Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“We will be ridin’ in this carriage together,” Cameron told Margo when she and Eleanor joined him in the courtyard.
“There’s room for me as well?” Eleanor asked, leaning slightly to scrutinize the small chaise. “I do not believe that.”
“Ye will be ridin’ with me,” Gavin said, speaking up from the escort detail behind Margo and Cameron’s carriage. “Well, ye will have the carriage to yerself, and I will be ridin’ alongside ye.”
Eleanor huffed before saying, “I suppose some time alone will be good for my mind.”
“If ye’re that opposed, I can get someone to ride with ye,” Gavin offered, opening the door and waiting for her to join him. His eyes met Cameron’s for a moment. “Surely someone is assisting with the luggage that could accompany her.”
“If that is what she wishes,” Cameron said, though the allowance was a deviation he hadn’t planned for. He was determined to let this trip be a positive experience for Margo and, by extension, her sister. “The weather is pleasant. We shouldnae have to worry about winds.”
“Oh, I am just teasing,” Eleanor said, blushing in the same way Margo did when she was overwhelmed.
“You do not need to rearrange anything for me.” Then, as if to stop any further discussion on the matter, she accepted Gavin’s outstretched hand and climbed inside the carriage.
She reached for the door herself, stopping to look between Gavin, Cameron, and Margo before saying, “Though I do appreciate your willingness to do so.”
When she closed the door, Gavin looked at Margo incredulously. Taking a few steps toward her and lowering his voice so Eleanor would not overhear him, he said, “She’s in rare form today.”
“She is excited to be invited,” Margo said, her entire demeanor seeming to soften. “She could not stop talking about it. I think she has fallen in love with the Highlands.”
“They dinnae give her a very warm welcome,” Cameron admitted, crossing his arms and gazing out at the cliffs in the distance.
“I do not think that bothers her any,” Margo laughed.
She seemed lighter today, a mix of excitement and nervousness buzzing under her skin. In the week leading up to their departure, he had heard her laughter more often. She and her sister had been attached at the hip every time he caught sight of them.
“Aye, she asked me when I thought the next storm would happen,” Gavin said, shaking his head.
He glanced over at the horizon, taking note of the sun’s position in the sky.
Then, his expression hardened, shifting back to the warrior that Cameron knew he was.
“I have completed all of me rounds. I am ready to leave at yer command.”
Cameron nodded, dismissing his man-at-arms and turning to Margo. “We willnae depart until ye’re comfortable.”
She looked up at him, tilting her head as though she couldn’t quite understand who she was looking at. He knew that she had felt his distance. It wasn’t as if she had done anything to bridge it, though.
Perhaps it has always been me reachin’ for her, forcin’ her to think she must return me desires for the sake of duty.
Margo did not speak; instead, she stepped over to the open door of the carriage they would share. When he offered her his hand, she took it, allowing him to help her inside. Then, once she was settled, he signaled to the group to be ready to follow before climbing in behind her.
“Tilly told me you asked her to remain at the castle to look after the kittens while we are away,” she said after he had wrapped his knuckles twice against the roof to get the caravan moving.
“I did,” he confirmed, realizing all at once that riding in the same carriage had been a mistake. He shifted slightly, scanning the landscape as they left the courtyard. “I dinnae think that anyone else would take care of them to a degree ye approved of.”
Margo hummed a soft, appreciative noise. The wind stirred as they passed by the rosebushes just before the castle gates. All at once, his nostrils were filled with a scent that he had come to associate with her. It was intoxicating, making the carriage feel even smaller than it was.
I could have ridden beside the carriage.
“You are right,” she admitted, carefully keeping the few inches of space between them as she leaned in closer to the window on his side. “I was worried about how they would fare while we were away. Now I know that they’ll be spoiled.”
He tried to provide an answer, but her closeness scrambled his thoughts. When he could not formulate an appropriate response, he grumbled, “Ye have yer own window.”
“I do, but the view is nowhere near as interesting on that side,” she replied, moving back slightly but not returning to her side.
“It is right now,” he conceded after another long moment. “But come afternoon, ye will have a much bonnier view. And ye can see this whenever ye want. We’re nae even a half hour’s walk from the castle gates right now.”
That seemed to be enough to get her back onto her side. He took his first full breath before settling against the bench. He was a warrior; he had faced down fearsome armies and flirted with death. Nevertheless, being with her felt like his most treacherous battle yet.
