Wicked intrigue unfolds as an unlikely marriage leads to a path of risky desire in the lush, green Scottish Highlands

Born into riches and groomed in English luxury, Margot Armstrong didn’t belong in a Scottish chieftain’s devil-may-care world. Three years ago she fled their marriage of convenience and hasn’t looked back—except to relive the moments spent in wild, rugged Arran McKenzie’s passionate embrace. But as their respective countries’ fragile unity threatens to unravel, Margot must return to her husband to uncover his role in the treachery before her family can be accused of it.

Red-haired, green-eyed Margot was Arran’s beautiful bride. Her loss has haunted him, but her return threatens everything he has gained. As the Highland mists carry whispers of an English plot to seize McKenzie territory, he must outmaneuver her in games of espionage...and seduction. But even as their secrets tangle together, there’s nothing to prevent love from capturing them both and leading them straight into danger.

Praise for New York Times bestselling author Julia London

“London’s new Highland Grooms series will be well worth following if this first novel is any indication.... An absorbing read from a novelist at the top of her game.”

—Kirkus Reviews on Wild Wicked Scot (starred review)

“Expert storytelling and believable characters make the romance between Arran and Margot come alive in this compelling novel packed with characters whom readers will be sad to leave behind.”

—Publishers Weekly on Wild Wicked Scot (starred review)

“London’s well-honed storytelling skills carry the day.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Scoundrel and the Debutante

“London’s engaging series is recommended for all romance collections.”

—Library Journal on The Scoundrel and the Debutante

“London’s writing bubbles with high emotion as she describes sexual enthusiasm, personal grief and familial warmth. Her blend of playful humor and sincerity imbues her heroines with incredible appeal, and readers will delight as their unconventional tactics create rambling paths to happiness.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Devil Takes a Bride

“This tale of scandal and passion is perfect for readers who like to see bad girls win.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Trouble with Honor

Wild Wicked Scot

Julia London

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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For Karen, Rachelle and Teri, who accompanied meon that amazing writing retreat in Scotland.

See? I told you I was working.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

EPILOGUE

Copyright

PROLOGUE

Norwood Park, England

1706

WHEN MISS LYNETTA BEAULY challenged Miss Margot Armstrong to name what she liked most about the young gentlemen who buzzed about them as bees to honey—taking for granted, of course, a fortune and suitable connections—Miss Armstrong could not name a single thing with any confidence.

Because she liked everything about them. She liked the tall ones, the short ones, the broad ones, the slender ones. She liked them in powdered wigs and with their hair in natural queues. She liked them on horseback and in carriages and strolling about the massive gardens at Norwood Park, where she happened to reside with her father and two brothers. She liked the way they looked at her and smiled at her, and how they laughed with their heads tilted back at all the amusing things she said. Which, apparently, she did with some frequency, as one or five of them seemed always to laugh and say, “How clever you are, Miss Armstrong!”

Margot liked young gentlemen so much that, on the occasion of Lynetta’s sixteenth birthday, she convinced her father to allow her to host a ball in her dear friend’s honor at Norwood Park.

“Lynetta Beauly?” her father had asked with a sigh of tedium, his gaze on a letter bearing news from London. “She is not yet out.”

“But she will be presented this Season,” Margot had hopefully reminded him.

“Why do her parents not provide her with a gathering?” her father had asked as he stuck the point of an ink quill beneath his wig to scratch an itch.

“Pappa, you know they haven’t the means.”

“You haven’t the means, either, Margot. I am the only person at Norwood Park who has the means to provide this young woman, for whom I have no particular regard, with a ball.” He’d shaken his head at the absurdity of it. “Why are you so keen for it?”

Margot had, apparently, blushed. Lynetta said that was one of her true faults—it was impossible to hide what Margot was thinking because her fair skin changed from cream to pink to red with only the slightest provocation.

“I see,” her father had said sagely, and had leaned back in his chair, resting his hands on his belly. “Some young gentleman has caught your eye. Is that it?”

Well...she would not belabor the point, but all of them had caught her eye. She’d fussed with a curl at her collarbone. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,” she’d muttered as she’d studied the pattern of brocade on a chair in her father’s study. “No one in particular, really.”

Her father had smirked. “Very well. Amuse yourself. Give this ball,” he’d said, and had waved her away.

* * *

A FEW WEEKS LATER, everyone within a fifty-mile radius of Norwood Park descended on the area, as it was well known in northern England that a Norwood Park ball was unparalleled in luxury and company with the exception of London’s Mayfair district.

Beneath five gilded wood and crystal chandeliers blazing with the light of dozens of beeswax candles, young ladies dressed in a dizzying array of colors spun around the ballroom floor to the lively tunes provided by the six musicians brought up from London. Their hair, masterpieces of wire and netting, was piled high and artfully in gravity-defying styles. Their dance partners, all handsome young men of privilege, were dressed in brocades and silks, their coats and waistcoats intricately embroidered. Their wigs were freshly powdered, and their shoes shined to such a sheen that they reflected the candlelight from above.

They drank embargoed French champagne, dined on caviar and slipped in behind potted ferns to steal a kiss.

Margot had donned a gown made especially for the occasion—a pale green silk mantua that Lynetta said complemented her green eyes and auburn hair. To her tower of hair, she’d added little songbirds carefully crafted from paper. She wore her late mother’s glittering diamond-and-pearl necklace at her throat.

Margot had commissioned a cake in honor of Lynetta’s birthday, a three-foot-tall edible structure that resembled Norwood Park, placed in the middle of the dining room to be admired by all. The iced parapets were topped with dancing marzipan figures. In one corner were the tiny figures of two girls, one with auburn hair, one with blond hair, that were meant to be Margot and Lynetta.

There were so many people in attendance that there was scarcely room for everyone to dance at once. Margot in particular had done very little dancing that night. Nevertheless, she’d kept her eye on Mr. William Fitzgerald in hopes that she might change her luck.

Oh, but Mr. Fitzgerald was quite dashing in his silver brocade and curled wig. Margot had admired him from afar for a full fortnight now and had rather thought, given his attentions to her, that the interest was mutual. But tonight, he’d stood up with every unmarried woman except her.

“You mustn’t take it to heart,” Lynetta had advised, her face still flushed from the exertion of having danced three sets. “It’s clearly one of two reasons—either he is saving the best dance of the night for you, or he can’t bear to ask because you’re such a terrible dancer.”

Margot gave her friend a withering look. “Thank you, Lynetta, for I cannot be reminded often enough of my wretched dancing.” According to Lynetta, that was Margot’s second most obvious fault—she had no natural tendency toward rhythm.

“Well?” Lynetta said with a shrug. “I mean only to offer an explanation for why he’s not shown you any true regard this evening.”

“Please, darling, you mustn’t exert yourself to help me understand his utter lack of interest in me.”

“Better it’s because of your dancing than something perhaps even worse,” Lynetta cheerfully pointed out.

“And what might that be?” Margot demanded, slightly affronted.

“I mean only that I’d rather be faulted for my dancing than for my inability to make engaging conversation,” Lynetta said sweetly. “You have always made engaging conversation.”

Margot was set to discuss that, but at that very moment, a wave of awareness rippled through the crowd. Both Margot and Lynetta glanced around them. Margot saw nothing obvious. “What is it?”

“I can’t see a thing,” Lynetta said as she and Margot craned their necks in the direction of the door.

“Someone’s come,” said a gentleman nearby. “Someone unexpected, from what I gather.”

Margot and Lynetta gasped at precisely the same moment, their eyes widening as they gaped at one another. There was only one person of import who was not in attendance tonight—the highly desirable Montclare, who had sent his deepest regrets that he could not attend, as he had been called away to London. Lord Montclare had all the requisite attributes that made him a desirable match: he had a fortune of ten thousand pounds a year; he would one day assume the title of Viscount Waverly; he had thick-lashed doe eyes and a winsome smile; and he was utterly without conceit. Rumor had it that Montclare had set his sights on a London heiress...but that did not keep Margot and Lynetta from hoping.

The girls, quite in tune with one another’s thinking, fled the ballroom for the balcony above the foyer to have a look at the unexpected guest, arriving so hastily that their gloves slid on the polished stone railing as they leaned over it.

It was not Montclare. “Oh, bother,” Lynetta muttered.

It was not even one of the many men who often came up to Norwood Park from London to conduct business with Margot’s father and brothers. Frankly, the men who had walked through the front doors and onto the marble tile of the foyer were unlike any men Margot had ever seen.

“Goodness,” Lynetta murmured beside her.

Goodness, indeed. There were five altogether, all of them tall and broad-shouldered and quite muscular, their natural hair tied in long queues. Except for the man in front of them all—his dark hair was a wild tangle of curls around his head, as if he hadn’t bothered at all to dress it. Their coats, splattered with mud, were long and split up the back for riding. Their breeches and waistcoats were not silk or brocade, but rough wool. They wore boots that were scuffed and worn at the heels.

“Who are they?” Lynetta whispered. “Are they Gypsies?”

“Highwaymen,” Margot murmured, and Lynetta giggled a bit too loudly.

At the sound of Lynetta’s laugh, the man in front instantly lifted his head, almost like a beast sniffing the wind. His eyes locked on Margot. Her breath caught; even from this distance she could see that his gaze was ice blue and piercing. He held her gaze as he methodically removed his riding gloves. She thought she ought to look away, but she couldn’t. A shiver slipped down her spine; she had the terrible thought that those eyes could see right into her soul.

Someone spoke, and the five men began to move forward. But just before the man in front disappeared under the balcony and from view completely, he looked up at Margot once more, his gaze frighteningly intelligent and potent.

Another shiver ran down her spine.

Once they were gone, Margot and Lynetta returned to the ballroom, jointly disappointed that the arrival of strangers had not brought Montclare into their midst, and quickly fixed their attentions elsewhere.

Lynetta danced, while Margot stood about, trying not to appear anxious. Was her dancing really as horrible as that? Apparently so—no one had asked her to stand up.

After what seemed like hours of waiting about, a bell was rung and the cake was served. A footman handed Margot a flute of champagne. She liked how it tickled her nose and sipped liberally as she and Lynetta stood together, waiting for Quint, the Norwood Park butler, to bring them a piece of the cake.

“Oh my!” Lynetta whispered frantically, nudging Margot with her shoulder.

“What?”

“It’s Fitzgerald.”

“Where?” Margot whispered just as frantically and dabbed at her upper lip to blot away any champagne.

“He’s coming this way!”

“Is he looking at me? Is it me he approaches?” Margot begged, but before Lynetta could answer, Mr. Fitzgerald had reached her side.

“Miss Armstrong,” he said, and bowed over his extended leg, his arm swirling out to the side. She’d noted lately that several young men just up from London bowed in that fashion. “Miss Beauly, may I offer felicitations on the occasion of your birthday?”

“Thank you,” Lynetta said. “Umm... I do beg your pardon, but I mean to, ah... I think I shall have some cake.” She awkwardly stepped away, leaving Margot and Fitzgerald standing together.

“Ah...” Good God, Margot’s heart was fluttering. “How do you find the ball?”

“Magnificent,” he said. “You are to be commended.”

“Not at all.” She could feel an absurd grin forming at the compliment. “Lynetta has helped me, of course.”

“Of course.” Mr. Fitzgerald shifted to stand beside her, and through the tight sleeve of her gown, Margot could feel her skin sizzling where his arm brushed hers. “Miss Armstrong, would you do me the honor of standing up with me for the next dance?”

