Wild Wicked Scot

1706

BATTERED AND BRUISED, tossed about the inside of a chaise for days upon days now, making an arduous journey north, Margot was utterly exhausted. But at last they had arrived at the place she was to call home.

She could not have been more despondent.

Balhaire was a dark, bleak castle that rose up out of the ground and was shrouded in mist, just like the hills around it. It was a tremendous structure erected in some long-ago time, anchored by two towers and surrounded by a castle wall. Outside the wall there was a small village of humble thatch-roofed cottages with smoke curling up from the chimneys to a leaden sky.

As the chaise slowed, Margot could hear dogs barking, children shouting. She heard the driver cursing a cow that would not move from the road. The coach slowed to a stop, then jerked forward again.

She moved across to see out the other coach window and saw people coming out of their cottages, lining the road, calling up to Mackenzie, who rode somewhere in front of the chaise. She heard his response, too—one word or two, all in a language she did not know.

Margot shrank back from the window. This place frightened her.

She was still in shock that she was here at all. She’d never once thought it was even remotely possible that she would be forced into a marriage against her will, but that was precisely what had happened to her. She’d begged her father, pleaded with him, but he’d been doggedly determined. He’d been adamant that this marriage was her duty to her family and to England, and that the union between her and Mackenzie would safeguard the Armstrong fortune for generations to come. “You’re the only daughter I have, Margot,” he’d said. “You have a duty to do as I deem best, and you will obey me in this.”

Margot had fought back, but her father had threatened her. He swore he would never provide a dowry for any other suitor. He wouldn’t allow her to see Lynetta, knowing full well that the two girls would conspire. She would have no society; she would be locked away at Norwood Park and turned into a spinster with no hope of happiness.

At only seventeen years old, Margot hadn’t known what to do or how to escape her father’s tyranny. In the end, her father had bartered against her confusion and uncertainty and fear and had worn her down.

A fortnight before her eighteenth birthday, Mackenzie was granted a barony. That night, he arrived at Norwood Park to dine with Margot and her family. She scarcely looked at him. At least he wore proper clothes and had shaved his dreadful beard. But when he attempted to make conversation, she responded as blandly as she could in a desperate hope he would find her tedious and vapid and would want to cry off.

Apparently he was quite at ease with the picture she presented. Two days after her eighteenth birthday, Margot took her marriage vows in the Norwood Park chapel before her father and two brothers. Mackenzie had a giant of a man stand up with him.

On her wedding night, her new husband had bedded her quickly, as if the task displeased him, and then had disappeared. Two days later, they departed for Scotland. On the first day of the journey, Margot cried until she made herself ill. When there were no more tears to cry, she felt numb. Her husband asked her more than once if there was anything he could do to help ease her, and she shook her head and looked away from him.

By the time they reached the Highlands of Scotland, having traveled for days without seeing any sort of civilization, Margot was afraid.

Now the chaise rolled through the village where people lined the roads, trying to get a glimpse of her before the chaise disappeared behind the thick walls that surrounded the enormous castle.

The castle was even more imposing up close. Margot had to crane her neck to see the tops of the towers as the conveyance slowed and rolled to a stop. She sat up, her fingers curling tightly around the edges of the cushions on the bench.

The door suddenly swung open. Someone put a step there. Margot quickly tried to repair her hair—she must have looked a fright, especially since she’d had to come all this way without her ladies’ maid. Nell Grady was traveling behind with Margot’s many trunks.

The dark head of her husband appeared in the door. “Come,” he said simply, and held out his gloved hand to her.

It was only her desire to be out of that miserable coach that propelled Margot to step out of the chaise. She faltered only slightly, her legs feeling quite stiff after such a long journey. But she managed to right herself and paused to look around her.

“Welcome to Balhaire,” Mackenzie said.

Welcome to this? Margot was so overwhelmed by the sight of the bailey, she couldn’t speak. It was teeming with animals and people. Chickens hurried out of the way of horses, and dogs sniffed around the boots of the men who had come down from their mounts. She scarcely had time to take it all in before the main doors opened and a woman swept out with a shout. She was tall and slender and had a long braid of dark red hair. The woman didn’t look at Margot—she was speaking in the language of the Highlands to Mackenzie.

