The Groom Wore Plaid: Highland Weddings (7 page)

“Are you? Or are you somehow trying to help your clan? Was this your brother’s idea?”

She took a step away. “Of course not! He was the one who tried to make the contract work when your father schemed to break it. Ye think I’d invent a story to avoid my responsibilities?”

“It looks like it. Although I wouldn’t have believed it of you, it seems these last ten years have changed you.”

“And they haven’t changed
you
at all!”

They faced one another down, and Maggie realized
she might never convince him of the truth. She was alone in this.

“I don’t know what you thought you’d achieve with such a tale,” he said, “but it will not work. You agreed to marry me, and I’m holding you to it.”

“Even if it means your death,” she said, feeling older, sadder, frustrated.

“Threats, Maggie?” he asked softly.

“I’m not going to kill ye! I don’t ken who tries—I didn’t see that part of the dream.” But perhaps that’s what she had to discover, if ever she was to convince him.

“I’m not going to risk my clan’s future on your foolish whim.”

“Is this guilt over the part your father played or determination to be nothing like him?” she demanded coldly.

“Enough, Maggie. We will marry. And then I will spend my nights making you glad for it.”

He spoke with promise, his voice husky, his eyes intense.

He was going to die, and all he cared about was having his pleasure. She whirled away and began to march back toward the castle, feeling him fall into step at her side, though she refused to look his way.

“August is the month for lovers in Scotland,” he continued.

She stared at him, infuriated. He was going to ignore her warnings—again.

“This is the month that the harvest approaches, that
trial marriages begin,” he continued, lecturing her. “It’s a new season for many things—and it will be for us, too.”

He gave another one of those faint smiles that looked as if he didn’t remember how to laugh; he certainly hadn’t been so closed off as a young man.

He was so firm in his beliefs about the world. One would have thought a man who fancied himself a scientist would accept that there were things he couldn’t yet prove. Or did a frustrated scientist cling even more firmly to only what the logic of science could tell him?

Being with Himself as she walked through the courtyard was a different experience. She saw how his people nodded respectfully to him, how the men training with their swords seemed to show off their parries and thrusts.

But she was still thinking about Owen and how he’d changed. She remembered him in her childhood dreams. Had that been fate’s way of allowing her to know him from the beginning? She’d been granted rare insight to the stubborn boy with a passion for learning, who also adored the outdoors and his Highlands.

He was still stubborn, but he had the power of a chiefdom, an earldom, behind him now. He could try to force her to wed, and though she would resist, she had to be prepared to fight him with the truth. She had to determine how the dream ended. She could not take lightly that she’d been connected to him her entire life—perhaps it had all been so that she could save him, fool that he was.

C
HAPTER
4

O
wen knew the moment his bodyguard fell into step behind him in the courtyard. As the daughter of a chief, Maggie probably took it for granted, because she only bid Owen a good afternoon, then headed for the towerhouse. Owen stood still a moment, watching her walk away. The sway of her hips was an age-old siren song to a man, especially to a man who knew he would be married to her.

But not if she had her way.

He gave a frustrated sigh. What the hell was she thinking? He knew as well as she did that their sort of marriage was not one of love. He’d once thought her a practical girl and had hoped she didn’t expect unreasonable and blind devotion from a husband. When he’d offered for her, he’d been remembering the laughing girl who’d explored Edinburgh at his side, who could carry on an intelligent conversation, who’d lain with him in the grass and kissed him with an innocent
passion. Even her recent guardedness and suspicion were understandable. He knew women wanted romance and undying love, something seldom found when marrying to beget heirs for titles or unite warring clans.

But her reaction was beyond the pale. Refusing to marry him? Pretending some sort of nightmare was a portent of the future? Had she not matured in ten years? It didn’t bode well for the peacefulness of their marriage.

Or was it as he’d accused her, part of a plot concocted with her brother to get Owen to break the contract, so they’d have their whisky land back? Once he wouldn’t have believed it of her, but their friendship had been too brief for him to assume he knew her.