Margot ignored the swell of panic that she might very well break one of his toes. “I would be delighted—”

“Miss Armstrong.”

“Pardon? What?” she asked dreamily as someone touched her elbow.

Mr. Fitzgerald smiled. “Your butler,” he said, nodding at someone over her shoulder.

Margot forced her gaze away from Mr. Fitzgerald and around to Quint. “Yes?” she asked impatiently.

“Your father asks that you join him in the family dining room.”

Margot blinked. Of all the rotten timing! “Now?” she asked, endeavoring to sound angelic but hissing a bit.

“Shall I hold your champagne until you return?” Mr. Fitzgerald asked.

Margot hoped she didn’t look as ridiculously pleased as she felt. But still, she didn’t trust any number of the young women who were presently circulating about them like sharks. “Umm...” She looked pleadingly at Quint. “Perhaps Pappa might wait?”

But as usual, Quint returned her look impassively. “He asks that you attend him at once.”

“Do go on,” said Mr. Fitzgerald with a warm smile. “We shall have that dance when you return.” He took the flute from her hand and politely bowed his head.

“You are too kind, Mr. Fitzgerald. I shan’t be but a moment.” Margot whirled about, and with a glare for poor old Quint, she picked up her skirts and sailed out.

When she entered the family dining room, the smell of horse and men assaulted her, and Margot had to swallow her aversion to it. She was surprised to see her father seated with the rough-looking men who had arrived at Norwood Park earlier. Her brother Bryce was there, too, watching the five men as one might observe animals in the wild. Four of the men were devouring their food, sounding a bit like a pack of animals who had not eaten in quite a long time.

“Ah, there she is, my daughter, Margot,” her father said, standing and holding out his hand to her.

She reluctantly walked forward and took it, curtsying to him. Up close, she noticed the man with the ice-blue eyes bore the dirt and grime of what she guessed was several days on the road. He wore a dark, unkempt beard, and she wondered idly if perhaps he’d lost his razor. His gaze presumptuously raked over her, from the top of her coiffed hair—the paper birds seemed to interest him—to her face and bodice and down the length of her body.

How rude. Margot narrowed her eyes on him, but her glower seemed to please him. His blue eyes sparked as he came slowly to his feet, towering almost a foot above her.

“Margot, may I introduce Chieftain Arran Mackenzie. Mackenzie, my only daughter, Miss Margot Armstrong.”

One corner of his mouth turned up. Did he not know that to stare so intently was impolite? Margot dipped another perfect curtsy and extended her hand. “How do you do, sir?”

“Verra well, Miss Armstrong.”

His voice had a deep, lilting brogue that was quite unexpected and tingled at the base of her skull.

“And how do you do?” he asked, taking her hand in his. It was huge, and his thumb felt calloused as he stroked it across her knuckles. Margot thought of Mr. Fitzgerald—with his long, slender and manicured fingers. Mr. Fitzgerald had the hands of an artist. This man had bear paws.

“I am well, thank you,” she said, and lightly pulled her hand away. She looked expectantly at her father. He seemed in no hurry to dismiss her now that he’d introduced her to these men. How long was she to remain here? She thought of Mr. Fitzgerald standing in the ballroom just now, with two flutes of French champagne in his hands. She could imagine any number of young ladies who were closing in around him, ready to cart him off like so many buzzards.

“Mackenzie is to receive a barony,” her father said. “He shall be Lord Mackenzie of Balhaire.”

Why on earth should she care about that? But Margot was ever the dutiful daughter and smiled at the man’s throat. “You must be pleased.”

The man tilted his head to one side to catch her eye before he responded. “Aye, that I am,” he said, and his gaze moved boldly to her mouth. “I verra much doubt you will understand just how pleased I am, Miss Armstrong.”

A strong shiver ran down Margot’s spine. Why did he look at her like that? He was so brazen, so unguarded! And her father, standing just there!

“Thank you, Margot,” her father said from somewhere near her—she wasn’t really sure where he was, as she couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from this beast of a man just yet. “You may return to your friends.”

What was this? She felt like the prize county sheep, paraded in for viewing. Look at the fine wool on this one. It vexed her—there were times her father seemed to forget that she was not a bauble to be held up for admiration.

She stared steadily into those icy blue eyes and said, “It is a pleasure to have made your acquaintance.” It was not a pleasure at all—it was a nuisance—and she hoped the man could see it in her gaze. Well, if he couldn’t see it, his companions certainly could. They’d all stopped eating and were staring at her almost as if they’d never seen a woman before. Which, judging by their clothing and wretched table manners, was almost believable.

“Thank you, Miss Armstrong,” he said, that voice so deeply lilting that it felt like a feather stroking down her spine. “But the pleasure has been completely mine, aye?” He smiled.

Those words and that smile made Margot feel strangely warm and fluid. She hurried out, eager to be as far from those men as she could.

By the time she reached the ballroom, however, his name was forgotten, because Mr. Fitzgerald was dancing with Miss Remstock. Margot’s champagne was nowhere to be seen, and every other thought she had flew out of her head.

The next afternoon, her father informed her that he’d agreed to give her hand in marriage to that beast Mackenzie and then turned a deaf ear to her cries.

CHAPTER ONE

The Scottish Highlands

1710

UNDER A FULL Scottish moon on a balmy summer night, the air was so still that one could hear the distant sea as plainly as if one were standing in the cove below Castle Balhaire. The windows of the old castle keep were open to the cool night, and a breeze wafted through, carrying away with it the lingering smoke from the rush torches that lit the great hall.

The interior of the medieval castle had been transformed into a sumptuous space befitting a king—or at least a Scottish clan chieftain with a healthy sea trade. The clan chieftain, the Baron of Balhaire, Arran Mackenzie, was sprawled on the new furnishings of the great hall along with his men, with a fresh batch of ale and a small herd of lassies to occupy them.

At the top of the Balhaire watchtower, three guards passed the time tossing coins onto a cloak with each roll of the die. Seamus Bivens had already divested his old friend Donald Thane of two sgillin with his last roll. Two sgillin was not a fortune to a guard of Balhaire, thanks to Mackenzie’s generosity to those loyal to him, but nevertheless, when Seamus took two more sgillin, Donald felt the loss of his purse and his pride quite keenly. Heated words were exchanged, and the two men clambered to their feet, reaching for their respective muskets propped against the wall. Sweeney Mackenzie, the commander, was content to let the two men battle it out, but a noise reached him, and he leaped to his feet and stepped between them, holding them apart with his hands braced against their chests. “Uist!” he hissed to silence them. “Do ye no’ hear it?”

The two men paused and craned their necks, listening. The sound of an approaching carriage bounced between the ghostly shadows of the hills. “Who the devil?” Seamus muttered, and forgetting his anger with Donald, grabbed up the spyglass and leaned over the wall to have a look.

“Well?” Donald demanded, crowding in behind him. “Who is it, then? A Gordon, aye?”

Seamus shook his head. “No’ a Gordon.”

“A Munro, then,” said Sweeney. “I’ve heard they’ve been eyeing Mackenzie lands.” These were relatively peaceful times at Balhaire, but one should never have been surprised by a change in clan alliances.

“No’ a Munro,” Seamus said.

They could see the coach now, pulled by a team of four, accompanied by two riders in back and two guards alongside the coachman. The postilion held a lantern aloft on a pole to light their way, in addition to the light cast from the carriage lamps.

“Who in bloody hell comes at half past midnight?” Donald demanded.

Seamus suddenly gasped. He pulled the spyglass away from his eye and squinted at the coach, then just as quickly put it back to his eye and leaned forward. “No,” he said, his voice full of disbelief.

His two companions exchanged a look. “Who?” Donald demanded. “No’ Buchanan,” he said, his voice almost a whisper, referring to the Mackenzies’ most persistent enemy through the years.

“Worse,” Seamus said gravely, and slowly lowered the spyglass, his eyes gone round with horror.

“By God, say who it is before I bloody well beat it from you,” Sweeney swore, clearly unnerved.

“’Tis...’tis the Lady Mackenzie,” Seamus said, his voice barely above a whisper.

His two companions gasped. And then Sweeney whirled about, grabbed up his gun and hurried off to warn Mackenzie that his wife had returned to Balhaire.

Unfortunately, coming down from the tallest part of Balhaire was no easy feat, and by the time Sweeney had made his way into the bailey, the coach had come through the gates. The coach door swung open, and a step was put down. He saw a small but well-shod foot appear on that step, and he broke into a run.

* * *

ARRAN MACKENZIE ADORED the pleasant sensation of a woman’s soft bum on his lap, and the sweet scent of her hair in his nostrils, especially with the golden warmth of good ale lovingly wrapping its liquid arms around him. He’d sampled freely of the batch his cousin and first lieutenant had brewed. Jock Mackenzie fancied himself something of a master brewer.

Arran was slouched in his chair, his fingers slowly tracing a line up the woman’s back, lazily trying to recall her name. What is it, then—Aileen? Irene?

“Milord! Mackenzie!” someone shouted.

Arran bent his head to see around the blond curls of the woman in his lap. Sweeney Mackenzie, one of his best guards, was shouting at him from the rear of the hall. The poor man was clutching his chest as if his heart was failing him, and he looked quite frantic as he cast his gaze around the crowded room. “Wh-wh-where is he?” he demanded of a drunk beside him. “Wh-wh-where is Mackenzie?”

Sweeney was a fierce warrior and a dedicated commander. But when he was agitated, he had a tendency to stutter like he had when they were children. Generally there was little that could agitate the old salt, and that something had made Arran take notice. “Here, Sweeney,” he said, and pushed the girl off his lap. He sat up, gestured his man forward. “What has rattled you, then?”

Sweeney hurried forward. “She’s b-b-b-back,” he breathlessly managed to get out.

Arran frowned, confused. “Pardon?”

“The L-L-L...” Sweeney’s lips and tongue seemed to stick together. He swallowed and tried to expel the word.

“Take a breath, lad,” Arran said, coming to his feet. “Steady now. Who has come?”

“L-L-L-Lady M-M-Mackenzie,” he managed.

That name seemed to drift up between Arran and Sweeney. Did Arran imagine it, or did everything in the hall suddenly go still? There was surely some mistake—he exchanged a look with Jock, who looked as mystified as Arran.

He turned to Sweeney again and said calmly, “Another breath, man. You’re mistaken—”

“He is not mistaken.”

Arran’s head snapped up at the sound of that familiar, crisply English, feminine voice. He squinted to the back of the hall, but the torches were smoking and cast shadows. He couldn’t make out anyone in particular—but the collective gasp of alarm that rose up from the two dozen or so souls gathered verified it for him: his wench of a wife had returned to Balhaire. After an absence of more than three years, she had inexplicably returned.

This undoubtedly would be viewed as a great occasion by half of his clan, a calamity by the other half. Arran himself could think of only three possible reasons his wife might be standing here now: one, her father had died and she had no place to go but to her lawful husband. Two, she’d run out of Arran’s money. Or three...she wanted to divorce him.

He dismissed the death of her father as a reason. If the man had died, he would have heard about it—he had a man in England to keep a close eye on his faithless wife.

The crowd parted as the auburn-haired beauty glided into the hall like a sleek galleon, two Englishmen dressed in fine woolen coats and powdered wigs trailing behind her.

She could not possibly have run out of money. He was quite generous with her. To a fault, Jock said. Perhaps that was true, but Arran would not have it said that he did not provide for his wife.