Whatever he said in return caused the woman to jerk a disdainful gaze to Margot.

“Miss Griselda Mackenzie. My cousin,” Arran said, sighing.

Margot curtsied. Griselda’s brows rose to almost the top of her head, and she folded her arms across her chest, her long fingers drumming on her arm as she studied Margot. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Margot said.

The woman pressed her lips together.

“I hope we might be friends,” Margot added as an afterthought.

It was clearly the wrong thing to say; the woman said something quickly and quite vehemently to Mackenzie, then twirled about and went inside.

Margot blinked at her departing back. “I don’t... Did she understand me? Does she speak English?”

“Aye,” Mackenzie said, his countenance stormy. “She speaks English quite well.”

That was the moment Margot was certain her situation could not possibly get any worse.

But then Mackenzie led her inside that looming castle.

It was dark and close, the corridors lit by candles stuck in old wall sconces. It smelled musty, as if it had never been aired. Moreover, Margot heard a moaning sound that made her blood run cold. It sounded as if someone was dying—until she realized it was the wind whistling down the ancient flues, creating drafts at every doorway.

She wearily followed Arran about those winding, dark corridors for what seemed several minutes before they emerged into what he proudly announced was the old great hall. There were several people milling about, making merry, all of them dressed in what looked like various layers of wool clothing, not a hint of silk or satin among them. None of them had donned wigs or dressed their hair. Worse, there were dogs. Not the small parlor dogs that Margot was accustomed to seeing in a house, the sort that might nestle in a lady’s lap—but big dogs. Big hunting dogs that wandered around the great hall as if they were quite at home here. Two of them even ventured forward to sniff at her clothing as Arran led her toward a raised platform on which sat a long wooden table.

He made his way to a pair of upholstered seats in the very middle of the table, facing the hall. He sat.

Margot stood uncertainly, wondering if a butler or footman would seat her. Arran glanced up at her, then looked meaningfully at the seat beside him.

She sat.

“Are you hungry?” he asked when she had seated herself on the very edge of the chair covered in a dingy fabric.

“A little.”

He lifted his hand, signaled to someone—there were so many people milling about, it was impossible to know—and a boy soon appeared and set two tankards of ale before them, his eyes as big as moons when he looked at Margot. She pitied him—he’d probably never seen a woman with hair properly powdered. And she, in turn, was staring wide-eyed at the tankard he’d set before her. “Will we not have wine?” she asked of no one in particular.

“Ale,” Arran said, and lifted his tankard and drank thirstily, as if he was sitting in a tavern with a group of men instead of at a table with his wife. She stared at him, appalled by his manners and the fact that she would be expected to drink like a sailor, but was interrupted by a woman who approached the table. She had graying hair and a swath of plaid that she wore draped over one shoulder. She held the end of it bunched in her hands.

“You’re the new Lady Mackenzie, aye?” she asked, and held up the bunched end of the plaid. “Fàilte!” She opened the plaid. Nestled in it was a small chick.

Margot didn’t understand if the woman meant to give her the chick or if she was simply mad—but she shrank back against her chair in horrified surprise. Arran said something to the woman, flicking his wrist at her, and the woman frowned, covered the chick and moved away.

“Who are these people?” Margot asked testily as a couple approached the dais and Arran waved them away, as well.

“My clan,” Arran said. The boy appeared again. He was carrying a bowl in each hand, and tucked under his arm were two spoons. The boy, who was not wearing gloves, placed the bowls before them, and then the spoons.

“They are your clan now, aye?” Arran said. He picked up his spoon and began to eat.

“Pardon?”

He paused to look at her. “These people are your clan now, Lady Mackenzie.”

She hadn’t really thought of it like that before now. She looked out at the people milling about, laughing and talking with each other, casting curious looks at her. She looked at the thick soup before her, the spoon the boy had carried tucked up against his side under his arm.

“Do you no’ care for the soup?” Arran asked.

The soup? She didn’t care for this place, these people! “I’m not hungry after all.” She folded her hands tightly in her lap. “I should like a bath now.”