The Groom Wore Plaid: Highland Weddings (25 page)

“Ye mean they like to make their guests comfortable.”

“Mmph,” was the woman’s answer to that.

“Come sit with me, Mathair.”

She sat on a cushioned chair before the fire, and Lady McCallum took the other one and drew it close.

“I could hold your hand all day if ye’d let me,” the woman said.

Maggie smiled. “I’m not a little girl.”

“But I feel the need to reassure ye like ye still are.” Her mother searched her eyes, her own filling with worry. “I didn’t like sending ye off with a man ye’d barely ever met.”

“I know. But I’m well.”

“Pshaw, don’t try to lie to me. I see ye swaying those young men—even your brother—but I ken ye to your bones. Has it been so terrible here?”

“Nay, it has not, I promise, Mathair. Owen is respectful and kind. He has this incredible library, and he’s teaching me all about the wonders of natural philosophy and astronomy and—”

“Ye aren’t telling me what’s in his heart, lass.”

“I don’t know what’s in his heart,” she answered wistfully. “And it doesn’t matter, not truly. His kindness and generosity are more important.” She had to pretend they were more important than his trust.

Lady McCallum bit her lip and looked away, blinking rapidly, before she said, “Aye, and it’s growing up with such a man as your father that made ye think this, that love is unimportant. Take it from a woman who never had it from her husband—the love of a good man is everything.”

Maggie’s chest tightened almost painfully, as if her heart could shatter. “I can’t marry him,” she whispered.

She waited apprehensively, as if her mother would talk about duty to the clan and ending the feud.

Instead Lady McCallum’s eyes went wide and she squeezed her hand. “Tell me everything, my wee lass. Let me help.”

Maggie took a deep breath, aware of the magnitude of such a decision. And then she said, “I think I’ve been having dreams about Owen my whole life.”

She thought her mother would gasp or perhaps even brush that aside, but all she said was “Go on.”

So Maggie told her about the dreams of the little boy who’d practically grown up beside her almost as a comforting companion, the stolen weeks with Owen when she’d been sixteen, her confession of her dream about his betrothed, Emily, and his reaction.

Lady McCallum clapped her hands on top of her thighs and shook her head. “’Tis a sad thing to like a boy and be so disappointed in his foolishness. But he was young, then, Margaret. Don’t ye think he’s wiser to the mysteries of the world?”

“Aye, the mysteries of the planets or electricism. Those things can make no sense but he’ll still believe in them! But not in me.” The vehemence in her voice took her aback. She told herself to calm down.

“Ye know that for certain, do ye? Ye’ve discussed your gift?”

“My curse,” Maggie said dully, a rejoinder she’d always given her mother, though they’d usually been bantering. “And aye, we’ve discussed it again. It didn’t go well. He just can’t believe in the old
superstitions
.” She emphasized the word sarcastically.

“But ye haven’t even experienced it in years. Maybe—”

“But I had another dream about him!”

The despair in her own voice shocked her and must have shocked her mother, too, because she regarded Maggie with wide eyes. The silence between them stretched taut.

“He’s going to die,” Maggie whispered, trembling. “If he marries me, on our wedding day, he’ll die.”

She could actually see her mother visibly pale.

“Oh, Maggie, ye saw such a thing in your dreams?”

Maggie nodded, feeling the tears well up and spill over. She dropped to her knees in front of her mother and wrapped her arms about her waist.

“Oh, my wee lass.”

There were tears in Lady McCallum’s voice, too, and they just hugged each other and rocked for what seemed like a long time. At last, Maggie lifted her head, and her mother handed her a handkerchief so she could wipe her face and blow her nose. She sank back into her own chair.

“Tell me the dream,” Lady McCallum said, her voice laced with both firmness and concern.

“There isn’t much to tell,” Maggie said bitterly, “and that’s much of the problem. Owen woke me up before I could see the complete dream.”

Her mother arched a brow. “He woke ye up?”

Maggie waved both hands. “’Twasn’t like that. He heard me scream and came to wake me up the first
night I was here. All I saw was me in my wedding clothes, and Owen lying on the floor, blood everywhere, his face white as death.” She hugged herself, her entire body trembling.

“But was he dead?”

Maggie shook her head. “Not yet, but I screamed and clutched him, and my clothes became spattered with his blood. And then—he woke me up.”

“So ye don’t really know he’ll die.”

“Do ye think I don’t realize that? I’ve spent my entire time here trying to have the dream again, to discover the ending, but nothing works. I’ve even discussed it with the healer, Euphemia—”

“The one who seemed to enchant the entire hall with just her voice?”

Maggie nodded. “She took me up to the standing stones, as if there was magic somewhere, anywhere, that might help me. But there’s nothing. So I resolved not to marry him, and have looked for another way to satisfy the contract and keep the peace between our clans.”

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.

O
N
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.