Margaret looked up, her hazel eyes meeting her friend's dark ones.
"Ye came here to be his wife," Isobel said, her voice rising slightly, entirely kind but utterly unyielding. "Nae just Lilly's caregiver, though ye are magnificent at that. Nae just the Lady of this castle, though ye rule it well. His wife. And ye are still," She paused, letting the word sink in. "Ye are still sittin' in the dark, waitin' for him to finally see it."
The yard rang out one last time with the sharp clash of steel on steel. Neither woman looked toward the sound.
Margaret pressed her lips into a thin line, forcing herself to look past Isobel's shoulder at the distant defensive wall of the keep. She looked at the rough gray stone, the dark green moss growing in the deep mortar joints, and the flat afternoon light resting against the masonry. Her hands stayed tightly clasped. Her spine remained perfectly straight. She was standing completely still while something she had carefully kept managed and locked away all day began to stir inside her chest in a way that was utterly, painfully unmanageable.
"Be patient with him," Isobel said, her voice softening into a gentle plea. "He has been through far more than most men could bear. The sudden Lairdship, the horrific truth about what Kincaid did to his family, the elders' decree... all of it falling upon his shoulders at once."
Margaret was quiet for a moment.
"I have thought about the decree," she said. "More times than is useful." She looked at the distant wall. "The Mackenzie clan had been without a true Laird for years, a vacancy that left their land exposed and their alliances weakened. When Fergus's lineage was confirmed, the elders had a Laird, but nae a stable one. A man alone, newly titled, with enemies who still disputed his claim and a clan that was watchin' to see whether he would last the winter."
She paused. "A wife from the Campbell line meant an alliance, nae a powerful one, aye, me father is a minor landowner, but a visible one. It told the other clans that the MacKenzie Laird was established enough to have contracted a legitimate marriage. That he wasnae temporary."
"And on yer side?" Isobel asked, quietly.
"On me side." Margaret's jaw tightened slightly. "Me father received a favorable trade agreement with the MacKenzie eastern routes, and the honor of a daughter placed in a Laird's household. A small man given a large door to point to." She said it without bitterness, simply as the arithmetic of it, which was somehow worse than bitterness. "It wasnae a love match on paper. It wasnae meant to be. It was meant to be practical, and on paper, it was."
"And off paper?" Isobel asked.
Margaret looked across the yard.
"Off paper," she said softly, "is considerably more complicated."
She paused.
"I ken exactly what he's been through, Isobel."
"I ken ye do."
"I have been patient." Margaret's voice came out level and steady. She was intensely proud of that small mastery. "I have been patient, and I have been present, and I have set me terms, and he has kept them, more or less. And I have..." She stopped again, her breath shuddering.
She closed her eyes for the space of one heartbeat, inhaling the scent of the nearby stables and the fresh pine timber. "I am tryin', Isobel. I am tryin' with everythin' I have to give him exactly what he needs, and I am tryin' me hardest nae to need a single thing back that he isnae ready to give me. Most days, I manage it." She looked directly into her oldest friend's eyes, her gaze fracturing. "Most days."
Isobel said nothing. She did not try to fill the painful silence with hollow reassurances.
"And then some days," Margaret said, her voice dropping into a whisper that barely carried over the stones, "I think about the rest of me life. I think about what this hall will look like in five years, in ten. Whether it will still look exactly like this. Him on one side of a locked door and me on the other, and Lilly growin' up between us, wonderin' why her parents move around each other like two ghost ships that willnae ever dock."
She stopped speaking.
The bustling yard had suddenly gone quiet. She looked over instinctively and found that Fergus and Alasdair had finished their bout. They were standing together near the far weapons rack, wiped down with cloths, speaking in low, rumbling voices.
Fergus's broad back was turned to her. His dark hair was damp at the nape of his neck from the fierce exertion, his green-and-black plaid cast carelessly over one massive shoulder. Even at this distance, Margaret could read the specific anatomy of his posture. The controlled, heavy ease that always followed hard physical work, the one brief moment in a day when his body stopped holding itself for a tactical purpose and simply existed in the space.
She turned her face back to Isobel before he could turn around and catch her staring.
"This is your life," Isobel said, reaching out to grasp Margaret's wrists, forcing her to listen. "That is what I ken to be true. And ye must claim it. Nae only the small, safe part he chooses to offer ye when he feels guilty. All of it, Margaret. Even if he is too damn blind right now to see the woman standin' directly in front of his face."
Margaret smiled. It was a real smile this time. Small, a little frayed and worn at the edges, but genuine.
"He is very stubborn," she said.
"He is," Isobel agreed with immense feeling. "Alasdair says it is the most terrifyingly stubborn nature he has ever encountered in his life, and ye must remember that Alasdair has met himself."
Margaret laughed. It was shorter than she had intended and far more honest than she wanted it to be. Isobel placed her hand briefly on Margaret's forearm, her touch warm, certain, and grounding, before letting it drop.
Across the gravel yard, Alasdair whispered something quietly, and Fergus turned. He found her instantly. He always found her instantly, regardless of how crowded the hall was or how dark the corridor. Margaret had long since stopped being surprised by it, although she had not yet decided how to handle the weight of it.
