reached up and grabbed the front of his shirt, her knuckles white.
"Is this the Laird speakin'?" she whispered. "Or the man who left me in the rain?"
"That man is tired of fightin' ye," he rasped.
He leaned down, his forehead pressing against hers. The restraint they had both been performing was snapping. He could feel the quick, sharp beat of her heart against his chest. He moved his hand from her waist to the back of her neck, his thumb tracing the line of her jaw.
He tilted his head, his mouth an inch from hers. He was going to kiss her. He was going to pick her up and carry her to the bed and forget every term they had ever made.
Lilly shifted in the crib. She made a soft, small whimper in her sleep.
Fergus froze. The sound was like a bucket of ice water. He didn't let go of her immediately, but the moment had changed. The weight of the castle and the child settled back into the room.
He stepped back, his hands dropping to his sides.
Ye fool.
His jaw tightened. He had brought her to this castle to be a mother to Lilly, to fix the mess he'd made when he walked away a year ago. If he took her now, in the dark, it wouldn't be because he'd earned her. It would be because he was weak. He was the Laird, and a laird did things the right way.
He didn't let go of her immediately. He felt the curve of her waist under his palms and the way her breath hitched against his chest. But the moment had changed. He couldn't be both the man who wanted her and the leader this clan needed to survive the winter.
He stepped back, his hands dropping to his sides. The distance between them felt wider than the road north.
"I should go," he said. His voice was a rough scrape in the quiet of the room.
"I see. Then go, Fergus." The pain in her voice was enough to make him turn, but Margaret had turned her back to him, her hands gripping the edge of the wooden crib so hard the wood creaked. "Go back to yer walls so we can continue the civil liberties we agreed to."
He stretched a hand to her, but let it fall before it touched her shoulder. Watching her like this was like a dagger slowly turning in his heart, but he didn't answer. He couldn't.
* * *
The hall was too quiet, the air thick with a tension that had nothing to do with the morning's work.
Margaret sat in the high-backed chair by the hearth, her back aching from a night spent mostly awake.
The sheets had felt like ice after Fergus walked out, and every time she had closed her eyes, she felt the ghost of his hands at her waist. She had watched the fire turn to ash, her mind replaying the moment the restraint had snapped and then, just as quickly, been forced back into place.
Lilly was wide awake in her arms, batting at the air with a restless energy Margaret couldn't match.
The servants moved through the hall like they were walking on eggshells.
Maisie was scrubbing a table that was already clean, her eyes darting toward the stairs every few seconds.
Two lads were lifting the heavy rugs in the corner, pretending to look for dust while they exchanged panicked looks.
The problem was Fergus.
He came down the stairs with a scowl that could have curdled cream. His hair was a mess, and he was walking with a heavy, uneven hitch—because he was wearing only one boot.
"Iseabail," he barked, his voice a low growl that made the kitchen girls flinch. "Have the floors been cleared?"
"Aye, Laird," the healer replied, her face a mask of stone as she gathered her herbs. "Standard cleanin'."
Margaret watched him from the shadows. He paced the length of the hall, his jaw tight enough to crack stone. He shoved a bench aside and pulled a tapestry back with more force than was needed, his eyes sweeping the floor with increasing fury.
He did not look at her. Not once. He treated the hall like a battlefield he was losing, his movements sharp and impatient.
Ye ken exactly why ye're lookin' everywhere but here, Fergus MacKenzie.
Her fingers tightened slightly on Lilly's blanket.
‘Tis easier to fight a missin' boot than to face the woman ye almost took in the dead of the night.
She waited until he'd circled the solar twice, his frustration peaking as he leaned over a chest, shoulders corded with tension. Then she stood.
Lilly babbled a protest as Margaret crossed the floor, but she kept the bairn steady. She walked into the solar and didn't hesitate. She knew exactly where he'd been sitting when he'd finally conceded to rest. She leaned down by the heavy oak bench near the hearth and reached into the shadows.
She pulled the missing boot free and stood up.
Fergus spun around. His eyes were dark, his breathing ragged. Margaret held the boot out, the worn leather still carrying the faint scent of the stables.
"Ye left them there," she said.
He stared at the boot, then at her face for a fraction of a second before his gaze dropped to her throat. His jaw remained locked as he snatched the leather from her hand.
"I would have found them," he said, the words forced through gritted teeth.
"Eventually," she agreed.
Lilly gave a sharp, approving babble, her small fist grabbing at Margaret's shawl.
Fergus didn't answer. He sat on the bench and shoved his foot into the boot, his movements aggressive and final. He did not meet her eyes. He did not look at the bairn. He just stood, adjusted his plaid, and headed for the door without a backward glance.
Margaret stayed in the solar, watching his retreating back. She noticed the way his hand shook as he gripped the doorframe. He was not nearly as composed as he wanted her to believe.
Later that day, Margaret moved between the looms, her fingers trailing over the indigo-dyed wool.
She was doing everything necessary to stay busy, but the truth was she was no longer an outsider treading carefully on stone that didn't belong to her; this was her house, she was the Lady, and these women were her own.
"The tension on the warp is loose, Elspeth," Margaret said, stopping beside a woman whose hands moved with a speed that blurred the sight. "If ye daenae tighten it, the pattern will bleed when the winter rains hit."
Elspeth paused, wiping sweat from her brow with a reddened hand. She looked at the weave, then at Margaret, giving a slow nod of respect. "Aye, me Lady. Ye've an eye for the detail, so ye have."
"I spent enough hours at me mother's side in the Lowlands to ken when a thread is lazy," Margaret replied, a small smile touching her lips.
She kept moving, discussing the stores for the fall and the weight of the wool needed for the men's winter plaids.
But as she reached for a bundle of dark, unwashed fleece, the heat of the hall seemed to sharpen.
The way the light caught the corded muscles of a weaver's arm reminded her of the yard that morning, and the way Fergus had looked as he shoved the benches aside, his jaw tight and his eyes avoidant. He couldn't hide from her forever.
The memory hit her then, unbidden and fierce.
She wasn't in the hall anymore; she was back at the loch, the water cold against her skin while his hands were fire.
She could still feel the phantom pressure of his thumbs against her inner thighs, opening her, and the raw, guttural sound he'd made against her neck.
It had been a choice, deliberate and thorough—a man finally stopping his flight.
A flush that had nothing to do with the hearth-fire climbed her neck. Her fingers tightened on the wool, the oily fibers biting into her skin.
"Me Lady? Are ye well?" Maisie asked, appearing at her side with a basket of empty bobbins.
Margaret blinked, the weaving hall snapping back into focus. She forced her hands to relax, though her skin felt too tight for her bones. "Yes, Maisie. Just the heat. It is a heavy day."
"The Laird has the men out in the south yard," Maisie said, her eyes twinkling with a knowing mischief. "He's been drivin' posts since the sun was up. I ken he's lookin' for somethin' to break."
"He is lookin' to forget," Margaret murmured, more to herself than the maid.
"Forget what?"
Margaret turned to a fresh loom, her movements brisk and final.
That he is nae the only one who kens how to hold a grudge.
"Tell the cook we'll need the midday meal sent out to the yard."
If he wants to work like a horse, he had best be fed like one.
She walked toward the far end of the hall, her head held high. Her mind was already halfway across the courtyard, wondering if his hands were still shaking.