His wife’s grand entrance was suddenly halted by one of Arran’s old hunting dogs whose sight had nearly gone. Roy chose that moment to amble across the cleared path and plop himself down, his head between his paws on the cool stone floor, oblivious to the activity of humans around him. He sighed loudly, preparing to take his nap.

His wife daintily lifted her cloak and stepped over the beast. Her two escorts walked around the dog.

As she continued toward him, Arran had to consider that the third possibility was perhaps the most plausible. She had come to ask for a divorce, an annulment—whatever might give her freedom from him. And yet it seemed implausible she would have come all this way to ask it of him. Would she not have sent an agent? Or perhaps, he reasoned, as she made her way to the dais, she meant to humiliate him once more.

Margot Armstrong Mackenzie stood with her hands clasped before her and a faltering smile for the stunned, speechless souls around her. Her two escorts took up positions directly behind her, their gazes warily assessing the hall, their hands on the hilts of their small swords. Did they think they’d be forced to fight their way out? It was a possibility, for some of Arran’s people wore expressions of anticipation—far be it from any Scotsman to back away from anything that even remotely hinted at the potential for a brawl.

Not a death, then. Not a lack of funds. He had not ruled out divorce, but no matter what the reason, Arran was suddenly furious. How dare she return!

He leaped off the dais and strolled forward. “Has snow fallen on hell?” he asked calmly as he advanced on her.

She glanced around the hall. “I see no trace of snow,” she said as she removed her gloves.

“Did you come by sea? Or by broom?”

Someone on the dais chuckled. “By sea and by coach,” she said pleasantly, ignoring his barb. She cocked her head to one side and looked him over. “You look very well, my lord husband.”

Arran said nothing. He didn’t know what to say to her after three years and feared anything he did would unleash a torrent of emotion he was not willing to share with the world.

In his silence, Margot’s gaze wandered to her surroundings, to the rush torches, the iron chandeliers, the dogs wandering about the great hall. It was quite different from Norwood Park. She’d never cared for this massive great room, the heart of Balhaire for centuries now. She’d always wanted something finer; a fancy room, a London or Paris ballroom. But to Arran, this room was highly functional. There were two long tables where his clan sat, with massive hearths on either end of the hall to heat it. A few rugs on the floor muted the sound of boots on stone, and he’d always rather liked the flickering light of the torches.

“It’s still charmingly quaint,” she said, reading his thoughts. “Everything exactly the same.”

“No’ everything,” he reminded her. “I was no’ expecting you.”

“I know,” she said, wincing a bit. “And for that, I do apologize.”

He waited for more. An explanation. A begging of his forgiveness. But that was all she would say, apparently, as she was looking around him now, to the dais. “Oh, how lovely,” she said. “You have indeed added something new.”

He squinted over his shoulder. The dais was the only thing left of the original great hall besides the floors and the walls. It was a raised platform where the chieftain and his advisers had taken their meals over the years. The use of it was not so formal now, but still, Arran liked it—it gave him a view of the entire hall.

It took him a moment to realize she was admiring the carved table and upholstered chairs he’d acquired on a recent trade voyage, as well as the two silver candelabras that graced the head table. He’d taken those in payment from a man who was down on his luck and had needed some horses for a desperate run from authorities.

“It’s French, isn’t it?” she asked. “It looks very French.”

Was what French? And what did it matter at this moment, given the great occasion that was unfurling before them? Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie of Balhaire were standing in the same room, and no knives had been drawn! Call the heralds! Trumpet the news! What the devil was his wife doing here after three years of silence, nattering on about his dining table? Why was she here without warning, without a word, particularly having left him in the manner she had?

Her audacity made him feel unstably angry; his heart was pounding uncomfortably in his chest. “I was no’ expecting you, and I’d like to know what has brought you to Balhaire, madam.”

“Aye!” someone said at the back of the hall.

“Goodness, I do beg your pardon.” She instantly sank into a very deep curtsy. “I was so taken by familiar surroundings that I failed to announce that I’ve come home.” She smiled beatifically and held out her hand for him to help her up.

“Home?” He snorted at the absurdity.

“Yes. Home. You are my husband. Therefore, this is my home.” She wiggled her fingers at him as if he’d forgotten her hand was extended to him.

Oh, he was aware of that hand, and more important, that smile, because it burned in Arran’s chest. It ended in a pair of dimples, and her luminescent green eyes sparkled with the low light of the hall. He could see the wisps of her auburn hair peeking out beneath the hood of her cloak, dark curls against her smooth, pale skin.

She kept smiling, kept her hand outstretched. “Will you not come and greet me?”

Arran hesitated. He was still dressed in his muddied riding clothes, his coat had gone missing from his body, his collar was open to his bare chest, and his long hair was tamed by only his fingers and harnessed in a rough queue down his back. Nor had he shaved in several days, and he no doubt reeked a bit. But he reached for her hand and took it in his.

Such fine, delicate bones. He closed his calloused fingers around her fingers and yanked her to her feet with enough force that she was forced to hop forward. Now she stood so close that she had to tilt her head back on that swan-like neck to look him in the eye.

He glared at her, trying to understand.

She arched a single dark brow. “Welcome me home, my lord,” she said, and then, with a smile that flashed as wicked as the diabhal himself, she surprised him—shocked him, really—by rising up on her toes, wrapping an arm around his neck and tugging his head down to hers to kiss him.

Bloody hell, Margot kissed him. That was as surprising as her sudden appearance. And it was not a chaste kiss, either, which was the only sort of kiss he’d known from his young bride, timid and prudish, who’d left him three years ago. This was a full-bodied kiss, one that bore the markings of maturity, with succulent lips, a playful little tongue and teeth that grazed his bottom lip. And when she’d finished kissing him, she slipped back down to her toes and smiled at him, her green eyes shining with the light of the torches that lit the hall.

It was effective. A wee bit of Arran’s anger began to turn to desire as he took her in. She looked the same—perhaps a bit more robust—but this wasn’t the bride who had fled Balhaire in tears. Arran roughly pushed the hood of her cloak from her head. Her hair was rich auburn, and he touched the curling wisps around her face. He ignored the feathered arch of her brow as he unfastened the clasp of her cloak. It swung open, revealing the tight fit of her traveling gown, the creamy swell of her breasts above the gold brocade of her stomacher. He noticed something else, too—the emerald necklace he’d given her on the occasion of their wedding glimmered in the hollow of her throat. She looked ravishing. Seductive. She was a fine meal for a man to savor one bite at a time.

But she was grossly mistaken if she thought he would be dining at her table.

“It would seem my purse has found you often enough,” he said, admiring the quality of her silk gown. “And you look to be in excellent health.”

“Thank you,” she said politely, and lifted her chin slightly. “And you look...” She paused as she took another look at his disheveled self. “The same.” One corner of her mouth tipped up in a wry smile.

Her scent made him heady, and a flash of memories flooded his brain. Of her naked in his bed. Of her long legs wrapped around his, of her perfumed hair, of her young, plump breasts in his hands.

She was aware of his thoughts, too; he could see it spark in her eyes. She turned slightly away from him and said, “May I introduce Mr. Pepper and Mr. Worthing? They’ve been kind enough to see me safely here.”

There was some rumbling in the crowd—in spite of the recent union of Scotland and England, there was no love for the English among his clan, particularly not after the disaster that was his marriage.

Arran scarcely spared the English fops a glance. “Had I known that you meant to return to Balhaire, I’d have sent my best men for you, aye? How curious you didna send word.”

“That would have been very kind,” she said vaguely. “Might we trouble you for supper? I’m famished, as I am sure these good men are. I’d forgotten how few inns there are in the Highlands.”

Arran was slightly inebriated and a wee bit shocked...but not so much that he would allow his wife to swan into his castle after three bloody years and pretend all was well and ask to be served without any explanation at all. He meant to demand an answer from her, but he was uncomfortably aware that every Mackenzie ear was trained on them. “Music!” he bellowed.

Someone picked up a flute and began to play, and Arran caught Margot’s wrist and pulled her closer. He spoke low so others couldn’t hear what he said. “You come to Balhaire, unannounced, after leaving like you did, and you are so insolent as to ask for supper?”

Her eyes narrowed slightly, just as they had the first night he’d ever laid eyes on her. “Will you refuse to feed the men who have seen your wife safely returned to you?”

“Are you returned to me?” he scoffed.

“As I recall, you were forever impressing on me that the Scots are well-known for their hospitality.”

“Donna think to tell me what I ought to do, madam. Answer me—why are you here?”

“Oh, Arran,” she said, and smiled suddenly. “Isn’t it obvious? Because I’ve missed you. Because I’ve come to my senses. Because I want to try our marriage again, of course. Why else would I have taken such a hard road to reach you?”

He watched her lush mouth move, heard the words she said and shook his head. “Why else? I have my suspicions, aye?” he said to her mouth. “Murder. Bedlam. To slit my throat in the night, then.”

“Oh no!” she said gravely. “That would be too foul, all that blood. You can’t really believe it’s impossible that I would have a change of heart,” she said. “After all, you’re not unlikable in your own way.”

She was teasing him now? His fury surged.

“Frankly, I would have come earlier had I been given any indication that you wanted me to,” she added matter-of-factly.

Arran couldn’t help a bark of incredulous laughter. “Have you gone mad, then, woman? I’ve heard no’ a bloody word from you in all the time you’ve been gone.”

“I haven’t had a word from you, either.”

This was outrageous. Arran couldn’t begin to guess what game she was playing, but she would not win. He slid his arm around her back and yanked her into his body, holding her firmly. He pressed his palm against the side of her head, his thumb brushing her cheek. “Will you no’ admit the truth, then?”

“Will you not believe me?” she asked sweetly.

He could see that wicked little sparkle in eyes the shade of ripe pears, that glimmer of deceit. “No’ a bloody word.”

She smiled and lifted her chin. He realized suddenly that she wasn’t afraid of him now. She’d always been a wee bit fearful of him, but he saw no trace of that in her now.

“You’re awfully distrusting,” she said. “Haven’t I always been perfectly frank with you? Why ever should I be any different now? I’m your wife yet, Mackenzie. If you won’t believe me, I suppose I’ll just have to convince you, won’t I?”

Arran’s blood began to rush in his veins. He gazed into her face, at the slender nose, the dark brows. “You have surprised me,” he admitted as his gaze moved down to her enticing décolletage. “That’s what your wretched little heart wanted, aye? But be warned, wife, I am no fool. The last time I saw you, you were fleeing. I willna believe you’ve suddenly found room in there for me,” he said, and tapped the swell of her breast over her heart very deliberately.

She continued to smile as if she were unfazed by him, but he could see the faint blush creeping into her cheeks. “I should be delighted to prove you wrong. But please do allow me to dine, will you? It is obvious that I will need all my strength.”

Arran’s pulse raced harder now with a combustible mix of fury and desire. “I wonder where the fragile little primrose who left me has gone.”

“She grew into a rosebush.” She patted his chest. “Some food, if you would be so kind, for Mr. Pepper and Mr. Worthing.”

“Fergus!” he said sharply, his gaze still on Margot’s face. “Bring the Lady Mackenzie and her men some bread and something to eat, aye? Make haste, lad.”

He curled his fingers around her elbow, digging into the fabric, and pulled her along. She said not a word about his dirtied hand on her clothing as she would have before, but came along obediently. Almost as if she expected to be handled in this manner. As if she was prepared for it.

Arran was aware of a flutter of activity and whispered voices around him as people strained to get a glimpse of the mysterious Lady Mackenzie and the two bulldogs who followed closely behind.

