The Striker (22 page)

“After five months, I think it's safe to say your husband has found more important things to keep him busy.”

The words were cruel and hurtful—especially because they were true—but something in Fin's voice told her that she wasn't the only one feeling the sting. Fin, too, was in the dark about Eoin's activities, and on that one point maybe they could commiserate.

Five months. How could Eoin have left her for five months with barely a word? The two short notes she'd received from him, which the nuns had been kind enough to read to her, had offered no explanation or excuse, only vague words of regret for how “soon they'd had to part,” and even more vague promises that he would return to her “as soon as he could.” Until then he hoped she would “make an effort” to “fit in” around Gylen with his mother's help.

Obviously Lady Rignach had been voicing her complaints.

Maybe if Margaret could have done so on her own, she would have responded. Maybe she would have poured out her misery, her anger, and her broken heart in dark blotches of ink all over that wretched piece of parchment.

But she would not ask the nuns to write about how much she hated it here. How she would never “fit in.” How everyone treated her like a pariah so she had to escape to Oban to find someone to help her. How she had hoped to keep busy as she had at Garthland by helping with the household, but how his mother had made it very clear that her help was not needed or wanted.

Margaret still felt a pang at that disappointment. She might not know how to read or write, or how to dress or act like a noblewoman, but she knew how to run a castle, and she'd wanted him to see that. To know that he hadn't married an unaccomplished, backward barbarian, but a wife of whom he could be proud.

She'd tell him how she'd never felt so useless in her life. How the only thing that made his mother and Marjory's disdain about her “uncouth” upbringing and the endless comparisons to the saintly Lady Barbara bearable was Tilda. His youngest sister was the only person on the isle who didn't think he'd made a mistake—including her.

And that's what she would tell him last. How she feared she'd made a mistake. How all the happiness and love she'd felt for him in that cottage seemed very far away. How she looked around and wondered how she'd come to be here and how she could escape. How desperately she missed her home and being around people who actually
liked
her and weren't ashamed of her. How she didn't want to be a mistake anymore.

To say anything else to him would have been a lie.

So as the nuns patiently worked with her on her lettering, every so often asking if she wanted to try to respond to her husband's missive, Margaret declined. The rudimentary reading and writing skills she'd painstakingly acquired in the past few months—she wouldn't embarrass him with her lack of education—were no match for the maelstrom of emotion waiting to be unleashed when—if—he ever returned.

“Maybe you're right,” she said to Fin. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to change before the evening meal.”

God knows, Lady Rignach would not approve of her simple wool kirtle. But Margaret hadn't wanted to risk paint getting on one of her new gowns.

She shouldn't have been surprised when the day after Eoin left his mother had the dressmaker from Oban measuring her for new chemises, cottes, surcoats, cloaks—and veils, lots of them. Lady Rignach must have given instructions to Eoin's father as well, because when the MacLean chief arrived at Gylen Castle with Eoin's two brothers a few weeks after Eoin had left, his father was laden down with even finer cloth, fur trims, and embroidery from Edinburgh.

Fin let her pass with only a mocking bow but followed closely after her. At first she attributed the strange buzz that ran down her neck as they entered the bailey to him. But it was a different kind of awareness. One that she hadn't experienced in so long, she'd forgotten it.

She noticed a crowd of people standing near the gate. That was when Tilda saw her. The girl was the only bright spot in these past months. She was sweet and kind and didn't care that Margaret was a “wild” MacDowell.

“Oh, Maggie, there you are. I was looking for you everywhere, look who's . . .”

Margaret didn't hear the rest of her words, for at that moment a man stepped out of the crowd, and she froze.

He was dusty, grimy, more grizzled than she'd ever seen him, with a jaw thick with whiskers and hair down to his shoulders, and he seemed to have put on a good stone of muscle, but when those intense blue eyes riveted on hers, she knew him in an instant.

All the emotion, all the pain, all the misery of the past five months caught up with her in one lost heartbeat. Her chest squeezed. Her throat tightened. Her eyes swelled with heat. She made a sound that was a cry of half-pain, half-relief, and ran.

The next moment she was in his arms. Eoin was holding her, burying his face in her veil, murmuring soothing words against her ear, and then his mouth was on hers.

Eoin would never forget the fear and uncertainty of the moment when his wife had first seen him and seemed to turn to stone. Nor would he forget the relief and happiness he'd felt when she launched herself into his arms an agonizing few moments later.

He wished he could forget what came next. How he'd started kissing her right there in the courtyard—heedless of the crowd around them, which included his mother and sisters, damn it!—and then, as if that wasn't bad enough, how he'd lifted her up and carried her to their bedchamber in the middle of the damned day.

No one in that bailey had seen what had come next, but he was sure every one of them had guessed. He'd barely taken time to remove his weapons and armor before he'd followed her down on the bed and made love to her with five months of built-up passion.

It hadn't been pretty. It had been hurried and frenzied and over far too quickly—although he had made sure she found her pleasure first. But it had been every bit as powerful as he remembered.

