The Groom Wore Plaid Page 20

  Lady McCallum eyed her skeptically. “He still wants to marry ye.”

  “He thinks I’m being ridiculous, risking the marriage contract this way. He looked at me with such disdain. He doesn’t believe he could die. He doesn’t like losing, and thinks he’s always right, and he wants me in his—” She broke off, blushing.

  “In his bed, aye, such is the way of men. And ye want to be with him, too. I can see the passion between ye two as if it were a color shimmering around ye both.”

  “Passion isn’t love,” Maggie said defensively, “’tis just lust.” But she was so worried that it was too late for her, that she was falling in love with him even though he couldn’t respect an intrinsic part of her. She liked their long discussions, she respected the loyalty and care he showed his people, he was so considerate of her cousins, even though he knew exactly why they were here. And most of all, she loved the way he made her feel like the only woman who mattered.

  But could there ever be a love without trust? And why was love suddenly so important when she’d agreed to this marriage thinking they’d tolerate each other and save their clans?

  “Ye had dreams about him as a child. Ye think fate didn’t plan for ye to be together?”

  “Then why did fate give me this dream?” Maggie cried with anguish.

  Lady McCallum took her hand and squeezed.

  Maggie choked back her tears. “I’m not going to cry anymore. I have a plan to solve everything between our clans. He can marry another McCallum girl.”

  Her mother tsked. “Dorothy or Helen. I knew something was afoot, but couldn’t place it. Ye can see they don’t appeal to him, not with the way he looks at ye, Margaret.”

  A hot blush stole over her. “He’s barely spoken with them. They’re very different from each other, yet lovely in their own right—one of them is bound to appeal to him.”

  “Margaret—”

  “What else can I do? I can’t marry him! And I can’t disappoint Hugh. He is so honorable, and it practically broke him to know his love of Riona jeopardized the clan. Ye weren’t there, Mathair—those two foolish men would have fought to the death if I hadn’t insisted we find another way. And Owen proposed. Obviously, that was a poor plan, as the fates have decided to show me. So I will find another way, and Hugh will never have to feel any regret or guilt.”

  Maggie was vastly relieved when, after a quick knock, Kathleen stepped into the room, and Maggie no longer had to keep convincing her mother—convincing herself.

  ON the first day of Lughnasadh, there was always a berry-picking excursion, celebrating the ripening of the first fruits of the season, followed by a horse race. Owen knew which one he usually attended, and the one he ignored. But not today. Today he had a woman to woo.

  To his frustration, Maggie had invited two other women to accompany them on what could have been a romantic walk across the mountain. Instead, as he politely carried baskets and let the ladies pick bilberries and wild strawberries, he had to listen to Maggie coax details of their lives from both Dorothy and Helen. They were sweet girls, and they were overjoyed to be away from home for the first time, but neither of them was the woman he would marry.

  The only woman he wanted—to be truthful, the only woman he’d ever truly wanted to marry—was eating bilberries and staining her mouth a luscious purple that he wanted to lick right off her.

  But again he kept his thoughts distracted from his baser instincts with mentally repeating how many digits he had memorized of the mathematical constant pi.

  Then those lips said something he didn’t catch. “Pardon me?”

  “Ye look distracted,” Maggie repeated patiently. “I knew my cousins would catch your eye.”

  The two young women had gone ahead of them to search for berries. “They seem well-bred, but they’re not you.” She opened her mouth to counter him, but he kept talking. “You’ve told me more than once that you didn’t allow yourself friends, that you could never confide in anyone. Are you including your cousins in that, too?”

  She frowned and glanced at the young women, who were chattering happily. “They are my cousins, and I love them, but did I allow them to be close friends? Nay, I could not. But they’re generous, lovely women who always tried to include me in their plans.”

  “I simply don’t understand your reluctance. You could have kept quiet about your dreams. Surely women don’t tell each other everything.”

  “Ye’d be surprised,” she said dryly. She walked at a slow pace, the basket softly bumping her skirts with her uneven stride on the slope of the hillside.