“It wasna necessary to come with an armed guard,” Arran snapped as he led her to the dais, glancing over his shoulder at the two Englishmen. “You frightened Sweeney near unto death.”

“My father insisted. One never knows when one will encounter highwaymen.” She glanced at him sidelong.

He’d always thought her uncommonly beautiful, and somehow, she seemed even more so now. But he did not have the same longing in him he’d once felt for her—he felt only disdain. There was a time her smile would have swayed him to accept her bad behavior. Now he felt numb to it. He should deny her food, toss her into rooms and have her held there for leaving him as she had.

It was not yet out of the question.

Margot removed her cloak and sat gingerly in the seat Arran held out for her on the dais, perching on the edge of it. Her fastidious nature was still lurking beneath that cool exterior.

“Your men, they can sit there,” he said, pointing to a table down below.

Her guards hesitated, but Margot gave them a slight nod to indicate that they should obey.

Arran resisted the urge to remind her she was not queen here, especially not now, but he took his seat beside her and kept his mouth shut. For the moment.

“You’ve been keeping company, I see,” she said congenially as her gaze settled on the lass who had been sitting on his lap and was now off the dais, pouting.

“I’ve kept the company of my clan, aye.”

“Male and female alike?”

He put his hand on her wrist once more, squeezing lightly. “What did you think, Margot, that I’d live like a monk? That once you left me I’d take my vows and prostrate myself before your shrine during vespers?”

She smiled as she pulled her arm from his grip. “I’ve no doubt you were prostrate at someone’s shrine.” She glanced away and curled a ringlet around her finger.

“And I suppose you’ve been a chaste little princess,” he snorted.

“Well,” she said airily, “I can’t say I’ve been completely chaste. But who among us has?” She turned her head and looked him directly in the eye, a cool smile on her lips, the color in her cheeks high.

What game was this now? She would flirt with him, hint at bad behavior? It made no sense, and it stank of trickery. Who was this woman? The woman who had left him would have been appalled by the mere suggestion that her chastity was not practically virginal. But this woman was toying with him, making suggestions and smiling in a way that could make a man’s knees give way.

He turned away from that smile to signal the serving boy to pour wine and noticed that half of his men were still gaping at her. “All right, all right,” he said irritably, gesturing for them to do something other than stare. “Can you no’ play something a bit livelier, Geordie?” he demanded of his musician.

Geordie put down his flute, picked up his fiddle and began to play again.

As Margot lifted the cup to her lips, he said, “Now that you’ve had your grand entrance, I’ll know what has brought you to Balhaire. Has someone died, then? Has your da lost his fortune? Are you hiding from the queen?”

She laughed. “My family is in good health, thank you. Our fortune is quite intact, and the queen is generally not aware of me at all.”

He sprawled back in his chair, studying her.

She smiled pertly. “You seem skeptical. I had forgotten what a suspicious nature you have, but I did always quite like that about you, I must say.”

“Should I not be suspicious of you? When you appear as you have without a bloody word?”

“Can you tell me a better way to return to you?” she asked. “If I’d sent word, you would have denied me. Is that not so? I thought that perhaps if you saw me before you heard my name...” She shrugged.

“You thought what?”

“I thought that maybe you would realize you’d missed me, too.” She smiled softly. Hopefully.

There it was, that stir of blood in him again, accompanied by another rash of images of his wife’s long legs on either side of him, her silky hair pooling on his chest. He swallowed that image down. The truth was that he couldn’t bear the sight of her. “I donna miss you, Margot. I loathe you.”

Her cheeks turned crimson, and she glanced down at her lap.

“Aye, and how long has it been, precisely, since you began to miss me, then, leannan? Did I no’ send enough money?”

“You’ve been entirely too generous, my lord.”

“Aye, that I have,” he said with an adamant nod.

“As to when I began to miss you so ardently?” She pretended to ponder that as she fidgeted with the necklace at her throat. “I can’t say precisely when. But it’s a notion that’s taken root and continues to grow.”

“Like a bloody cancer,” he scoffed.

“Something like that. I always thought you’d come to assure yourself of my welfare instead of sending Dermid as you did.”

“You thought I’d come all the way to England, chasing after you like a fox after a hen?”

“Chase is a strong word. I rather prefer visit.”

“I didna receive an invitation to visit, aye?”

“You never needed an invitation! You’re my husband! You might have come to me whenever you liked. Didn’t you always before?” she asked with a salacious look. “Didn’t you miss me, Arran? Perhaps only a little?”

“I’ve missed you in my bed,” he said, holding her gaze. “It’s been a damn long time.”

Color crept into Margot’s cheeks again, but she steadily held his gaze. “Has it really been so long?”

His gaze drifted to her mouth. An eternity. He sat up, leaning in. “A verra long time, lass. It’s been three years, three months and a handful of days.”

Margot’s smile faded. Her lips parted slightly and her lashes fluttered as she looked at him with surprise.

“Aye, leannan, I know how long I’ve been free of the burden of you. Does that surprise you?”

Something in her eyes dimmed. “A little,” she admitted softly.

Arran smiled wolfishly. His pulse was thrumming now, beating the familiar rhythm of want. He pushed hair from her temple and said, “Pity that I donna care to reacquaint.”

There it was again, a flicker of some emotion in her eyes. Had he struck a blow? He didn’t care if he had—it would never equal the blow she’d struck him.

CHAPTER TWO

Balhaire, the Scottish Highlands

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.”

“A bath,” he repeated slowly.

Good God, surely they bathed here! “Yes. A bath.” She looked at him pointedly.

Arran fit another spoonful of soup into his mouth and shrugged. He lifted his hand once more, and this time, an older man with a pate of thinning ginger hair appeared at his side. Arran consulted with the man about her bath...at length. It seemed a long stretch of minutes passed before the man walked away and Arran turned back to his meal. He took three quick bites in succession, wiped his mouth with the napkin and stood, his chair scraping loudly behind him. With a sigh, he held out his hand to her, palm up. “Aye, then. A bath for milady. I’ll bring you round to our chambers.”

“What do you mean, our chambers?”

“The master’s chambers,” he clarified.

She was beginning to feel ill. “I don’t understand. You haven’t private rooms for me?” she asked disbelievingly.

Arran looked so baffled that Margot’s belly began to roil. She could not—would not—share a room with this man. It was unheard of! It was egregious, a complete lack of decorum! She couldn’t imagine it, all that leather and wool and—

She swallowed, and her fingers curled into fists. “A great house generally has rooms for the master and the mistress,” she said as calmly as she could, hoping that he might set this entire wretched ordeal to rights if he only understood how things were done properly.

But he showed no sign of understanding anything. He said, “I’ll show you to the master’s chambers for your bath, madam. We will discuss whatever it is you think a lady must have on morrow, aye? But tonight, I am too weary for it.”

Margot had no choice but to follow him out of the great hall. She averted her gaze each time he paused to speak to someone in his clan—she didn’t know what to say, to be quite honest, particularly when she was not properly introduced—and she did not look up until she was pressed by him.

Arran’s expression grew darker as he led into the twisting corridors, returning to what she assumed was the foyer, then up a staircase that was twice the width of any she’d seen in even the finest of homes. They walked down another dark corridor, this one lit even more poorly, as only every other wall sconce held a candle.

At the end of the hall was a pair of thick wooden doors. Arran slid the latch and pushed it open, then turned back to Margot.

She stepped hesitantly across the threshold into a masculine room. The furnishings were trimmed in leather. Thick woolen draperies had been pulled across three separate windows. And oddly, a quiver of arrows was propped against a very large chest of drawers.

But there was a bath before a roaring fire, and two young men were busy pouring hot water into it. Margot stood patiently to one side as they continued to tromp in and out of the room, each of them with two buckets, until Arran deemed the small tub sufficiently full. One of them laid a towel and a cake of soap on a stool, and then they went out.

Arran closed the door behind them. His gaze flicked over her. “There you are, then. A bath. I’ll leave you to it.” He walked out of the room through what appeared to be a dressing room. She heard another door open, heard it close.

Margot remained standing in the same spot a long moment after he’d gone. He hadn’t even offered her the assistance of a maid. Well, no matter—there was a hot bath waiting for her and she was going to avail herself. She managed to discard her clothing and then sank into the tub, closed her eyes and, for a few moments, allowed herself to pretend she was back at Norwood Park, in a proper bathing room, with towels and perfumed soaps and scented candles.

When she’d finished bathing, she dressed in the nightgown from the small portmanteau someone had thought to bring up from the coach. She didn’t know what she was to do now, but she was exhausted, and she crawled into the massive four-poster bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. The wind was howling again, bringing the scent of the sea with it. A storm was brewing off the coast.

Margot had no idea what time it was when Arran at last came into the room, but the fire had turned to embers and the wind seemed even harsher. She could hear him moving about the room, the clank of a belt being undone, the slide of fabric over skin. The bed sank with his weight as he put himself in it. She flinched when his hand slid across her abdomen. “Relax, leannan,” he murmured.

She had no idea what that meant, leannan, but she tried her best to relax. Arran moved his hand down her leg and slipped in beneath her nightgown, his fingers trailing up her thigh. His touch was so soft, so feathery, that it almost tickled her. Margot was shivering again. But not from cold. From anticipation.

Arran propped himself up beside her, then picked up her hand and placed it on his shoulder. “Be at ease, leannan,” he said. “I donna mean to hurt you—I mean to please you.” He kissed her neck, and Margot shivered again. As he continued to move his mouth delicately across her lips and her skin, she found the courage to move her hands over his body, her fingers skating over the hard planes of his muscles, the breadth of his back.

As she moved her hands down to his hips, he groaned softly. She abruptly removed her hands. Arran caught them and put them back. “Aye,” he said. “Touch me.” He kissed her lips so gently that Margot felt herself begin to float.

He was tender with her, asked if his touch was to her liking, if he hurt her when he entered her. Margot could scarcely mutter her answers—she was too deeply submerged in the sensations of what he was doing to her to think clearly. With his hands and his mouth he aroused her and then coaxed her to float like a feather over the edge of a waterfall of her pleasure.

And then he fell, too.

He lay partially on her, his breath hot on her bare shoulder. After several moments, he moved off her body and lay on his stomach, his face turned from her, his breath heavy. Was he asleep? Was she to sleep now? Margot burrowed down into the bed linens, pulling them up to her neck again.

Arran’s breathing grew steadier.

She stared up at the canopy overhead. Does this please you? he’d asked her. Yes, it had pleased her. She was thinking of it, how tender he was with her, when she was given quite a fright by the sudden pounce of something onto the bed. Margot came up with a shriek and stared right into the eyes of a dog. He was enormous, with one ear that flopped backward and a wiry coat. He wagged his tail excitedly as he sniffed first at Arran, who very lazily tried to swat him away, then at Margot.

“Get off,” she said, pushing at the dog. The dog’s tail wagged harder.

“He willna bite you,” Arran muttered through a yawn.

“I don’t care—what’s he doing on the bed?” she demanded.

Arran shrugged. “He fancies you, aye?” He yawned again and stuffed the pillow up under his head. Meanwhile, the beast of a dog turned in one or two circles at the foot of the bed, then plopped down with a loud sigh.

She was to sleep with a dog? Arran’s tenderness forgotten, tears welled, and Margot lay back down, turning on her side, away from him and the dog, silently cursing her father for having bartered her to this hell.

