Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Do ye ken what ye’d like to do with yer day, Lady Margo?” Tilly asked as she fastened Margo into a borrowed gown.
“I was thinking I might like to explore the castle a bit,” Margo said, adjusting the skirt. It was a bit too big, borrowed from another lady of the clan. “A castle is so much different than a manor.”
“Is that so?” Tilly asked. She stepped back, putting her hands on her hips and looking at Margo in the mirror. “Then I will stay nearby to ensure ye daenae get lost.”
“I do appreciate that,” Margo said, smiling at her genuinely. “I was quite worried I might.”
“Nae with me around, me Lady!” Tilly said, practically skipping to the door. “But ye willnae even ken I am there unless ye call for me.”
Margo stepped around her maid and into the corridor. She had broken her fast in the chambers, though not by her own request. It had been at Cameron’s insistence.
She slowly started to shake off the strange feelings from the night before; the way he’d been so gentle with her despite how rough she knew his manners to be. The same man that had come close and shoved her shift down had softly dressed her and stepped away when she had asked for guidance.
I do not know what to make of him.
She was so caught up in her thoughts that she had somehow wandered into an empty corridor. A breeze blew in through the open windows, and it was so incredibly quiet. Margo let out a deep breath as she walked over to the window sill, leaning on it and looking out over the land.
There were guards in the courtyard, watching as a carriage left the castle walls/gates. Her brow furrowed; what was happening? Before she could lay eyes on anyone riding alongside it, there was a soft mewling sound that caught her attention.
“What…” she murmured, leaning forward and scanning the yard.
The sound came around a second time, high-pitched and hungry. This time, she was able to pinpoint it. In the bush beneath the window, she caught sight of something small and wriggling.
“Tilly,” she said, whipping her head around to find her maid. “How do I get outside from here?”
“This way!” Tilly said, waving her hand and taking off down the corridor.
She must have heard the urgency in Margo’s voice because she was practically running. It took them no time to step out into the warm air. When they approached the window, the noise had grown in volume.
“It’s kittens,” Margo muttered under her breath. She lowered herself onto her hands and knees, and slowly crept toward the wailing creatures.
When she pulled aside a branch, she revealed five tiny, wriggling kittens. They were so little their eyes hadn’t yet opened. Their small paws scrambled uselessly against the dirt, not yet strong enough to move from their hiding place.
“I heard that they found a female cat early this mornin’,” Tilly said as she knelt beside Margo. “She didn’t make it. These must be her bairns.”
Margo’s heart sank. Those poor things did not stand a chance without their mother. They could do nothing for themselves there was no way they could find their own food. She could not just leave them there.
“We must take them into the castle,” Margo said, reaching forward to pick them up.
The tiny animals spat with fear, but the first, an orange tabby kitten, relaxed immediately when Margo held it in her palm. She scooped up two more, ignoring their protests. Tilly slid in beside her, gently grabbing the last two cats.
“They’re freezin’,” Margo said as the two girls stood. “We must take them inside. They need a warm blanket and milk. The hearth in my chambers should be enough to keep them warm.”
“Aye, ye’re correct,” Tilly said, leading Margo inside once more.
As they walked through the castle corridors, Tilly instructed another maid to bring milk.
It did not take long before they were back in the quarters she was meant to share with Cameron.
She settled on the floor next to the hearth, placing the kittens on her lap.
Tilly passed off the two she had been carrying before rushing to the wardrobe to pull out a blanket.
“Ye ken,” she said as she returned, setting up a place for the kittens far enough away from the hearth so that the kittens were not at risk of wandering into it, “ye and Laird MacLeod are alike; always carin’ for the helpless and voiceless.”
Margo hummed, holding her tongue. She disagreed. She and the Laird were nothing alike. She might help those more vulnerable, but it seemed to her that Cameron only hurt the voiceless and helpless.
She was not given the chance to dwell on the thought. Another maid came in, holding a tray loaded with a bottle of milk, a bowl, and several utensils to help feed the kittens. When she settled next to Margo, Margo’s focus shifted to the wee lives in her lap.
Getting them fed was tedious. They were too little to drink from a bowl, so she had to painstakingly drip milk into their mouths. With the help of the maids, she got all five of them fed and settled on their blanket.
“They will need to be fed every few hours,” Margo murmured, stroking their soft, downy heads. “I suppose I won’t be doing much exploring for a while.”
“I will stay with ye,” Tilly said, unable to take her eyes off the kittens.
For the next few days, Margo and Tilly did nothing but care for the kittens.
They slept in shifts, and Margo only left the room for meals.
It wasn’t until the end of the fifth day that she realized she had not seen MacLeod at all.
Once she noticed, though, it was the only thing she could think about.
Where could he possibly be? And why does it bother me so much now that I have noticed he’s gone?
“Oh, what is he doing to me?” she asked the gray kitten she was feeding.
As if in response to her question, hoofbeats rose in the courtyard below. After making sure the kitten she was feeding didn’t miss a drop, she put it down next to its siblings. She got up and walked over to the window, curious to see what all the ruckus was.
