“Then let us go home,” Pegeen begged.
Maggie rose to her feet. “Do you truly wish to go back home and hand the swords to your husbands and sons as they head off to battle to die?”
The women grew silent.
Maggie nodded. “‘Tis what I thought.”
“But Maggie,” Edna said, “what if they refuse to end this? How much longer are we to wait? I have a garden to tend and berries to preserve for winter. Soon, we’ll have waited an entire month here while our work and families go neglected. At what point do we surrender?”
“Aye!” Merry chimed in again. “All of us know how obstinate men are. They’d sooner set fire to the kirk than admit they’re wrong.”
“What if they do come after us?” another woman asked. “How long will they wait before they punish us for this?”
Maggie closed her eyes in frustration as the women voiced her own concerns and questions. Questions to which she had absolutely no answers.
When she’d started all this, she had never anticipated the daily fights she would have to keep the women on her side.
How could they not see what she herself saw?
“It will end before much longer.” Maggie’s stomach drew tight as she remembered Braden’s deadline. God help her then, for she was sure the other women would go home relatively unscathed, but there was no telling what the men would do to her over this.
“When?” Edna asked.
“Soon. I’m just asking all of you to trust me for a few more days.”
Edna pierced her with a glare. “My trust is wearing thin, lass.”
Maggie could appreciate that, since her own patience had stretched so thin it was close to breaking. “Give me a few more days to see what I can do.”
“All right.” Pegeen moved back to her seat next to Edna. “But don’t you be asking for much more than that. I have a home to see to.”
Maggie nodded, her heart heavy. Saints help her, she had no idea how to conclude this.
What she needed was help.
She searched through her mind, but only one possibility came to her.
As much as she hated to admit it, she needed Braden. He was the only one she knew of who could find a possible solution. If ever there had been a man born to negotiate, Braden was he.
But it stuck in her craw that she would have to go begging an answer from the devil’s own. Even now, she could see that cocky walk of his. The arrogance.
He thought himself infallible and now she would have to play into his ego.
Still, she had no choice. Her brothers’ lives and those of the other clansmen depended on her.
Stiffening her resolve, she went to find the scoundrel rogue.
Five
Braden walked the well-worn path back to the kirk as he thought over what had happened and what he had left to do. The evening sun was just starting to set and if he weren’t so aggravated, it would be a peaceful, cool evening. The kind of evening best suited for finding a willing maid and passing the quiet hours of the night.
But tonight there would be no willing maid in his arms breathing sweet, blissful sighs in his ear.
Tonight, he would have to deal with Maggie. And worse, Maggie’s obstinacy, for he held little doubt what her response would be when he asked her, yet again, if she would surrender her women to Fergus and his bunch.
It would be as futile as asking the sun not to rise. Or the walls around him to breathe.
Clenching his teeth, Braden wanted to start knocking heads together. Was there no end to the frustration?