CHAPTER THREE

The Scottish Highlands

1710

HE WATCHED EVERY bite she took. Margot was uncertain if he was counting the minutes until he could take her to his bed, or the minutes until she succumbed to the poison he could very well have instructed be put in her stew.

She was counting the minutes until he demanded her duty to him. The prospect of being in that massive bed again excited and frightened her at once. In the few short months they’d existed in their conjugal state, Arran had introduced her to the intimate pleasures husbands and wives shared. She had enjoyed it...but she hadn’t realized just how much she had enjoyed it until she’d gone and was without it.

She could honestly say that in the privacy of their marital bed, there had been no discord. It was the other twenty-three hours of the day that had undone her.

Margot had quickly discovered that Arran was a man with many passions—there were no degrees with him. It was all or nothing, all brawn, all daring, all lust. There had not been room for a wife.

And while she did like the brawn in him, his passions and appetites could be too intense. Memories had come flooding back to her the closer she and her party had drawn to Balhaire: his passion for hunting. For sailing the sea. For drinking and gambling and training his men to be the best soldiers in the kingdom. She had never experienced a gaze as intent as his, and she’d never seen a look as blackly angry as his the day she’d left.

The matter of her leaving him for England had not been resolved, and quite honestly, Margot didn’t know if it could ever be resolved. She hadn’t the slightest idea what he thought or wanted, especially after all this time. She couldn’t even say what she wanted...but she did not want this, to be a pawn in a dangerous game.

For the moment, her husband remained slouched in his chair, his powerful legs sprawled before him, one hand firmly gripping his cup of ale, the other dangling lazily from the arm of his chair. His intent gaze made fear curl around her spine—he reminded her of the hawks he was so fond of training. She could feel his contempt rolling off him and covering her.

Margot did her best to put some stew in her belly. She was truly famished—but the nerves in her were building, making it difficult to swallow, making the food sit sourly in her belly. She could only guess what was coming, how incomprehensibly convincing she had to be now. She had begged and cajoled her father that this scheme would never work, that Arran would never believe she had missed him and wanted to reunite. How could she want something like that after three years without a word? How could he? And besides, the man had an uncanny way of seeing right through her.

But her father had taken her hands in his and said, “My darling girl, a man can be convinced of anything if his wife is as pleasing as she ought to be. Do you take my meaning?”

She took his meaning, all right. Lord Norwood thought he could order her to return to her husband and her husband would overlook his wounded pride and welcome her with open arms. He thought that Margot would politely inquire if it were true that Arran colluded with the French and the Jacobites and intended to give them entry into Scotland through Balhaire. And that Arran would happily tell her if it were true that he and his highly regarded Highland soldiers would join the French troops and invade England to remove Queen Anne from the throne and put James Stuart on it.

Her father apparently believed this so completely and thought it so important that he clearly felt himself justified in threatening Margot to do what she did not want to do once again. She had tried to convey to her father how irretrievably broken-down was her marriage to Mackenzie, how he must despise her now, how she had despised him. Not that she believed for a moment that he was involved in treason, for God’s sake, but she was in no position to ascertain the truth.

Her father would hear none of it.

This was ridiculous. If, by some small chance, Arran was involved in something so deplorable and indefensible, he would hide any evidence of it. He’d not amassed power and wealth with loose lips and carelessness. He certainly would not talk freely of it to her, especially not when he reviled her so. He would hold her at arm’s length no matter what he thought of her. Women existed to be bedded and impregnated. They were not included in important discussions. They were told what to do; they were not allowed to choose.

“It is time to finish your meal,” Arran said. “You dawdle now, aye? You and I have much to discuss.” He stood up.

Margot looked up as she fit the spoon in her mouth. More than six feet of man towered over her. She chewed slowly as she regarded him. He’d always had a physique honed by his training of soldiers, as big and as strong as an ox. Three years hadn’t softened him in the least. Quite the contrary—he looked even leaner and harder now, his hair in need of a cut, his ice-blue eyes as shrewd as ever.

“Be quick about it,” he added, and stepped off the dais, to where her father’s men sat. He spoke to them, gesturing to two of his men who had instantly come forward. Moments later, Pepper and Worthing stood up, glanced uneasily at Margot, then followed the Scots out of the great hall. Arran went in another direction.

Margot panicked slightly, but then again, Worthing had warned her they’d not be allowed to stay. He was her father’s confidant—in fact, it was Worthing and two other gentlemen who had brought from London the rumors and accusations against Arran to her father.

“He’ll not want any Englishmen in his hall,” Worthing had warned Margot. “You must be prepared to see us depart.”

“No,” Margot had said. “I’ll ask him—”

“He will instantly suspect you if you speak for us, madam. You must play the part of a disobedient wife who means to make amends.”

Disobedient wife. Is that what they thought of her? As if she were a child who had disobeyed all the men in her life? As if she’d been expected to stay in an untenable position merely because men had put her there? Frankly, it would have helped tremendously if she knew just how a disobedient wife behaved when she wanted to make amends. Margot did not.

She watched Arran walk through the hall, pausing to speak to one or two people, glancing meaningfully back at her once or twice. His long, dark hair was a tangled queue, and his buckskins, lawn shirt and waistcoat were soiled, his boots scuffed. Who knew what the man had done all day? Margot bowed her head and recalled the sensation of his body in hers, carrying her away to that sensual place.

She missed that, anyway. She hadn’t realized how much she would miss it, how empty her life would become. She missed knowing that someone could be gentle with her, careful of her.

Margot felt the sickly warmth of fear as she thought of it. She had wounded him in the worst way one could wound a man, and she had no hope that he would care much for her now—she had seen the harshness in his gaze. She was afraid of him, disgusted by him, attracted to him.

Anxiety swelled in her, and she abruptly stood, suddenly desperate to escape to the privacy of her old rooms.

The moment she came to her feet, however, Jock appeared. “Madam.”

“Jock!” she said with a cheerfulness that belied the fright he’d given her. It seemed impossible that anyone could be larger than her husband, but Jock was. His dark ginger hair was streaked with gray and had always given her the impression that he carried the gloomy mists of the Highlands around with him.

“How good to see you. You are well?” she asked as pleasantly as she could force herself.

His brows dipped. He was not fooled by her. “Whatever you require, I am at your service, aye?”

Her wish was too complicated for poor Jock. But in that space of hesitation, Jock rubbed a finger against his cheek, and a movement to her left caught her eye. A rat, in the form of a man, went scurrying in the direction Arran had gone to report her attempt to flee.

She sighed and frowned at Jock. “That wasn’t necessary, was it?”

His eyes narrowed with his silent disagreement.

He’d always been a worthy adversary. He’d never trusted the marriage brokered between her and Arran. Margot put her hands to the small of her back. “I mean only to stretch my legs. I’ve come quite a long way.”

Jock merely stood there. Typical.

“And I am in need of a ladies’ retiring room.” She arched a brow, expecting him to retreat as all men did when confronted by women and their bodily functions. But Jock stood like a mountain before her, his expression unchanged.

“Perhaps my old rooms are available?”

“There are no rooms for you, madam. We didna expect you.”

Obviously. “You mustn’t trouble yourself, Jock. I’m certain my maid has made them ready by now,” she said, and slipped past him.

“Milady—”

“I know my way very well, thank you!” She walked quickly down the side of the hall before he could stop her, smiling blindly at all the unsmiling, distant faces. All she had to do was reach the main entrance to the hall. She knew exactly where she was going. In the four months she’d lived here as Mackenzie’s bride, when her husband was out hunting or training soldiers or away on one of his ships, Margot had nothing to occupy her. She’d spent many lonely hours wandering about this sprawling castle. She knew every turn, every stairwell, every room.

But just as she reached the main doors, one of them swung open and Arran entered the hall, the rat directly behind him. She instantly turned and started in the opposite direction. Arran caught up to her in a step, clasped her elbow and jerked her backward. Margot’s heart climbed to her throat. She put a hand to her heart and said laughingly, “You frightened me!”

He stood with his legs braced apart, and his brows formed a dark vee above his eyes. “You’d no’ be running from your husband so soon, would you, mo gradh?” he asked hotly. “Having just this night returned to...what was it you said, then...to try our marriage again? Because you have missed me so?” His lips curved into a cool smile.

Aware that several pairs of eyes were on them, Margot forced a light laugh, as if this was friendly banter between husband and wife. “I meant only to freshen a bit. Wash the dust of road from my skin, as it were.”

His smile turned wolfish. “If you wish to wash, I’ll have a bath brought to my chamber, aye? It will be like old times.”

“Oh, that is...” Predictable. Infuriatingly manipulative. “Helpful,” she said. “But, ah...” She shifted forward, standing close so that she could whisper. She laid her hand lightly on his arm, watched his gaze move to her hand, then to her bosom, and whispered, “I have need of a retiring room.”

“Then you shall have one,” he said instantly.

Margot smiled in the way she’d learned at the soirees and dinner parties, where she’d mastered the art of making time pass by testing all the silly things men would do for a mere smile. “Thank you for understanding.” She patted his arm, then slid her hand off it. She bobbed a bit of a curtsy. “I shan’t be long.” Unless he considered all night a long time.

She moved to step around him, but Arran caught her arm once more. Not her hand, but her forearm, and his grip was tight. “No’ a retiring room as you might expect, having come from Norwood Park, but a closet that will suit. There is one in my chambers, you may recall, aye?”

Oh, she remembered. Margot tried to tug her arm free, but he held tight. “I won’t trouble you.”

“You already have,” he said curtly.

She didn’t like the look in his eye. He looked a little as if he intended to carve her up, stuff an apple in her mouth and serve her up on a platter.

“And I thought you bloody well missed me,” he said, his eyes going dark as he squeezed her arm.

There was a time he might have intimidated her into utter silence with such a predatory look, but Margot had changed. She wasn’t the inexperienced debutante anymore, and she knew how to fight back. She tilted her head and gave him an even sultrier smile. “Oh, but I have, Arran. I’m afraid you’ve seen through me—the truth is that the journey has left me quite fatigued.” She glanced surreptitiously about—she could see how people near them strained to hear. So she rose up on her toes and whispered, “I want very much to please you, my lord, but I really must rest to be especially pleasing.”

Arran’s gaze turned ferocious. It was full of lust and anger, and Margot’s pulse quickened with apprehension. He could kill her and no one here would say a word. No one in England would know for weeks, long after she’d turned to dust. He slid his arm around her waist and anchored her there, holding tight. “I think you misjudge your own strength, milady. Thank the saints that you’re a sturdy lass, aye? You’ll manage, I’ve no doubt.” He began to pull her through the hall, his grip on her unyielding.

“This is hardly necessary,” she said, struggling to keep up with his stride. “Naturally I assumed you’d be concerned for my welfare. But never mind—if you desire that I accompany you, then of course I shall. You need only ask.”

Arran stopped. He stepped away from her and bowed low. “My apologies, then,” he said. “By all means—I desire that you accompany me to my chambers. Now.” He gestured to the path in front of him, his jaw set, his eyes boring through hers. There was the hawk again, ready to swoop down and cart her off to be fed to his clan.

Speaking of which... Margot glanced over her shoulder. Necks were craning. Ears were pointed like dogs’ ears to them. All eyes were locked on the laird and his wife. That was the way it had always been at Balhaire—a perpetual audience to her marriage.

Margot sniffed. She nervously fingered a loose curl. She had no choice, really—she’d not have word going back to her father that she had been less than a dutiful wife on her first night at Balhaire. God only knew what he would do with her then.

