The quiet, ragged pain in her voice struck him harder than any angry accusation could have. Lilly moved restlessly between them, feeling the stiff tension in the arms that held her. Margaret tightened her embrace around the child, pulling her close without once breaking her gaze from his face.
"I stand beside ye," she said.
The words trembled just a little, only a small amount. It wasn't weakness; it was the sound of a deep, held-back emotion being controlled by sheer force of will.
"I have stood beside ye since the very moment I came north. Through the hostile clan meetin's, where they looked at me like a stranger. Through the winter storms. Through every difficult, cold thing ye placed before me." Her throat moved as she swallowed hard. "And still... still ye look at me as though I am somethin' pullin' ye away from yerself, instead of somethin' helpin' ye hold together."
Fergus felt the truth of her words cut through his anger. It was strong enough, deep enough, to make him want to dismount and take back what he said, to press his mouth to hers and beg her toforget them. But fear and stubborn Highland pride had already tangled inside his chest, forming a tight knot he couldn't undo in the face of danger.
"Stay here," he said instead, his face hardening into an impenetrable mask. "This is nae for ye."
The second the words left his mouth, he knew he had gone too far.
Because Margaret's face changed instantly. Not dramatically. There were no sudden tears, no sharp intake of breath, no furious shouting. It was something far quieter. More devastating.
Fergus felt a sudden, icy cold wash over his skin, despite the waves of heat rolling across the gravel yard from the west.
Margaret looked at him for one long, unbearable moment, her gaze cutting straight through his armor to the cowardice beneath it. Then, she nodded once. It was a tiny, controlled movement of her chin.
"Of course," she said softly.
The softness of her voice hurt worst of all. It carried the weight of a door closing.
Lilly made a small, distressed sound between them, her tiny hand clutching at Margaret's collar. Margaret turned awaybefore he could speak another word, before he could attempt to fix what he had shattered. There was no further argument. No fight left in her. That silence frightened him more than any rebellion would have.
She walked back toward the open doors of the keep, carrying Lilly against her shoulder. Her spine was perfectly, flawlessly straight, her head held high in the torchlight.
Fergus watched her go, his knuckles turning white where he gripped the leather reins.
Something deep inside his soul screamed at him to stop her. To swing down from the saddle, go after her into the hall, and explain the terror that had driven him to speak so brutally. But another loud shout rose from beyond the western ridge, followed by a violent flare of orange light that painted the stone walls of his castle in the color of blood.
Duty closed around him again like an iron shackle.
Alasdair rode toward him through the swirling smoke, his stallion frothing at the bit. "We need to move now, Fergus! The flames are hittin' the timber line!"
Fergus tore his eyes away from the empty stone steps of the keep. "Aye."
He turned his bay stallion sharply toward the open gates, digging his spurs in. The men gathered behind themimmediately, a dark column of horses and sweat. Torches flared against the darkness; axes and iron buckets swung from the sides of the saddles. The smell of burning pine and heather thickened with every passing second, choking the night.
As they rode out through the massive iron gates and descended the steep hill, Fergus looked back once. Only once.
Margaret stood at the very top of the keep steps, illuminated by the flickering light of the wall torch. She still held Lilly and watched him ride away. He was now too far to clearly read her face through the rising haze, but he sensed the distance anyway. It felt like a vast, terrifying chasm opening between them, expanding with every stride of his horse.
Then Alasdair urged his black mount forward into a gallop, and the sight of her was swallowed by the dark.
The land beyond the keep glowed a bright, hellish red under the smoke-filled sky. They rode quickly toward it. Toward the roaring fire. Toward the dry fields. Toward everything Fergus believed he was still solely responsible for holding together.
And all the while, Margaret's terrible, quiet silence followed him through the dark like an open wound he could not yet bring himself to touch.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Margaret did not cry.
Not when the heavy iron-studded gates slammed shut behind Fergus. Not when the thundering drum of horse hooves dissolved into the thick, smoke-laden dark beyond the high ridge. Not even when the gravel courtyard slowly emptied around her piece by piece, the terrifying urgency of the fire pulling every able-bodied man and woman outward.
She simply stood frozen beneath the flickering, orange glare of the wall torch. She held Lilly pressed so tightly against her chest that she could feel the tiny, rhythmic thump of the babe's heart through the damp wool of her shift.
Ye are a distraction to me.
