Page 99 of Wild Wicked Scot
But she felt entirely useless to Arran and began to forage for food, picking brambles and gooseberries and holding them in the tail of her shirt. She dug around the old garden for leeks and potatoes, not giving up until she found a few. Granted, the potatoes were rock-hard and the leeks spindly. But she found them. She took their clothes down to the river to wash as she’d seen women doing on the way to the village at Norwood Park. But she was too earnest in her attempts and rubbed a hole in her gown. Neither did she hang the clothes properly to dry, so they were misshapen.
Arran, bless him, said not a word.
They did not talk about the past or future in those days. They were too engaged with the business of surviving to address old wounds. They talked about silly things when they came together for meals. Margot liked to tease him, to see the change of color beneath his beard. She told him he was shy in the presence of Lynetta Beauly, to which he took great exception.
“That is no’ so. Miss Beauly canna stop talking long enough to draw a breath.”
“That is true. But she is quite comely.”
Arran snorted and turned away. And he did not deny it.
He laughed so hard when she cut up potatoes to boil them that tears of laughter rolled down his cheeks. “There is no’ a thing any simpler than this, aye? You put the bloody potato in the pot,leannan.”
“How was I to know?” she demanded. “Potatoes are generally served to me in pieces.”
After a fortnight, the most impossible thing happened—Margot was at ease with the many things she had to do each day. She swept floors and boiled the single cloth they shared for washing. Arran chopped wood and she helped him pile it high near the door, laughing about the siege he was apparently expecting.
Their existence was quite companionable, and when the day was done, and their muscles ached and they could scarcely keep their eyes open, they fell into each other’s arms.
Their nights were filled with lovemaking, sometimes so tender that Margot wanted to weep, and sometimes so lusty that they rolled onto their backs laughing when it was done.
They filled each other’s bodies and thoughts and senses in every way, as if they were the last two people on earth.
When she was alone, Margot would often pull his letter from her pocket and read it again.“The beginning of my world and the end of it...”She wondered, was this the end of their world? Would thisbetheir world? Margot slowly began to comprehend that she wouldn’t mind in the least if it was their world. How curious that she had feared this sort of life, loathed it from afar...yet this life had made her feel strong and capable in a way she’d never felt in her life.
Unfortunately, the rest of the world began to creep into theirs.
They were dining on leek soup one evening and were sitting together at the kitchen table, drinking from earthen bowls.
“I saw riders today,” Arran said.
Margot gasped and looked up. “Where?”
“Going north. They didna see me.”
“Are you sure? What if—”
“No,leannan, they didna see me.”
She was struck with the cold fear of what would happen if they were discovered here.
“What would you do?” Arran asked.
“If I saw riders?”
He put down his spoon and held her gaze. “If I were captured. What would you do then?”
The thought made her feel sick. She suddenly stood up from the table with her bowl and carried it to the pot. She didn’t want to speak of it. “Don’t even speak of it.”
“Would you return to England?”
“England! I’d likely die right here!”
She heard the scrape of his chair, heard him come up behind her. He slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her into his chest. He took the bowl from her hand and set it aside. “If there comes a time that we might return to Balhaire, what then? Will you stay? Or will you return to England?”
She hadn’t thought of England in days, maybe even weeks. She’d concentrated on existing and had not allowed her mind to be cluttered with all the scenarios of what-if. “I don’t... I don’t know,” she stammered.
Arran suddenly let go of her. Margot whirled about as he stalked to the door. “Wait. Where are you going?”