So she lifted her chin, smiled sweetly and began to walk along the path he’d indicated. Arran was right beside her, his hand possessively on the small of her back, the expanse of it covering her waist. She was reminded of other moments when his hands were on more exposed parts of her body, and her stomach began to turn little somersaults.

“That’s a good lass,” Arran said into her ear, his voice trickling into her bloodstream. “Obedient and eager, just as a man’s wife ought to be.”

Margot resisted the overwhelming urge to elbow him in the ribs and then run.

They walked up the wide staircase that curled past paintings of Mackenzies, past historic armor that men liked to display for reasons that completely escaped her, past an array of swords fanned above the arched entrance to the hallway. Arran kept his hand on her as he steered her toward the two oak doors that led into the master’s chambers.

Their arrival startled two boys in that long hallway who were replacing candles in the sconces.

“Light the laird’s chamber!” Jock bellowed from behind them, startling Margot. She hadn’t even known he was there. The two lads scurried ahead, into Arran’s private rooms.

When they reached the doors to the master’s chambers, Arran glanced over his shoulder and said to Jock, “We are no’ to be disturbed by anyone, aye? We’ve a bit of bad business to conduct.” He reached around Margot and gave the door a push, then pushed her through. He just as quickly ushered the young boys out, then closed the door and turned the lock.

He slowly faced her and leaned against the closed doors, his head down, his gaze terrifyingly hard. Bad business. What did that mean, exactly? She had never thought him violent. Whatever he meant, she would likely die before he did anything—her heart was beating that wildly.

“The chamber pot and a basin are just in there,” he said, nodding to a door at the far end of the room. “Avail yourself.”

Margot glanced at the closet door warily and walked away from him and into the closet to collect herself.

When she emerged, he was still standing at the door. He suddenly pushed away from it and strolled to the sideboard. He poured two goblets of wine and held one out, offering it to her. “For my wife, who has, remarkably, returned to me. To my bonny wife, who gave me no’ a word of apology, nor hope, nor explanation, who now claims to have missed me. Aye, what a day this has become.”

His expression was so stormy that Margot felt herself begin to shake as she dried her hands. She had to be as convincing as she’d ever been in her life. “People have a change of heart all the time,” she said, and turned around to him. She took the wine he offered, drinking more than was polite in the hopes it would calm her nerves.

Arran didn’t drink. His goblet dangled between two fingers as he watched her.

Margot warily lowered her goblet.

His gaze moved casually over her now, lingering on her bosom and her hem. But then he clenched his jaw and turned away, as if he couldn’t stand the sight of her. “You’re as beautiful as ever, then. Boidheach,” he said low, and tossed back his wine in one long swallow.

Margot wasn’t expecting that. Anger, indignation, indifference, yes, and any number of questions about why she’d left and why she’d come back. But not that she was beautiful. The sentiment made her feel ill. She was not beautiful—she was bad business. How could he think otherwise?

“Aye, my bonny wife,” he said again, putting aside his goblet. “How often I’ve thought of her.”

Margot’s cheeks flooded with shame. Was that true, or was he toying with her now? She wished he would rail at her, demand answers—but not tease her. “Surely you’ve not wasted your energy thinking of me,” she said.

He snorted at that. “And why no’? Because you’ve wasted no time thinking of me?”

That wasn’t true. It was far from true. She’d thought of him so often, trying to remember how, exactly, it had all gone wrong. But Margot couldn’t pretend with him now—she knew him well enough to know he was teetering on the edge of fury, and beyond that, who knew? She looked him directly in the eye and said, “Actually, Arran, I’ve thought of you often.”

One dark brow arched above the other, as if that amused him. He began moving toward her, around her, behind her. “You’ve a peculiar way of showing it. Have you thought, then, of what I did to make you so unhappy? I have. But do you know what I wonder even more?”

Margot tried not to show any emotion and tried to stand perfectly still. She shook her head.

“I wonder,” he said softly as his palm glided across her shoulder, to the back of her neck and to the other shoulder, “what has made you so miraculously eager to return to me that you’d no’ send a messenger.” His hands closed around her shoulders, and he leaned down and kissed her neck.

A sudden heat rushed through her.

“No’ a bloody word of warning. The only party who might arrive here at Balhaire without sending word is the English army. Tell me, Margot—is there an English army lying in wait in the hills?” he asked, and licked the spot on her neck behind her earlobe.

The sensation of his tongue against her skin glittered in every nerve. She grabbed a fistful of her gown in an attempt to steady herself. “That’s ridiculous,” she said, her voice unsteady. “Perhaps I misjudged you.” She closed her eyes as his lips moved on her skin. “I thought you’d want to reconcile.”

“With you?” He laughed coldly. “With a woman who has betrayed me? You’re no’ a stupid lass, Margot. You’ve no misjudged a bloody thing,” he said against her neck, and deftly removed the goblet from her hand and put it aside on a table as he continued his mouth’s exploration of her nape. “As much as it amuses me to hear it, I donna believe you’ve thought of me at all, except perhaps to wonder when your next purse would arrive from Scotland.” He slid his hand around to her breast and roughly squeezed it. “Is that no’ so?”

Margot’s lips parted with the sharp intake of her breath. His rough handling of her was causing the heat in her to rise and bloom in her skin. “That is not so,” she said, trying futilely not to sound as breathless as she felt in his arms.

Arran grabbed her waist and twirled her around to face him. “Donna lie to me,” he said, and clasped her head in his enormous hands and kissed her. It was a hard kiss, one full of frustration. He kissed her in a way he had never kissed her before, his tongue tangling hotly with hers, his teeth grazing her lips.

Margot tumbled off some interior ledge. She wasn’t prepared for this, would have said it impossible—but his rough wooing was invoking a fiery response in her. She panicked and pushed hard against his chest. She had to control this between them. She had to keep her wits about her. “Unhand me,” she said roughly.

That did nothing to stop him; in fact, his eyes fired with the challenge. “You’re still my wife. That you canna change. Thank your stars I’ve no’ locked you away just yet.”

Her heart leaped painfully. That would be the utter end of her, to be sent back here, only to be locked away. Margot tried to walk out of his arms, but Arran pushed her up against the wall. When she freed herself, he grabbed both her hands and lifted them over her head, pinning them to the wall with one hand. He held her there, his gaze greedily scraping over her, studying her, as if reacquainting himself with every inch of her body.

She hated how quickly his stark gaze aroused her. It was so virile, so full of lust. This man was a far cry from the one who had so tenderly initiated her into lovemaking. “You’re a beast,” she breathed.

“You donna know the half of it,” he bit out, and dipped his head to kiss her. Margot stubbornly turned her head, but Arran was not deterred—he lightly bit the swell of her breast above the bodice of her gown, and she gasped with pleasure. “Is this no’ what you want, then?” His breath was hot on her skin. “To show me just how much you missed your poor, dear husband, the damn fool you left behind?”

Her pulse soared with fear, with want. “I would prefer a gentler reunion,” she lied.

“Then you might have taken a gentler leave of me,” he snapped, and pressed his body against hers.

She could feel all of him—the hard plane of his abdomen and muscular legs, his enormous erection. Margot was losing herself in the sensation of his hands and mouth on her. She closed her eyes and tried to drag air into her lungs, alarmed by how badly she wanted him, however he would have her—in his bed, or on her knees. “Are you such an animal that you would force yourself on me?” she demanded, desperate to stop herself from giving in completely.

“Are you such a witch that you would have me stop?” he breathed into her neck before biting her ear as he pressed his erection against her.

His sensual assault was intoxicating and exhilarating, an explosion of light and color and scents that were dangerously arousing. “Yes. I want you to stop,” she hissed.

Arran abruptly hiked her skirt and slipped his hand between her legs. Margot was wet. He pressed his mouth against her cheek and whispered, “Liar.”

“You’re insufferable,” she breathed, turning her head to him now, her mouth only a breath from his. “A wild beast of a man, rutting on his wife because his pride has been wounded.”

“Aye, I am wild with anger, that I willna deny. But I know that no matter what else has gone between us, you’ve always wanted me. At times rather desperately, aye? Just as you do now.” He slipped his fingers into her body.

She couldn’t suppress a gasp of pure desire. “You have mistaken boredom for want,” she said breathlessly, and tried to kiss him, but Arran, still holding her hands above her head, jerked back, just out of her reach, removing his hand from between her legs.

He grinned at her expression of fury. “You’re a moment from seeing the back of my hand, so donna sweet-talk me, leannan.”

Oh, that word, that word! It had always dripped down her spine like warm honey, and he knew it, too, the bloody bounder. She couldn’t even say what it meant, precisely, but it was the endearment he had used with her in this very room. “Take your hands from me,” she said. “You’re filthy and you’re half-drunk.”

He pressed against her again, roughly cupped her face with his free hand. “My clothes are soiled, but they’ll come off soon enough. I’m only pleasantly drunk, no’ enough to interfere with my husbandly duty.” He silenced her attempt to argue with a kiss. This time, a sweetly tender kiss.

And Margot disintegrated.

Everything in her surrendered. He tasted like ale and spice, smelled musky and powerful. Her blood stirred violently in her as he yanked the pins from her hair, let one long tress fall after the other. He claimed her breast with his hand once more, kneading it through the fabric of her gown, his thumb flicking over her hardened nipple.

Arran let go of her hands and slipped one arm around her waist. Lost in the moment between them, Margot let her hands fall to his shoulders as he kissed her and, lifting her off her feet, twirled her away from the wall and stalked across the room to his bed with her. He tossed her down, rolled her over and yanked at the laces of her gown at her back.

She wanted to feel him inside her once more. It felt to Margot as if their estrangement was shedding away from them and an unholy, improbable passion was rising up in its place. He roughly pulled her dress from her, then her stays, then slipped his arm under her belly and effortlessly flipped her onto her back. He pinned her there with his body as his hands freely roamed her, slipping under the silk of her chemise, rough and warm and searching.

His weight was familiar, but his manner was not one she’d ever known. He was wild with lust, wild with anger, and even though he was touching her, he was grunting as if it pained him. His coarse behavior with her was so arousing that Margot was disappearing into nothing but sensation as his hands and mouth moved over her. Her hands sought his flesh. Her mouth sought his. She forgot why she’d come. She forgot everything but the need to have him inside her.

When he pushed her chemise over her head and put his mouth to her breast, to her abdomen and between her legs, Margot groaned with desire, dragging her fingers over his buttocks and his back as he kicked free of his boots and buckskins. He incited a fire the moment he thrust into her, thick and hard, and carried her away on a cloud of physical pleasure so intense that it clawed at her throat, releasing in a soft growl of delight.

They were moving together, his breath hot in her hair. They were each of them desperate to have that primal release of ecstasy...

But then Arran did something Margot did not anticipate in that frenetic coupling—he stroked her face. It was a clumsy stroke at that, as one might try to caress a moving child. But she knew instantly it was a caress of true affection. It startled her; she opened her eyes and looked up at him, wide-eyed.

Arran stopped moving. He gritted his teeth as if he was holding himself back. “Turn your head.”

“Pardon?”

“Turn your head,” he said, and pushed her face away from him, so that she was looking now at the windows. She felt his scorching gaze on her as he began to move in her again.

Margot’s heart was racing dangerously hard. She was confused and inflamed, suspended between wild desire and the realization that he did not want to see her face. Something in her womb fluttered. A rush of breath escaped her. Her body simmered with the touch of his hands and the stroke of his body, her heart racing too far ahead of her thoughts. She was losing the game already; she was no match for him. He knew how to make her mewl, cry out, laugh. He could ask her anything now and, with a stroke of his tongue, force the answer from her.