  “That sounds like you have experience with friends,” he pointed out.

  “Nay, I have experience with women who tried to be my friend, who confided in me and tried to draw forth my own deepest thoughts. They wanted me to talk—they wanted to help. But I . . . couldn’t.”

  She suddenly seemed so lonely to him, inside a prison of her own making it was true, but that didn’t change how she felt.

  “I couldn’t risk that I might reveal my dreams,” she said solemnly. “Even talking to ye about them makes my stomach hurt.”

  “You fear I would tell someone?” he said in a soft, husky voice.

  “’Tis a fear I’ve had all my life. When I was ten years old, there was a woman in my village, a healer like Euphemia, but also a seer. She had the people’s respect, too, and sometimes when I visited her, I used to imagine what it would be like to be open with my deepest secrets, if everyone knew. Maybe they’d respect me like they did her—like they do Euphemia. But both of those women took a terrible chance by trusting others. Euphemia has been lucky, but the healer in our village? An outsider came, a friend of a clansman who’d heard of her abilities. This woman was desperate for a child and pursued Maeve for days trying to get her to see a child in her future. When finally Maeve saw only a cradle with cobwebs upon it, the woman was furious. She began to poison the minds of any who listen, how Maeve was a witch who could not be trusted.”

  Owen watched Maggie’s expressive face, the sadness and the fear she didn’t hide from him. He didn’t want her to think he believed in all of this, but could not deny how watching someone accused of witchcraft must have affected her.

  “Surely, Maeve’s friends and family didn’t believe this stranger,” he said.

  “Nay, but others did, especially those who’d not received the help they thought they’d been due. Eventually, Maeve was driven to flee for her life, leaving behind her family. I never forgot that, Owen. My family was all I had. I didn’t want to shame them—I didn’t want to leave them. I may not have allowed myself close friends, but I still had the love and support of my clan.” Her lips twisted in a wry smile. “Even if I could never let anyone but my brother and mother truly know me.”

  She’d let her fears isolate her—and yet she’d still become a warm, loving woman instead of someone bitter at the fate she believed she’d been handed. He wanted to know more, but just then Maggie’s cousins called for help to reach a bush just off the edge of the path. When he was done, he turned around and found Maggie completely gone. Helen innocently told him that Maggie had earlier mentioned a promise to help her mother. Owen knew it was an excuse, that Maggie had planned to abandon him, but he felt obligated to accompany the McCallum women until their baskets were full. Dorothy and Helen seemed so carefree and innocent, something Maggie had never been allowed to be.

  He saw many of his clansmen scattered over the mountainside, and it eased his distracted thoughts to be participating in an event that had been handed down for centuries, perhaps even a millennium. He’d forgotten how it felt to be one with his people, with his land, harsh and rugged though it was.

  And then Helen brought another handful of berries for the basket, and she looked so happy and sweet—a McCallum celebrating Lughnasadh with a Duff. It seemed suddenly both strange and wonderful. He and Maggie were helping to make that possible.

  And when he found her again, he’d remind her that her life had begun to
change, that she had the future of two clans to help mold. She didn’t need to hold herself back.

  An hour later, at dinner in the great hall, another overflow of food welcomed the berry pickers and those arriving for the horse race. Owen found Maggie with Cat and the Ladies McCallum and Duff, and Maggie gave him a sweet smile with a tinge of the devil in her eyes. Cat looked back and forth between them and tried to hide her amusement.

  His mother bade him sit. “Come eat with us, Owen.”

  “Not if you’re going to discuss needlework, Mother.”

  The two older ladies exchanged a look and a laugh.

  He eyed them both, hands on his hips. “You honestly became friends because of needlework?”

  Their smiles died and this second glance between them told a more sobering tale.

  Lady Aberfoyle gave a deep sigh. “No, it wasn’t just needlework, son. I soon realized who better to understand the kind of marriage I had—”

  “—than one who had suffered through the same,” Lady McCallum said kindly, putting her hand on Lady Aberfoyle’s.

