Page 70 of Wild Wicked Scot
Arran began to shake his head, but Jock spoke quickly to him in Gaelic. Arran responded simply, in one word or two, sounding cold and firm.
Griselda must have echoed what her brother said, because Arran looked at her with impatience and said,“No!”
“What is it, what are you saying?” Margot pleaded.
The Mackenzies stopped talking and looked at her. She could feel their disgust. But she could also feel their need. They needed her.
Arran sighed. “Aye, Margot. You will speak to MacInernay and Lindsey.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
UNCLEIVORHADonce told Arran that there was nothing more dangerous to man than a woman. “No beast, no plague, no pestilence,” he’d said jovially from his perch on a rock as they’d stalked red deer. “Men live and die for them, lad. You’ll see what I mean when you’ve come of age, aye? The trick is to find a steady one and keep her close.”
Arran wished he had heeded his uncle’s advice. He was still reeling, his head spinning with rage and the unsatisfying vindication that he’d known all along Margot couldn’t be trusted. But that did not make the pain of it any less.
And here was his wife now, as bonny as a Scottish glen in springtime, explaining to two men who’d put their faith in him that she’d set these wheels in motion. That Thomas Dunn had been at Norwood Park.
It was difficult for her to say it all aloud, and it was difficult for Arran to hear it all again. As she spoke, he kept thinking of the letters he’d written her, his own private thoughts scratched out on vellum to help ease the pain he’d suffered when she’d left. She had deliberately broken into a locked cabinet and read them. She had broken the seals of his private torment and given those wounds air. She had violated him in the cruelest way possible, prying his thoughts from his heart.
Lindsey and MacInernay said nothing as Margot spoke. Her voice was clear, although it trembled from time to time. She kept her head up as she told them of the rumors that had been brought to her father. Of being dispatched to Balhaire to determine Arran’s guilt. She told them how she believed her father knew nothing of Tom Dunn’s scheme, and was as concerned for Arran’s head as he was his own.
When she had finished, she looked hopefully to Arran. As if that would appease him. As if she’d done something so right as to erase all the wrong.
Lindsey spoke first, in Gaelic, asking that Margot be sent from the room.
Arran didn’t hesitate. “Thank you, Margot. You may take your leave, then.”
“But...if there are questions, if I can help—”
“Go now,” he said, his tone firmer.
She bowed her head. She stood up from her perch on the chair, and he realized how small she looked in this room full of men. He had a fleeting image of her in the vast library at Norwood Park, a small figure in another room full of men as they sent her to do their loathsome deeds.
Margot curtsied, said good-night and went out without looking at him or Jock.
They had scarcely closed the door behind her when Lindsey said, “Norwood is behind it, I’d wager me life on it,” gesturing to the door Margot had just gone through. “He means to have Balhaire, aye? And Tom Dunn will profit from it, the dirty bastard.”
“No,”MacInernay said, disbelieving. “What sort of man would use his daughter so ill? Tom Dunn is an artful liar—he must be exposed, aye?”
“And how the bloody hell will we do that?” Lindsey demanded, tossing back a tot of whisky so violently that Arran was mildly surprised the small glass did not follow the liquid down his gullet. “The bounder is gone from Scotland, back to England, to the lords who trade their daughters only to betray them.”
“Youshould go,” Lindsay said, looking at Arran.
“And deliver my head to the queen?” Arran scoffed.
“If you stay behind at Balhaire, the Jacobites will hang you, aye? Tom Dunn has made his deal with the devil on both sides of the border. But if there is a chance Lady Mackenzie speaks true, and her father does no’ conspire with him—if he is as harmed by this as you—then he may be the only one who can save you now.”
“And if she’s wrong?” Jock asked.
Lindsay’s face darkened. “Then he’ll hang.”
A silence fell over the men. MacInernay drummed his fingers on the table. “Aye, ye’ve no choice, laird,” he agreed. “It will be worse for you and yours here if you donna clear your name.”
“But if you choose to go, Jock must stay behind,” Lindsey added.
“I willna—” Jock began to huff, but Lindsey wouldn’t hear it.
“Aye, Jock, ye must. There’s no one here to man the helm if the laird doesna come back,” Lindsey argued. “You’re the only one who can. Send an army with him if you must, but ye canna go.”
