Page 48 of The Groom Wore Plaid
They spoke little as they made their slow way back through the village. People were returning from the castle now, standing in their doorways, chatting with neighbors or feeding chickens. More than once, Owen had to explain that she was fine, a mere ankle twist, and she felt more and more like a clumsy fool.
But she never saw Martin.
As they left the village behind and the castle walls rose up above them, Owen asked, “Did Mrs. Robertson tell ye about the clan assembly being held tomorrow?”
She hid a wince, knowing Mrs. Robertson had done no such thing—quite deliberately, Maggie was certain. Maggie had asked for such treatment, after all.
“We did not discuss it,” she said. “’Tis not my place to become involved—I am not her mistress.”
She waited for him to insist she was wrong. She wanted an argument over this, another reason to prove herself an unsuitable wife.
But he only spoke mildly. “You’re right, of course. You don’t have the experience yet to host such an event.”
“But I—” and then she stopped herself. She’d been about to say that of course she had the experience; she’d been in the Larig Castle for several assemblies, helping the housekeeper and the staff. But she couldn’t allow pride to get in the way of proving herself incompetent to Owen.
She waited for him to display that little smirk that irritated her beyond measure, one that said he knew what she was up to. But he only looked concerned.
“The housekeeper will have everything in hand,” he said, “so no need to bother with the details. And you’ll need to rest your ankle, of course.”
Of course.
But she was too curious. “Will ye be passing judgment for your people,” she asked as the castle seemed to rise ever higher above the trees, “or will this all be about the business of the clan?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Considering my father wasseldom here to handle the justice himself, and passed the duty off to lesser chieftains, I imagine many personal concerns have built up within the clan.”
“Have ye ever done this for the clan before?”
His pause was so slight she almost missed it.
“Of course not. I was not the chief. But I have been there when my father handled it. Much of it is common sense and only takes a laird to enforce.”
She’d heard many a conflict brought before her own father that were not so easy to settle hard feelings. But she didn’t point that out. Owen was overly confident; perhaps she could use that to her advantage.
They passed beneath the gatehouse and the secret rooms above, where once warriors would use their advantage over invaders below. Out in the misty, muddy courtyard again, she glanced at Owen, whose expression was set. She didn’t say anything more. Let him believe he’d won. She’d be like their ancestors and descend on him when he least expected it.
OWENsaw that his uncle Harold was waiting for him in the great hall, but he wouldn’t allow Maggie to hobble upstairs alone. He raised a hand to Harold, silently asking him to wait, and the grizzled old man nodded and eyed Maggie’s limping gait.
Owen studied her face, saw the pallor of her attempts to show that she wasn’t in pain. Many women of his past acquaintance would have been using their distress to garner sympathy, and instead, she was tryingto pretend she was fine. Her pride might damage her ankle even further.
He picked her up, one arm behind her back and the other beneath her knees. She gasped and reared her head back, as if she didn’t want to be too close. Other men might have taken offense, but he thought of her behavior as part of the challenge—he seduced, she resisted. He intended to win.
The whalebone hoops sewn into her petticoat caused it to lift her skirts high, and she quickly pressed it down.
He spotted a passing servant and called, “Send Kathleen with ice from the ice pit. The lady has an injured ankle.”
Maggie gasped. “Do not waste precious ice on my ankle.”
“Nonsense. If we were at our estate in York, we’d have a large supply of ice from the icehouse.”
“A house—devoted to ice?”
She sounded reluctant to be so curious.
“Yes, many of the larger estates are building them with double thickness of walls, sometimes half buried in the ground.”
As he went up the circular stone stairs, he was careful to keep her head and feet from knocking the walls, a tricky feat with the hoops fighting to expand her skirt, and in a narrow space meant to defend from warriors trying to battle their way to the upper floors.
But Maggie had put her arms about his shoulders asif to make herself smaller, a satisfactory result. At her bedchamber, he shouldered open the door to find the room deserted.