And maybe it had been just what they'd needed. A moment of physical connection before the questions and recriminations that his return would inevitably bring started to fly.

She'd collapsed in a heap on his chest and had remained quiet since. Her cheek rested against his shirt, but her face was turned away from him, and all he could see were the silky plaits of long red hair coiled neatly at the top of her head. She'd been wearing a veil when he'd first seen her, and it had taken him a moment to recognize her without the wild waves of vivid red that had tumbled over her shoulders like a silken cloud.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She didn't answer for a long time. Finally, she lifted off his chest and out of his embrace to a sitting position where she could look down at him. Too late he remembered the words of their last conversation.

“No, Eoin, I'm not ‘all right.' I haven't been all right since the day you left.” Her golden eyes held his steadily. He'd forgotten the sensual tilt and catlike brilliance. How just the feel of those eyes on him could make his skin heat and blood race through his veins. “But if you are referring to the pleasure you just gave my body, then yes, I think I shall recover.”

There wasn't one note of teasing in her voice, one wicked twinkle in her eye, or one naughty curve of her beautiful red mouth.

He hadn't expected to be greeted by the smiling, lighthearted, mischievous girl who'd stormed into the Great Hall of Stirling Castle—and into his life—five months ago, taking it over like a marauding pirate. But neither had he expected this serious, subdued young woman.

What had he done to her?

“I'm not sure I will,” he said wryly. He took her hand, amazed at how soft and delicate it looked in his, and brought it to his mouth. “It's been too long.”

“Has it?”

He frowned. “What's that supposed to mean?”

She shrugged, looking away. “I don't know. Something felt different.”

Eoin swore inwardly, glad she couldn't see the guilt on his face. He hadn't even realized what he was doing until he pulled out at the last second. He couldn't believe he'd actually had the presence of mind to do so. But he knew it was the right thing. As much as he would like to leave her with his child, he knew it wouldn't be fair to her, knowing he might not survive to see it born.

But he knew that wasn't what she was alluding to. He reached up to cup her chin and turn her face to his. “I haven't looked at another woman since the day I met you, Maggie. There is, and has been, only you.”

She held his gaze and must have been satisfied by what she saw there because she switched the subject. “You look different.”

Unconsciously, he rubbed his jaw which hadn't seen a razor in weeks. He knew he looked like hell—he'd been through it to get to her. “I didn't exactly have time to wash up after I saw you.”

The girl he'd first met wouldn't have been able to resist teasing him about his eagerness and uncharacteristic public display, but she ignored it. “How did you arrive? I didn't see a boat down by the dock.”

He hadn't wanted to draw that much attention to his presence. The ship and men who'd sailed with him were waiting in an inlet on the west side of Kerrera. MacLeod had come through for him, all right: he'd arranged to have the best seafarer in Scotland bring Eoin home. Without MacSorley's skills, Eoin would probably be dead—either from the English who'd chased them halfway around Ireland or from the storm that at first almost capsized them, and then forced them to take shelter on a small island for nearly two days until it passed.

The few days that he'd hoped for had been whittled down to less than twenty-four hours. How was he going to make her understand in under a day?

“I came in on the other side of the isle.” Hoping to cut off more questions, he asked, “Is that where you were? Down at the dock? My mother said you go to Oban a few times a week to help the nuns at the convent?”

She stared at him as if trying to gauge whether there was something behind the question. There wasn't—except maybe curiosity.

“If you want to know what I've been doing for five months, Eoin—
five months
—just ask me. Because that is exactly what I want to know from you.”

Eoin swore. Damn Bruce to hell for making him agree to that vow!

He would tell her what he could. She would learn part of the truth soon enough, when news of the coronation spread. “I will do my best to answer your questions, and I know we have much to talk about, but let me bathe and eat something first.”

He also knew that his father, brothers, and Fin would be anxious for a report. When the call to battle came from Bruce, they would answer.

He could tell she wanted to argue, but she took pity on him. He must look more beaten up by the past few days than he realized. “Now that you are home, I suppose there is time. But I will expect answers.”

He didn't know what he was looking forward to less: telling her he was leaving again or telling her why.

I
T WAS SO
romantic—although I thought my mother was going to faint right there, she turned so red.” Tilda giggled beside her on the bench. Margaret knew she belonged in the middle of the
hie burde
next to her husband, but she'd taken her usual seat below the high table beside Tilda instead. She thought it would be easier to sit next to someone she could talk to rather than someone she couldn't. His mother and father were only too happy to accept her offer to have their son to themselves, without their regrettable daughter-in-law in the way.

But for once Margaret wasn't in the mood for Tilda's cheerful chatter. She was too anxious about the coming conversation, and her husband's attempt to explain the inexplicable. She needed answers. But more important, she needed him to prove to her that she hadn't made the biggest mistake in her life.

She glanced down the table, and was glad to see that after the bath, shave, and meal, the dark circles under his eyes and the lines of weariness etched on his face had faded. But there was still something different about him—other than the added bulk and what looked to be one or two new scars on his face. He looked harder somehow. Fiercer. Darker. Even more intense than she remembered. Different from the man she'd married.