  Owen found himself glancing helplessly at Maggie. Her eyes had a sheen of tears. Cat bowed her head.

  His mother turned to Maggie. “I found it difficult when you arrived here.”

  Owen stiffened. “Mother—”

  “Let Edith speak,” Lady McCallum interrupted.

  “Please do,” Maggie added.

  He clenched his jaw and remained silent. He didn’t want his mother hurting Maggie any more than she already had. How many people had to mistrust his betrothed before she fled from his household for good?

  You mistrust her.

  This voice in his head was beginning to annoy him.

  “Thank you for listening, Maggie,” Lady Aberfoyle said. “I always knew my son would marry, of course, but I thought she would be an English bride, or at least a wealthy Lowland girl. He spent so much time in England, I just assumed . . .” She sighed. “And then he offered for you, and it was as if all of my recently dead husband’s sins were being flung at my feet.”

  As his mother wiped a tear from the corner of her eye, all Owen could think was that she wanted pity.

  “And to focus on myself was a mistake, of course,” Lady Aberfoyle continued, “but so often in my life, with a man such as the late earl, if I didn’t, no one else would take care of me. And no, Owen, you have always cared for me.”

  She probably could read his anger and bewilderment from even an eye twitch. Deadly pale, Cat watched their mother soberly.

  “But my husband was dead,” Lady Aberfoyle continued, “and I thought at last I would be free of the guilt of what I’d had to stand by and watch him do. But Maggie, you were a reminder I could not escape. I love you, Cat,” she said, turning to face her daughter, “and I showed it too much. I knew your cousin Riona’s parents were neglecting her, and I thought your compassion to her was sweet and inspiring. But your father—your father felt his brother was using his generosity. When it came time to live up to the contract your father had made with the late Laird McCallum, I watched, appalled, as he sent you away, Cat, and misled Riona into taking your place. Until that point, I had no idea he wished to change his mind. From your birth I’d pleaded with him to find another way to peace, to not betroth two children together, leaving them to bear the burden of the clans’ expectations.” She took a deep shuddering breath. “But did I do anything to stop his manipulation at the end? I did not. I didn’t know how. And seeing you here, Maggie, betrothed to my son because he cared more for honor than his father did—it reminded me of all I’d done wrong. It was . . . so difficult to watch the man I’d freely married become more and more dishonorable with every year that passed. But that does not excuse my lack of welcome, as I tried to face everything that had happened. Can you forgive me, child?” she pleaded with Maggie.

  No one said anything for a moment. Cat’s shoulders shook beneath her bowed head. Lady McCallum still clutched Lady Aberfoyle’s hand as if giving her support. Owen remembered that Lady McCallum had had to own up to standing by while her drunken husband abused innocents, committing even worse crimes.

  Owen knew what he would have done in their place—but he was a man, used to the freedom of being in command and taking for granted the ability to make his own decisions. He wondered what would have happened if these two women had gone against their husbands in a world that permitted a husband to imprison his wife for no justifiable reason.

  And then Maggie hugged his mother. “Of course, my lady. There is little enough for me to forgive.”

  He was stunned at Maggie’s generosity to a woman who’d treated her badly. Maggie seemed to believe that the past was the past, and that forgiveness enabled people to move on. He’d once asked for the same gift after leading her on when he’d been betrothed to another. But after her graciousness, he’d dismissed her dreams with scorn, and now he’d done it again. Even if he couldn’t understand her dreams, he was beginning to see that she believed in them, that she honestly was trying to save his life. Her brother seemed too happy and in love to be plotting with her against the Duffs—his own wife’s clan.

  But that didn’t mean Owen could ever accept such visions as the truth, and he wouldn’t mislead her.

  Lady Aberfoyle patted Maggie gratefully, wiped the tears from her eyes. “Thank you. Now I need to find my niece and apologize to her. This festival is a day of new beginnings, yes?”

  Lady McCallum stood up as well, put an arm through her new friend’s, and walked slowly with her.