And all he wanted from her was that she turn her head. Don’t look at him, she commanded herself. Don’t show him your face.

His arousal pressed hard and long into her, and the prurient sensations unfurling in her body numbed her to her misgivings. She tangled her fingers in his hair, scraped her hands across his shoulders and the muscles in his back, moving with him. She burned everywhere he touched and slid deeper into that fog of pleasure.

When he slipped his hand between them and began to stroke her in time to his body sliding inside her, Margot arched into him. She groped for an anchor, her hand hitting a bedside table. She heard something clatter to the ground as she surged up on that pitch to the release of intolerable pleasure.

Arran growled, thrusting hard into her as his own release came.

For several moments afterward, neither of them moved. Both of them sucked air into their lungs until Arran slowly rolled off her and onto the bed beside her.

Margot was stunned. She swallowed hard, then pushed herself up and gathered the bedclothes around her naked body.

Arran had no such bashfulness. He lay sprawled on his belly, one arm hanging off the bed, his face turned away from her. She admired his physique, made hard and lean by his youthful thirty years and his lust for life. She had long appreciated his good looks and his strength, and had felt that flame of attraction from their first meeting when he appeared at Norwood Park with hair that was too long and muddied boots.

Yes, the spark had always been there. But the marriage had been wrong. Surely, in his heart of hearts, he knew that was true.

Margot leaned over him now. His hair had come undone from its queue. She could see a nick or two in his skin, as well. Fresh scars, undoubtedly earned in training his men for war. That was part of their marriage bargain—he would provide the renowned Highland soldiers for the British army. He would have lands in England, and she would have lands in Scotland, belonging to each of them outright. He was made a baron, too, and she...she was made the chattel by which two men had feathered their nests. She was the shiny bauble that had brought Mackenzie to the bargaining table.

How could such a glorious specimen of a man be a traitor? She touched one of the scars.

Arran instantly pushed himself up, coming off the bed. He ignored her and walked to the hearth, squatting down to build a fire. When he finished, he refilled his goblet and drank thirstily. He glanced at her over his shoulder, quite at ease with his nudity. But his hand, she noticed, was gripping the goblet. “Why?” he asked gruffly.

It was curious how two people, separated longer than they’d been together, could still understand one another. Margot knew very well that he was asking why she’d left. “You know why.”

“Was I unkind, then?” he asked impatiently. “Did I mistreat you?”

Margot sighed wearily. Her reasons had felt so sharp and urgent at the time, but had dulled with the years. “Not unkind. Indifferent. We were so different, you and I.”

He stared down at her for a moment, then looked away. “Aye. We still are.”

“You had no use for me, Arran.”

“No use for you? Was it no’ enough that you were mistress of all this?” he asked, gesturing around him.

“In name only,” she said. “I had no society, no friends.”

“Only because you’d not allow it,” he countered. “There are women in my clan who would have befriended you with the slightest bit of encouragement, aye?”

“That’s not true,” she said. “I tried to make Balhaire what I thought it ought to be, but they resisted me at every turn.”

“You wanted to do things in an English way.”

“What other way could I possibly have done them? I am English.”

He looked away, to the windows. “My own cousin Griselda was your friend.”

“Griselda!” Griselda Mackenzie was quite possibly the most unpleasant person Margot had ever met in her life. “She could scarcely tolerate me! She hated me for being English—you know that is true. Can you not see that you had what you wanted from our marriage, but I had nothing? I was miserable, Arran.”

“What I wanted,” he repeated. “Pray tell me, what the bloody hell did I want?”

Margot snorted and pushed her hair from her face. “The barony. Entry into England. Power, like every man before you and after you and around you now.”

Arran merely shrugged. “Aye, it’s what every man wants. But did you no’ want the same? Did you no’ want your own lands and a title, and all the trappings that come with it?”

“No,” she said, appalled. “I wanted a good match. A companion. I wanted a husband who wasn’t gone all day every day. I wanted someone who cared for finer things, who would take tea with me, perhaps bring me to Edinburgh—”

“This is the Highlands of Scotland, aye? No’ a bloody London or Paris salon.”

Margot could feel her hackles rising and checked herself. “You’re right. But that was the crux of it—I needed a more civilized existence.”

“Mind your mouth, woman,” he said, looking genuinely offended.

“You came to my chamber fresh from the hunt with blood on your shirt!”

“Aye, and I took it off!” he shouted. “Do you think it was easy to be wed to you?”

“Me!”

“Oh, aye, little lamb, you,” he said, pointing a finger at her. “You were so timid and disdainful of everything. Haughty! Aye, you were a haughty one,” he said, flicking his wrist at her. “Nothing was good enough for milady, was it?”

Margot looked away. There was some truth to that, she couldn’t deny it. She’d been angry she’d been forced to marry him, so determined to find fault with him and Balhaire. “I was so young, Arran. So inexperienced.”

“You were definitely that,” he curtly agreed.

She glanced at him sidelong. He was pacing now, dragging his hand through his long, unruly hair. “Why didn’t you come after me?” she asked softly.

Arran slowly turned to look at her for a long moment, his jaw clenched. “Because I donna chase after dogs or women. They come to me.”

Margot’s gut clenched. She could almost feel herself shrink and averted her gaze. “What a lovely sentiment.”

“I have my pride, woman.” He threw back the coverlet and got back in the bed.

“And I pierced it. So there you have it,” she said, drawing her knees up to her chest. “The only thing that ever truly existed between us was in this bed. It was the only place where we could agree.”

“The hell we agreed here,” he spat. “It is your duty to provide me an heir,” he said, bending his arm behind his head to pillow it. “And the last time I looked about, I have none.”

“I was to be your broodmare, is that it? Of course—I was bartered like one.”

“You came of your own free will!”

“My own free will! I had no choice, and well you know it.”

“Did I kidnap you and carry you off? We met twice before the nuptials, Margot. By God, if you’d had a doubt of it, you might have expressed it to me then.”

“We met two times!” She laughed at the absurdity of it. “Yes, of course, a sum total of two meetings is quite sufficient to determine compatibility for the rest of one’s life. Whatever made me think otherwise? I had to have reason to cry off, but I scarcely knew you at all.”

“What did you want, then, a bloody courtship?”

“Yes!”

Arran suddenly bolted up and over her, pinning her down with his body, his gaze dark and locked with hers. “If you found me and Balhaire so objectionable, why in hell have you now returned?”

Margot held his gaze just as fiercely. “I told you,” she said calmly. “Perhaps I’ve not given our marriage its due. I should like to try again.”

“Donna ever lie to me, Margot Mackenzie, do you hear me now?” he breathed hotly. “You will no’ like what will come of it if you do.” His eyes moved hungrily down her body. He bent his head and took her breast in his mouth, teasing it a moment before lifting his gaze to hers once more. “Never lie to me, aye? Am I clear?”

His blue eyes were two bits of hard ice, and Margot was terrified to feel her face coloring with her deceit. Could he see it? “Yes,” she said. She was lying to him now! Fate had made her a despicable liar.

Arran grunted. He kissed her belly, pushed aside the bed linens and moved down between her legs, his tongue and mouth on her sex, and Margot felt herself sinking once more. “Are you lying to me now, leannan?”

God help her, he’d seen the deceit in her. She knew it. But his tongue slid over her again, long and slow, and he looked up once more, expecting an answer. The gentle lover she’d first known was gone, and this wolf—this brazen, alluring, dangerous wolf—was in his place. “No,” she lied, and closed her eyes, giving herself up to the wolf’s attentions once more.

CHAPTER FOUR

Balhaire

1706

ARRAN COULDN’T UNDERSTAND HER. She had everything she might possibly want, and yet she cried.

Jock, Griselda’s brother, said Arran should simply command her to stop crying. Jock’s father agreed.

“How am I to do that, then?” Arran asked impatiently. “You canna simply command a woman to cease her tears.”

“You take a strap to her, that’s how,” said Uncle Ivor.

Arran blanched. “Never,” he’d said thunderously, “and God help me if you’ve taken a strap to Aunt Lilleas!”

“’Course I’ve no’,” Uncle Ivor thundered right back, appalled. “She’d skin me like a hare if I had as much as a fleeting thought of it.”

Arran didn’t understand his uncle, either.

The three men fell silent, thinking about women.

Uncle Ivor suddenly surged forward and slapped the table. “Diah, why’d I no’ think of it before? It’s her courses!” he said, casting his arms wide as if all the mysteries of the world had just been solved. “Women are like beasties when they have their courses, aye? Put a child in her, Arran. That will put it to rights.”

Jock snorted. “Molly Mackenzie sobbed buckets of tears when she was with child. Putting a child in Lady Mackenzie will help nary a thing.”

“What do you know of it?” Uncle Ivor challenged his son. “You’ve no’ looked at a lass all summer.”

“I’ve looked!” Jock protested, his ruddy cheeks turning slightly ruddier. “I’ve been a wee bit occupied, have I no’, with the expansion of our trade.”

While Uncle Ivor and Jock argued about whether or not Jock had sufficiently perused the unmarried lasses of Balhaire, Arran brooded. The truth—which he would never admit aloud, certainly not to these men—was that he felt quite a failure for not knowing how to make his wife happy. It was a dilemma that he’d not given much thought before Norwood had presented an alliance through marriage to him.

He’d been surprised by the agent who had come on Norwood’s behalf, but then again, with the union of Scotland and England upon them, men on both sides of the border were scrambling to take advantage of opportunities. There was no doubt that a match with the heiress Margot Armstrong of Norwood Park was one of great advantage for Arran and his clan.

Even so, Arran had not been convinced of it until he’d laid eyes on her. He would never forget that moment—auburn hair, mossy-green eyes, and little paper birds, of all things, in her hair. Arran had traveled in his time, had seen women and their dressing—but he had not seen a beauty quite like Margot, and that was all he’d really needed. Lamentably, his cock had been so convinced of the efficacy of the match that his head had never imagined it would be such work to make her accept Balhaire as her home.

When it was clear Jock and Uncle Ivor would be no help to him, Arran later appealed to Griselda for help.

She was even less helpful. “Why do you ask me, then?” she’d snapped at him. “’Twas no’ my doing to bring a dainty English buttercup to Balhaire.”

Griselda did not care for buttercups, he surmised. “You might befriend her,” he pointed out. “You’ve no’ been particularly welcoming, aye?”

Griselda shrugged and picked at a loose thread in her sleeve. “Aye, perhaps no’. But I tried to make amends!” she added quickly. “I invited her to join in my falconry, and she acted as if I’d invited her to run bare through the woods!”

“Please, Zelda,” Arran pleaded.

Griselda moaned to the ceiling. “Aye, all right. For you, Arran, I will try again.”

True to her word, Griselda came back a day later, sat down beside him in the great hall and said, “Your wife wants society. Bloody English, that’s all they think of—society.”

Arran had no idea what the English thought about, but no matter—he was confused by it. “Here is our society,” he said, gesturing around them to his large extended family.

“Proper society, Arran. A celebration, a ball. Where she might display her jewels and whatno’,” Griselda said, gesturing to her chest uncertainly. Griselda had never been a fancy lass. Griselda liked to ride and hunt and wager on cards. She’d never thought of balls as far as Arran knew.