The first thing she saw was Cameron on his horse, the sun shining off of his long hair. The carriage she had seen leaving a few days before followed close behind him. When it came to a stop at the centre of the courtyard, the door opened, and a guard helped a young girl out.
“Eleanor?!” Margo yelled, her voice carrying out over to the courtyard.
Before her sister or anyone else could react, Margo tore out of the room. Her hands fisted in her gown to lift it from the floor so she would not trip, as she ran down the corridor. Taking the stairs two at a time, she was outside in an instant.
Eleanor was standing next to Cameron, her eyes wide as she took in her surroundings. When she spotted Margo running towards her, her face broke out into a smile, tears of relief swimming in her eyes. The two of them met in the middle, wrapping their arms around each other as they cried.
“I missed you so much,” Margo sobbed, holding onto Eleanor as tightly as she could, as if her sister might disappear again.
“Margo,” Eleanor replied, seemingly unable to say anything else.
Words were not needed, though. Margo could feel Eleanor’s relief, and she was sure that Eleanor could feel hers as well.
Finally, when she lifted her head, she saw Cameron watching them from a distance. Their eyes met briefly, and for the first time since she arrived, she offered him a genuine smile. He nodded; then turned away and made his way into the castle.
I did not think he would bring her so quickly.
“Laird MacLeod, we werenae expectin’ ye,” a fisherman said, stepping away from the storm-damaged boat he and the other men were working on. “To what do we owe the honor?”
“I’m just doin’ me rounds, Harold,” Cameron said as he took in the boats along the coast. The recent weather had destroyed nearly half of their fishing fleet. “It seems as though another set of hands would do ye well.”
“If ye’re offerin’ to help,” Harold said, jerking his head back toward the men, “we wouldnae turn ye away. We’d like to get these back in the water as soon as possible.”
“I agree,” Cameron said, not bothering with any more pleasantries.
Walking over to the wrecked boat, he grabbed a mallet and a handful of nails. As soon as he found a place in need of attention, he got to work. He had been longing for something to do with his hands since his return.
The only thing he had been able to think about when he had retrieved Eleanor had been Margo and the way she had trembled while stubbornly insisting on fulfilling her duty.
After she had smiled at him in the courtyard, the softness of her face stayed with him.
He had tossed and turned all night in the chambers adjoining hers, just thinking of what she might be doing.
Lifting the hammer into the air, he brought it down harder than necessary. He was attempting to get rid of the thoughts, pound them away the same way that he was doing with this nail. Unfortunately for him, the harder he tried to push the thoughts away, the more strongly they came back.
“Are ye sour because ye’re soaked, or is there somethin’ else on yer mind?” Gavin called out behind him.
Cameron turned around, his eyes narrowing at his man-at-arms. Lowering the mallet, he said, “Ye should watch yerself around a man with a weapon.”
“That’s hardly a weapon,” Gavin scoffed, taking in the work that Cameron had completed. “Shame that most of our fleet was damaged.”
“Aye,” Cameron agreed, turning back to his task. “We must get these boats sea-worthy again. Nae only is this our main food source, we’re relyin’ on tradin’ fish with our allies too.”
“Ye daenae have to explain all that to me,” Gavin said. He surveyed the area for a long moment before gathering his own tools. When he returned, he asked, “That storm wasnae anythin’ to laugh about. I ken that Margo was relieved that she got those kittens into the castle.”
“Lady Margo has kittens?” Cameron asked, his shoulders stiffening. He’d deliberately stayed away from her and any mentions of her activities. “I wanted to give her time with her sister, so I havenae bothered her for anythin’ that isnae strictly necessary. They seem to be quite attached.”
“That sounds unlike ye,” Gavin said, conversationally rather than probing.
“I heard she’s raisin’ a litter of kittens,” Gavin continued, placing a nail and bringing his mallet down.
“Found them while ye were away. Seems the mother passed. Has them huddled near the hearth in yer chambers to keep them warm. I havenae had the pleasure of seein’ them yet. ”
Cameron grunted, feeling that him being informed of her whereabouts was much too intimate for the current state of their relationship.
He would have known had he allowed himself into his quarters.
His avoidance of their chamber was because of his stark refusal to pressure a woman into sharing his bed.
He remembered all too well the misery of his mother, another woman that had been trapped in a marriage she could not escape.
“I am glad to see she has found herself a project,” Cameron said finally. “And I’m sure that her sister is pleased about them as well.”
“It was kind of ye to go back and get the lass,” Gavin said after a beat, speaking between the steady hammering of nails.
“I wouldnae let her be without her sister,” Cameron replied, his voice sharp.
Gavin said nothing more, and Cameron was sure that he too remembered how acutely the loss of Cameron’s sister was felt.
She had taken her own life to avoid the same fate as their mother.
He would not allow anyone to feel that pain, and he definitely would not allow a girl so young to stay with a man that was more than willing to use her as a form of payment.
I will never become the sort of man that forces women into situations they daenae want. Me father’s brutality ends with him. I will make sure of it.
As the thought crossed his mind, another, far uglier, fact made itself known; and he disliked it to his core. If he were to walk into those chambers once again to find Margo waiting in her nightclothes, he was not entirely certain that he would remember any of the promises he had made to himself.