But if she was the sort to punish him for forcing her into marriage, she could have told his sister the details of how he’d let himself kiss her when he’d been betrothed, honor-bound, to another woman. But Maggie hadn’t. She’d kept their arguments between them. He could respect her for that, at least.

He’d keep this argument between them as well, while he figured out what she was up to. Because although he could believe her fickle, or afraid, or part of a conspiracy, he could not believe her daft.

Behind him, Fergus, his bodyguard, cleared his throat, and Owen realized he was standing stock-still in the courtyard, watching the door through which Maggie had already disappeared. Owen started walking.

Fergus importantly swept past him, eyeing everyone with narrowed eyes and a lowered brow, as if he’d never seen the members of his own clan before. Owen had seen more than one man snicker behind Fergus’s overly serious back. Owen could only hope that Fergus struck fear into other clans, because he struck no fear in his own, at least with his behavior. He’d been assigned his duties by the war chief—Owen’s father’s war chief. Owen wasn’t ready to start countermanding orders just because he’d recently inherited the chiefdom.

Fergus followed him up through the castle to the chief’s solar, where his father had kept to himself often. Fergus took up his station outside the door, his back to the ancient stone walls, and faced the wall opposite as if he could stare there all day.

Standing in the doorway, Owen eyed Fergus. “You know you don’t have to spend your afternoon here.”

“’Tis my place, my lord, and proud I am to be manning it.”

“And grateful am I, of course, but when you need to rest, you have my permission to leave.”

Fergus just stood at attention, hand on his pistol just in case he had to draw it quickly and use it on whoever came up the circular stairs.

Shaking his head, Owen entered the solar. Fergus pulled the door shut for him, regardless of what Owen wanted. But he was beginning to understand the need to have a place to be alone. He’d spent part of each year in London, while his father served in the House
of Lords. He’d found being a bachelor viscount in the city satisfying enough. He could attend the occasional dinner or musicale when he wished the companionship of young ladies, but during the day, he was more often than not to be found at the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge—a long-winded title for scientific fellows who gave lectures or witnessed experiments. He liked his time to think, or to write his thoughts about the topics explored. Constant closeness with all his clansmen always took some time to get used to.

It took a moment before he realized that he wasn’t alone. Seated in a chair beside the empty hearth was his uncle Harold. Unlike Owen’s father and another uncle, this brother was the one who’d stayed behind to oversee the clan holdings. True, he had factors and tacksmen to deal with the land and the rents, but Harold was the de facto chief, on guard against McCallum or Campbell incursions. He was the man the clan had looked to for guidance and protection, not the late earl. Gruff and deliberate, Harold spoke only when he had something to say.

Owen felt his uncle watching him, evaluating him, waiting to see the kind of chief he’d be. And since he’d barely cracked a smile in Owen’s direction, he guessed his uncle wasn’t all that impressed yet. Owen wasn’t about to tell him that he’d arranged his own marriage to a woman desperate to get out of it.

“Uncle Harold,” Owen said, nodding a greeting as
he moved past and went to his desk. “Did I forget an appointment?” he asked.

Harold harrumphed. “Ye ken ye didn’t, lad.”

“Lad” made Owen feel like he was ten again, when his uncle had caught him using a magnifying glass to start a dry leaf on fire, and his protest that he was only studying the lens hadn’t mattered.

“I’ve received word from the foreman of your coal mine near Stirling. He said ye’ve been exchanging letters about a fancy mechanical thing?”

“A Newcomen engine,” Owen said with satisfaction.

“The foreman seems a mite suspicious.”

“The engine is a new way to remove water from a wet mine, Uncle. When it arrives, we’ll all have a demonstration of the power of steam. The machine calls for water heated in a cylinder to produce steam and . . .” Owen trailed off when he noticed his uncle’s bushy brows lower with disinterest and impatience. “Thank you for the message. I’ll answer the foreman. Is there something else you wish?”