Moreover, he was quite certain there had never been a ball at Balhaire. But if that’s what would make Margot happy, he was more than happy to oblige her. He decreed that a ball would be held to welcome Lady Mackenzie to Balhaire and the Mackenzie clan, and frankly, the idea was so grand that he wondered why he’d not thought of it before.

Margot seemed rather excited about it. “A ball? For me?” she’d asked him excitedly, her eyes sparkling with delight.

“Aye, for you,” he said proudly. They were seated in the morning room, she with some sort of needlepoint, and he lacing spurs to his boots.

“Arran...thank you,” she said, putting down her work. “That is precisely what I need! A ball,” she said dreamily. “We might invite your neighbors, won’t we? And we’ll have marzipan cakes.”

“Marzipan,” he repeated uncertainly. He wondered if Aunt Lilleas knew how to make them.

“No matter. We can do without the cakes. But we must have champagne and ices, of course.”

Arran had no idea where he would get either champagne or ices, and he had almost said so. But Margot leaped to her feet, threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek, surprising the life out of him. “Thank you!”

He decided then and there he would find champagne and ices.

Great preparations were made for the ball. The rush torches were changed out. Carpets were beaten. The tables where his clan took their meals were pushed back against the wall, and proper musicians were hired from Inverness. The clan was instructed to wear their finest clothing.

Margot surprised Arran again one afternoon by inviting him into the rooms she’d taken at the top of the old tower—as far from the newer master’s chambers as she could possibly be. He’d trekked across the breadth of Balhaire to sit in her dressing room to help her select the gown she would wear to the ball.

“What do you think of this?” she asked, holding up a scarlet gown to her.

“Aye, it’s bonny,” he said. He was far more interested in her skin. It was glowing.

“Do you like it more or less than this one?” she asked, and held up a gown of pale blue silk with tiny seed pearls sewed along the hem and sleeves.

“Bonny, the both of them, aye,” he agreed.

Margot’s brow creased. She stood studying the wardrobe. She pulled out another gown that, quite honestly, looked like the others. The only difference was that it was a forest green. She looked at Arran, then at the gown. “What do you think?”

He thought she ought to choose a color and be done with it. They were all the same to his undiscerning eye. He shrugged. “Bonny,” he said again.

Margot sighed with irritation. “Will you not help me? I haven’t the least idea which to wear. Which one suits? And please, for God’s sake, don’t say bonny.”

“What will you have me say, then?” he asked, confused. “All of them are...boidheach.”

Big green eyes blinked back at him. “I don’t know what that means!”

“It means...bonny,” he said helplessly.

Margot groaned to the ceiling. “Will you please choose one?”

“All right. I choose the red one,” he said, pointing to the first one she had discarded across her daybed.

Margot looked at the scarlet one. She frowned. She looked at the forest green one she held. “Not this one?”

“Ach, I canna help you,” Arran said, and stood up, striding across her dressing room. “Wear what you like, Margot. They’re all bloody well bonny!” He strode out the door, frustrated that he’d walked all the way here to be tormented in such a way. He was a laird, for God’s sake. He had no business choosing gowns.

But the excitement in and around Balhaire was infectious, all the same. Mackenzies were suddenly taking airs, concerned about ghillie brogues and sporrans and the like. On the night of the ball, Arran dressed in the tradition of plaids and formal coats. He went to Margot’s dressing room and entered without knocking. She’d complained of that, too, by the by, and thought he ought to be announced in his own bloody house before he entered. He maintained if he would be made to march halfway across the Highlands to see her, he’d enter as he pleased.

This time, though, he was instantly brought to a halt. His wife, his beautiful wife, was dressed in the dark green silk gown with seed pearls interspersed between red crystals in a display of spirals and curls across the stomacher. Her hair was styled in a towering pile of auburn, with more seed pearls threaded into her hair. She looked regal and beautiful, and he was overwhelmed with a rush of prideful affection that made him feel warm in his coat. “Margot,” he said. “Diah, but you are bonny, aye? You bring to mind a noble queen.”

She beamed with delight at him, and her smile filled him up with pleasurable warmth. “A queen. That’s very kind of you to say,” she said, blushing, and curtsied grandly. “Thank you. What do you think of this?” she asked, and laid her fingers across a strand of pearls that looped twice around her throat, and from which hung a ruby that brushed the swell of her breasts above her stays. “I’m not certain of it. Nell said it was perfect, but I thought it might be too ornate.”

“Lass...you’re a vision. You are perfect.” He bowed formally and held out his hand to her. She smiled and put her hand in his. She was happy. Quite happy. Arran thought that perhaps things would turn now, that this was what was needed to make her feel at home here.

He was, at last, giving her what she wanted.

The walked down to the great hall together, Arran assuring her the champagne had come. A hush fell over the great hall when they entered. Arran was proud—his clansmen seemed as taken with Margot and her attire as she was with the changes in this room. He could see them all studying her, could see women glance down at their best gowns and could imagine them finding the garments wanting. Was that not the way it should be? Should not the lady of the house be dressed in the finest? Nevertheless, he was proud of his people, too—they’d all dressed for the occasion. Plaids were cleaned and pressed, and the ladies’ gowns a sea of color.

But none of them had styled their hair as Margot had. None of them wore jewels glittering at their throats. None of them had seed pearls embroidered into their stomachers.

Margot’s grip of his arm tightened. “They’re wearing the plaid,” she whispered.

“Aye.”

“But...” She glanced up at iron candle rings above the hall.

“The candles are beeswax,” he bragged.

Her gaze moved to the tartan draperies he’d ordered hung over the windows so her view was not that of the bailey. He’d even had the dogs taken down to the kitchens tonight so they’d not be underfoot for the dancing.

“Come,” Arran said. He had to tug her a little, but Margot came with him across the great hall. She smiled at the Mackenzies and politely thanked them for attending. When they reached the dais, Arran seated her in an upholstered chair and motioned Fergus to come forward. “Champagne for milady,” he said. “Whisky for me.” Then he sat beside her, took her hand in his and asked warmly, “What do you think, then, wife? Here is your society,” he said proudly, sweeping his arm to the many souls gathered in the hall.

“My society?”

“Aye. It’s what you’ve wanted, it is no’? Society.”

She looked at him as if he were speaking Gaelic. “Yes, but...where are your neighbors?”

“My neighbors?” He laughed. “These are my neighbors.”

She seemed oddly disappointed by that. But she smiled again when Fergus served her champagne in a crystal flute, and asked excitedly, “When will the dancing begin?”

“Now.” He signaled the musicians, and they began with a familiar jig.

Griselda, he noticed, was the first one to stand up with her current suitor.

“Would you like—”

“No, no...let them begin. We’ll dance the next set, shall we?” She smiled and sipped her champagne.

The floor was quickly full of dancers, and they began in earnest, kicking up their heels in true Scots fashion, the voices around them rising with the gaiety of the occasion. They’d gone down the line once, and Arran looked to Margot to see her enjoyment.

But Margot didn’t look as if she was enjoying it at all. She looked dismayed. “What is wrong?” he asked.

She turned her gaze to him, and he was surprised by the terror in her eyes. “Nell and I practiced all week.”

Arran laughed. “You donna need a lot of practice for this,” he said, and stood up. “Lady Mackenzie, will you dance with me, then?”

“No,” she said immediately. “No, I can’t.”

“Margot—”

“Please don’t ask me again, Arran. I won’t dance.”

She stood up and hurried off the dais, disappearing into the crowd.

Arran slowly resumed his seat, bewildered. What had just happened?

It was a quarter of an hour before she came back, coming up the dais steps as if she were trudging to her doom. She took her seat and stared straight ahead, her hands curled tightly on the arms.

All around them, Mackenzies were dancing and shouting in their tongue, drinking ale—they did not seem to care for the champagne he’d had brought in from England for a dear price—and calling up to the laird and lady their felicitations on their marriage. Margot said nothing. She did not smile, did not nod, did nothing to acknowledge them.

Arran grew angry with her. He didn’t understand her sullen behavior, her refusal to dance when she’d seemed so excited by the prospect. When he could bear it no more, he stood up and walked off the dais, and asked a lass to dance with him.

He didn’t know how many sets he spun through, but he drank and laughed and enjoyed himself. He would not sit on the dais with his sullen bride.

When he at last looked to the dais, he was not surprised to see she’d gone.

Fueled by whisky and humiliation, he went in search of her. He found her in her bed. Margot’s beautiful dress was lying in a heap on the floor, and the pieces of hair she’d used to arrange her coif were thrown onto her dressing table. He sent the maid scurrying.

“What is the matter with you, then?” he demanded.

She sat up and stared at him. “Is it not obvious?”

“Obvious?” he exclaimed hotly. “There is no’ a bloody thing obvious about you, Margot. I gave a ball for you, and here you are, crying into your pillow like a child!”

“I’m not crying into my pillow. I am plotting my escape!”

“You want to escape?” He threw open the door and gestured to it. “Go. Escape.” When she did not move, he slammed the door shut and heard the sound of it reverberating down the stairs.

“You canna imagine the effort it has taken to give you this ball—”

“That wasn’t a ball!” she cried, and suddenly swung out of the bed, stalking to her vanity. “That was just another night in your great hall!”

“Diah, but you are a petulant child, are you no’? Those people came to celebrate your marriage, and what do you do, then? You sulk and mope and then flee like a rabbit instead of welcoming them as you ought as lady of this house and clan!”

She slammed down the hairbrush she’d just picked up. “I tried to greet them, but they speak in that awful language! Not one of them wore a ball gown or a proper evening coat. It was all plaid! They wouldn’t drink the champagne, and dear God, the dancing!” she exclaimed, shaking her hands to the ceiling.

“You wanted dancing!”

“Not that sort of dancing! I’ve never seen anything like it!”

“You hate it all, is that it?”

She gasped and looked at him. “No, that’s not—I never said that.”

“You didna say it, Margot, but it is in your every move, your every glance, your every look! You are—”

He caught himself. He ran both hands over his head and sighed.

“What? What am I?” she demanded, folding her arms tightly. Defensively.

“Bloody impossible, aye?”

“So are you. And this place.”

“Diah, what is wrong?” he roared to the rafters. “I canna put it to rights if you willna tell me what it is.”

Margot stared at him. She seemed to be debating what she would say. She rubbed her nape and said, “Frankly, I’m a poor dancer and I don’t know—”

He snorted.

Her face darkened. “You asked, didn’t you?”

“For all that is holy, I donna know how to please you,” he said coldly.

“And I don’t know how to please you,” she snapped.

Her tone undid Arran—he strode forward, caught her by the arm and whirled her around. “Enough of playing the wounded lass, Margot. We are married, we are, and you may as well learn to live with it as fight it, aye? You are a Scot now.”

“Never,” she said defiantly.

Her eyes were glittering in the low light. Her hair fell wildly about her shoulders. It was funny in a strange way—Arran had always thought himself full of might, capable of anything. But he was a very weak man when it came to Margot. She was wretched and haughty, and yet he could see her youth and the abject vulnerability in her eyes.

He cupped her face with his hand, stroked her cheek. “I’m asking...no, I’m begging you. Donna make this harder than it is, aye?”

There it was, a single tear sliding from the corner of her eye. “I can’t possibly make it any harder than it is,” she muttered, and closed her eyes and lifted her face to him.

Arran, confused as he always was by her, kissed her. He drew her to the bed, removed her clothes, covered her body in kisses. And as he sank between her thighs and she drew up her knees and curled her fists in his hair, gasping with pleasure at what his tongue was doing to her, he thought that at least they had this. If nothing else, they had this.