  Owen met his sister’s wet-eyed gaze.

  “Well,” Cat said breathlessly, “that was something I never expected.” She smiled at Maggie. “And we have your mother to thank, it seems.”

  “That’s still a surprise, even to me,” Maggie admitted, accepting the handkerchief Owen offered her.

  “You don’t have one for your sister, eh?” Cat teased.

  “Yes, I do,” he said, pulling another out of the sporran at his waist. “I was concerned I might be coming down with a cold.”

  Maggie and Cat chuckled, and Maggie looked upon him with a tenderness that he should welcome. He’d been countering her every attempt to prove herself a poor bride, with his own proof that she’d be anything but. His strategy was working.

  Then why was he so uneasy? Women gave in to their emotions—it didn’t mean that a man had to. Emotions just made one vulnerable, when as chief, as earl, he had to be in control of himself at all times.

  He needed to eat and leave the hall, be on the back of a horse where no thoughts were involved, just instinct and skill and the bracing need to compete.

  CHAPTER 15

  The sun was still lingering above the mountains when the competitors on horseback came thundering down the road toward the castle. Maggie stood just before the stone bridge over the moat, near the finish line in the meadow beyond. Her brother Brendan sat on the half wall, and she kept an arm around his waist. The horses’ pounding hooves vibrated right through her, increasing the thrill. For a rare hour, she allowed herself to just enjoy the moment. Lady Aberfoyle’s apology had both surprised and pleased her—mostly for Owen’s sake. When Maggie had to leave him, she would like to think he and his family understood each other better.

  “Hugh’s in the lead!” Riona cried, practically jumping up and down.

  “Nay, ’tis Owen,” Maggie corrected mischievously.

  “Hugh,” Brendan said as if Maggie were blind.

  But in truth, Maggie didn’t know who was in the lead, and it really didn’t matter to her. What mattered was the excitement of the men controlling their massive mounts. Especially Owen, she thought, feeling a little breathless. He leaned forward over the neck of his gelding; his bare legs beneath his plaid expertly guided the horse to do his bidding. Dozens of men trailed behind him, and more than just Hugh challenged him for the win. As the horses streamed across the final line, Maggie wasn’t certain who had won.

  But she decided the women had won, for soon the
men were stripping off their plaids and following each other into the spring-fed moat, wearing just their shirts. They drenched the sweat from their bodies, and their shirts were clinging in a much-appreciated, if unseemly fashion.

  “Oh, my,” Cat said, a bit breathlessly, from where they all crowded to gape over the side of the bridge. To Maggie, she added, “We unmarried women can be quite overcome by such displays.”

  Brendan covered his ears.

  Maggie could only grin at her, feeling a bit breathless herself. “Let’s wave!” she urged Dorothy and Helen, hoping Owen would look up and notice them.

  The two sisters waved, but Owen only captured Maggie’s gaze with his own, and any remaining air in her lungs simply vanished. He’d been grinning, a rare sight on his face, but now that grin faded to a look of such intensity, she felt scorched. She had some sort of plan to dissuade this, she knew, but for the life of her, she couldn’t remember it.

  And then Hugh pushed Owen face-first into the water, breaking the spell.

  Two Duff clansmen grabbed hold of Hugh by both arms and yanked him back. Riona cried out, then covered her mouth. Brendan stiffened and leaned forward as if he meant to jump into the water to defend his brother. Maggie tightened her grip around his waist to keep him from interfering. Hugh just kept laughing.

  Owen got to his feet, sputtering, and called, “Surely ye cannot fault a man for wishing he’d defeated me?”

  And there was that brogue again, Maggie thought with an inner thrill. Did he even realize he’d let down his guard again, been a Scottish chief rather than a British earl?

  Hugh was released—at least the men had the decency to look abashed—and Owen clapped him on the back as they sloshed through water and then the reeds growing wild along the embankment. They all found their plaids where they’d left them, swinging them over their shoulders as they began an impressive group march toward the bridge. Fluttering with excitement, the castle women led the big procession into the courtyard.