Harold eyed him skeptically. “Is there anything else ye need to tell me about taking the McCallum girl to wife? I ken ye used to battle with your father over the right to choose your own bride, so I never expected this.”

“Neither did I,” Owen said dryly. “I never wanted to be forced to marry, and I was not. It was my choice to honor the contract between our families.”

“But will ye be happy?” Harold asked softly.

Owen stared at him for a long moment, then admitted
with a trace of bitterness, “My happiness doesn’t matter, Uncle. I cannot allow innocent people to suffer when it was my father who proved so dishonorable where this marriage contract was concerned.” He forced down his anger. “At least she is not a stranger.” He deliberately opened an account book and looked at a column of numbers without really seeing them. His uncle was too good at reading the eyes of men.

“And that is all ye hoped for in a bride, that ye’d met her?” Harold asked shrewdly.

Owen didn’t answer.

“And is that same requirement enough for her?”

“What does it matter?” Owen asked bitterly.

Harold sighed. “Sorry I am that your father forced ye into this. He was always more concerned for himself than anyone else, even his children.”

Sympathy was not something Owen needed. “Is there anything else, Uncle?”

Harold let out a breath. “When will ye be returning to London?”

Owen leaned back in the leather upholstered chair and regarded his war chief. “Not until January at the earliest, whenever Parliament is in session. Why?”

“Ye’ll be here that long?”

“I said I would,” Owen answered dryly. “I can understand why you might not believe me, since my father preferred England to Scotland. Much as I see the appeal of the country to our south, I prefer the Highlands and will remain here as much as I can.”

Harold gave another harrumph as he slapped his hands to his thighs and pushed to his feet. His plaid swung from his shoulder, where it was gathered with a brooch. But instead of leaving, he went to the wall of bookshelves that Owen had had built. The library alone hadn’t been large enough to house everything, so Owen kept his favorites in the solar. It made him content to know he was never without a book he might need to refer to.

“These are strange titles,” Harold said. “
Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.
Why would this be of any help to a clan chief?”

Owen remained seated at his desk, a ledger open before him. “They’ll help keep this clan chief sane. I cannot always be dealing with business, Uncle.”

“All the estates in both England and Scotland must surely take up your time.”

“Aye, they do. But I have many men to help with them, including you and my tanist.”

His tanist—his heir if he did not have a son—who’d been elected to the position after Owen’s father died, had his own estate and was away tending it.

“And since you’re right that the estates take up much of my time,” Owen continued, “allow me to return to the correspondence dealing with them.”

Harold nodded and walked toward the door, his gait altered by a strange hitch from an old wound. Not that it inconvenienced him in any way in battle. Owen
had practiced with a sword against the old man, and probably only now
might
be able to defeat him.

When Harold had gone, Fergus leaned in. “Expecting any more visitors I should look out for, my lord?”

“Nay, Fergus.”

Only when the door closed did Owen put his head back, close his eyes, and try to find his equilibrium again. He’d been telling himself it would take everyone time to adjust to a new chief, but Maggie had complicated everything.

M
AGGIE
spent several hours alone in her bedroom, writing another letter, this time to her mother. Each letter was harder than the last, for she had to concentrate to keep certain things hidden. Her family knew she used to have dreams that revealed the future, but she wasn’t about to reveal she’d had another after all these years—and one that affected the future of so many people, Owen most of all.

Not that he believed her, she thought bitterly—and not that she was surprised, after everything that had happened between them. He thought so little of her that he accused her of being dishonorable enough to avoid the marriage on a whim. Or that it was a plot concocted with her brother.

She gritted her teeth and held back a curse. For two weeks long ago, she’d told him everything, revealed parts of herself she’d never shown another
outside her family—and he thought her capable of such dishonor.

And they were supposed to have a decent marriage after that?

But she forced herself to write to her mother about the castle, the people, anything but the truth.

Before supper, Kathleen arrived to help her prepare for the meal, and she glowed with exuberance as she showed Maggie the selection of gowns she’d pressed for her to choose from. It was a momentary relief to be distracted from her worries.