A quiet, breathless laugh escaped her. The vibration of it struck his chest. "It would take more than one moment to ruin me, Fergus."
Fergus lifted his head, looked at her, really looked, and suddenly realized he could spend the rest of his life learning the map of this woman and still find new things to want. The thought left him breathless.
He carefully lowered himself beside her at last, rolling onto his back, but kept her pressed close against his side, unwilling to break the skin-to-skin contact. Margaret instinctively settled into his side, her head resting on his shoulder, one leg tangled with his, as if she belonged there. The comfort of it felt strangely intimate—more intimate than the desire.
For one impossible moment, everything felt perfectly aligned. The woman in his arms. The warmth of her body pressed againsthim. The slow, steady rhythm of her breathing. The strange, terrifying peace settling deep in his chest.
Then a scream tore through the corridor.
Margaret jerked upright instantly, the linen sheet falling to her waist.
Fergus was already moving.
Lilly.
The child's cry came again, sharp, high, and panicked.
Margaret reached frantically for her shift while Fergus shoved himself out of bed, his bare feet slamming onto the cold stone floor. Every soldier's instinct turned toward the sound before conscious thought could even form.
Another cry split the quiet.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The world came back in broken, jagged pieces.
Lilly's frantic crying. Cold stone biting into the soles of his bare feet. Then, a distant, ragged shout somewhere in the courtyard below. Not the high, terrified shriek of a servant girl, but a deep, commanding alarm.
"Fire!"
Fergus froze for the space of a single heartbeat, his muscles turning to solid iron. Then, twenty years of ingrained soldier's reflex snapped hard into place. He moved immediately. He crossed the chamber in two massive strides, his hands sweeping down to gather his discarded clothes from the heavy oak chair near the hearth. Another frantic shout tore through the stone walls from the courtyard below, carried on a rising gust of wind.
Fire. Dear God.
His mind reached the brutal conclusion before the rest of him could even process the shock.
The bonfire.
After the evening's celebration, when the clan had toasted to the harvest and the repairs on the keep, he should have checked it himself. He should have stayed in the courtyard until the last ember was smothered under damp earth. He should have sent men to watch the ashes through the midnight hours, especially with the wind rising from the west as it had.
He had done none of it. Because he had come back up those stairs. Back to her.
Guilt struck him, heavy and sharp enough to hollow out his chest. There was no time for the weight of it. He dragged his heavy linen tunic over his head, his thick fingers rough and clumsy with urgency as he yanked the fabric down.
Behind him, Margaret was already moving.
Maisie quickly brought Lilly, and Margaret took her. She held Lilly tightly against her shoulder, her body swaying instinctively to soothe the screaming child while her free hand desperately tugged her white shift back over her bare breasts.
The sight hit him unexpectedly hard in the low light—the silver ribbons of moonlight, her disheveled, wild copper curls, their child—not theirs by blood, but somehow theirs in every waythat mattered—clinging to her desperately. Outside the safety of these thick stone walls, a hellish red fire was advancing toward his land.
Fergus shoved his leather boots on, barely taking the time to pull the straps tight through the iron buckles. Another frantic shout echoed through the keep, bouncing off the high rafters of the great hall below. Closer now.
"West field!"
His blood turned entirely cold in his veins. The western fields bordered the lower grazing lands, the thick bracken and heather dry as tinder this late in the summer. If the flames reached the long, parched grass with the gale behind them, the entire glen would burn before morning.
"Fergus." Margaret's voice stopped him just as his hand hit the iron ring of the door. He turned sharply.
She stood in the middle of the chamber, her spine perfectly straight, holding Lilly tightly against her chest. Her copper-honey curls fell loose and tangled around her pale shoulders, and her lips were still noticeably swollen and reddened from the demanding pressure of his kisses.
