Page 75 of Wild Wicked Scot
“I beg your pardon!”
Griselda began marching back to where Margot sat. Margot hopped up, uncertain if she’d have to fight this woman. “You’ll no’ come back, and neither will Arran. How can you no’ understand that is so?”
“Why would we not?” Margot demanded.
Griselda gaped at her. “They willarrestArran! The English will say he is a traitor and they will take him!”
“No, they won’t,” Margot said hotly. “That’s precisely why we are to England, Zelda. My father is an influential man. He would never allow it to happen.”
“He’s already allowed it to happen, aye?” Griselda said just as hotly. “Hehas cast all aspersions at Arran. He has said to you, and to anyone else who asks, that Arran is a traitor—”
“He would never!” Margot cried.
“—and he will make doubly sure Arran is arrested so no blame falls on his fair head, aye? And if, by some miracle, Arran might escape England, he could very well be murdered as he sleeps at Balhaire for all that they say of him now. The Highlanders call him traitor, too.”
Margot stared at Griselda, her thoughts churning, her heart sinking. “You’re wrong,” she said, her voice shaking. “You’re hysterical—”
“And you are bloody naive, Margot. Arran is suddenly the most wanted man in England and Scotland, andyou! You fret over what you will wear and if we can be friends! You donna knowanything.”
Margot felt sick. She couldn’t move. She could only stare at Griselda as the truth began to seep into her brain.
Griselda’s shoulders sagged. “Come on, then,” she said, her voice gone dull. She brushed past Margot to collect the food. “I must teach you to mount a horse by yourself. We’ll save the shooting for the morrow.”
The sun was sliding toward the west when Griselda and Margot returned to Balhaire. Margot could scarcely walk, but she somehow managed to march through the bailey and into the foyer. “Where is the laird?” she asked Fergus.
“His study, milady,” Fergus said, his gaze and tone cool.
Margot determinedly made her way to Arran’s study.
She knocked once, twice on the door, heard his muffled voice and entered the room.
Arran immediately stood up. His gaze raked over her, a frown forming in his brow as he took in her trews, her boots and coat.
“Is it true?” Margot demanded.
“What?”
“Do you honestly believe you will be arrested? That my father would turn on you, and by doing so, turn onme? Is it true you could be murdered in your sleep here at Balhaire?”
Arran sighed and rubbed his eye. “Zelda’s nattering, is she?” He settled one hip against his desk, folding his arms across his chest.
“Is it true?” Margot asked again, her voice now weakened with her despair.
“I donna know. Possibly.” He shrugged. “Probably. I am the name on everyone’s lips, aye? I need to put Tom Dunn’s name there, and I hope to God your father will help me. But it may verra well be too late.”
The weight of his admission collapsed Margot. She staggered a step forward and fell into a chair. She could not imagine that her father would be involved in something as horrible as this. “You’re wrong, Arran. You’reallwrong. My father will protect you, of course he will. You are myhusband! How could he possibly do less?”
Arran smiled, and she bristled at how patronizing his smile seemed to be. As if he thought she was a precocious child insisting that faeries were real.
“All right, you don’t believe me. But I am certain of it,” Margot snapped. “I have done an awful thing, coming here as I did under false pretense. But that doesn’t mean my family is corrupt. It means only that my father is frightened.”
He didn’t speak.
She came to her feet. “Everyone around you is so convinced of it, aren’t they? But perhaps they forget that when something so horrible is said of you, it is also said ofme. And I am the earl of Norwood’s daughter! I know my father, and he will not stand for such slander. He will protect us with all that he has.”
Arran steadily held her gaze.
“You’ll see soon enough,” she said, and stalked angrily from his study to her own rooms.