“I did not know there were flowering bushes so far from the castle,” Margo marveled, her voice light and airy. It made something in his chest clench, and there was no walking away from the source of this discomfort.
Ach, I kent I should have taken me own horse.
Margo rubbed her hands together, not taking her eyes off of the passing scenery. The morning had somehow grown colder, and she worried that it meant a storm was rolling in. She could not see any clouds on the horizon, though.
Cameron shifted beside her, and a moment later, she heard his window sliding closed. The cross-breeze ceased immediately. Even though she did not yet feel warm, the icy edge of the Highlands was gone.
“It is cooler up north,” Cameron said, pulling a fur free from somewhere beneath his seat. As he draped it over Margo’s lap, he said, “I must have neglected to tell ye.”
She looked down at the soft pelt, reaching down to run her fingers through the fur.
Though he had been distant and she knew what had happened during his meeting with her father, the warmth she had felt growing between them remained.
Even though his behavior was infuriatingly confusing, there was still a level of care that drove his actions.
I wish I knew how to speak to you.
“I do not believe I have properly thanked you for the ceilidh,” Margo said, meeting his gaze again.
“I am nae the one that planned it,” Cameron said, not looking away from her for the first time since he told her about the trip. “Ye should thank Marian and Lachlan for the celebration.”
“You still had to allow it,” she insisted. She was no stranger to his command now. Had he truly been against it, the ceilidh would not be happening. “So, I am thanking you for that.”
Cameron grunted, apparently deciding that it was not something worth arguing about. Then, quietly and much too casual about what he was suggesting, he said, “After the ceilidh, the two of us must begin thinkin’ seriously about our future together.”
“Our future?” Margo asked, the words not quite connecting.
Is he threatenin’ to get rid of me?
“Aye,” he said, still calm. His eyes seemed to be locked onto her fingers dancing through the pelt. “I want ye to be comfortable. I daenae want ye to have to think about anythin’ other than enjoyin’ yer life.”
“Right,” Margo said as she paused her stroking, her hands beginning to shake. Her voice was thin, her faculties pulled in different directions by the caricature of him she had been creating in her mind and the nuanced man sitting in front of her. “I have been… comfortable.”
“I am glad to hear it,” he said, his tone shifting to something a bit more professional. A shiver that felt less like a chill and more like a premonition. “But after this ceilidh, we should be man and wife.”
So he has not changed since he made that stipulation.
“I see.”
Margo swallowed, shifting her gaze from the downy, brown fur covering her lap to her still-open window.
Perhaps this was nothing more than duty to him.
It had been foolish of her to even entertain the thought he might abandon the contract they signed.
Though Cameron had been improving the clan’s financial situation, the debt he had inherited was staggering.
The clan needed her dowry.
“When we return to the castle,” he said, his voice dipping low, a slight growl to his words that left no confusion about his meaning, “we will begin sharin’ our quarters to sleep.”
It is simply duty.
Even as she told herself, tried to put distance between the emotions that swirled inside her and the directive, she felt her face flush.
She should feel offended, irate even. The emotions were there, sharp and as dangerous as a pair of scissors being hurled through the air.
But the way her stomach flipped was not entirely unpleasant.
“Of course,” she replied when she finally found her voice once more. She kept her gaze carefully on the passing scenery, watching the way the sun danced through the tallest leaves of the trees that rolled by. “I suppose that is something that we should have been doing since I arrived.”
“We will keep our separate quarters during the day,” he said. The professional tone in his voice was now tempered with the same gravity she had known him to use when he was trying to instate his authority. “It is important that we both have our own space.”
“I do not disagree,” she said, finally tearing her gaze away from the forest rushing past them. He watched her from the corner of his eye, gauging her reaction. “I cannot imagine that you would be pleased to have your space invaded by Eleanor nearly every day.”
Cameron grunted, finally turning to face her properly. Margo’s train of thought came to a screeching halt. His hair sat still, neatly brushed, reaching just above his shoulders. The shadows it cast seemed to make his features even more austere.
And his eyes.
The softness she had seen before was still there. It swirled, tangled with something else she could not yet parse out. Restraint coupled with something that looked like animal instinct or something similar, she thought. It scared her just as much as it exhilarated her.
“Ye will be comfortable, Margo,” Cameron said, the full force of his attention raising gooseflesh on her arms. She was nodding before she registered what she was doing. “And ye willnae have to worry about a thing.”
Oh how I want to believe you, Cameron.