Page 3 of The Groom Wore Plaid
He frowned.
“The girl ye’re to marry. What is her name?”
“I don’t see why it should matter, but she’s Emily.”
Maggie nodded, because hearing the name made Emily seem more real. “Can I speak with ye in private about her?”
Owen hesitated, and now he finally did look uncomfortable. “Maggie, what is there to say? I should have told, ye, aye, but—”
She waved away his words. “It’s not that. It’s—” She looked around, feeling as if everyone stared at them. “I cannot say it here, not like this.” She pointed down the wynd, the narrow lane that led between the town houses. “Come with me, away from prying eyes. Please, Owen.”
To her relief, he didn’t protest again. They walked silently until they’d left behind the fenced close at the rear of the town house, and out into a lane that led into the countryside.
At last she stopped beneath a tall larch tree. She was nervous now, and his air of impatience wasn’t helping. She’d been angry he hadn’t told her about his betrothal, but then again, she hadn’t told him about herdreams. But how did one confide such a thing and not be thought crazy? Scotland had always had its seers, but she did not wish anyone to believe she was such an outcast. And the whispers of “witch” could be a woman’s end.
Could she trust her secret to a man who’d already been proven untrustworthy? But she didn’t have a choice.
Maggie stared into his chest, at the embroidered waistcoat of a viscount. It reminded her that they were very different. “I—it’s hard for me to say this. I don’t tell many people, but . . .” She trailed off, her throat closing up as she realized she was risking her future.
“Maggie, just say it,” he said with exasperation.
As if he was already done with her and wished to be gone.
She took a shuddering breath. “I . . . dream things, and when they’re vivid and real to me, they . . . come true.”
She met his gaze at last, and he eyed her with growing amusement.
“Och, Maggie, ye had me going with nerves there,” he said, shaking his head. “I spent all night wondering how to apologize to ye.”
“Owen, this has nothing to do with apologies!” she cried. “I’m not telling tales. I had a terrible dream last night, and your Emily was in it.”
His brown eyes narrowed. “Ye can’t have seen her. They haven’t arrived yet.”
With a groan, she flung her arms wide. “I haven’t seen her, Owen, not in truth. But in my dreams I saw her presented to ye. I saw a ring.”
“There’s always a ring—why are ye doing this to us, Maggie? Hurting us both for no reason.”
“I don’t want anyone to be hurt and that’s the point. I didn’t just see her with ye, Owen, but I saw her wet, puddles of water around her, her face cast white as death. And she was staring at me, as if she needed me to do . . . something about it.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Ye’re making no sense.”
She winced, feeling his disbelief like the cold chill of a late summer evening, the breath of approaching winter. Her voice grew rough. “When I see a person wet, Owen, it means they’re going to die by drowning.”
He said nothing at first. She could hear chickens in the distance, the low of a cow, but no human voices. No one was overhearing them to understand her secret—only Owen. And he looked at her now with pity, and even a little disgust. She closed her eyes so she didn’t have to see it.
“This isn’t worthy of ye, Maggie,” he said. “I didn’t think ye’d let jealousy make ye tell lies.”
“This isn’t jealousy! Owen, please, ye must believe me, for Emily’s sake.” Her voice faded into a whisper, because she knew it was too late. He didn’t believe her; he thought her a pathetic liar and a fool.
“Good-bye, Maggie.” He turned and walked back down the wynd toward High Street.
“Owen, warn her, please,” she cried, taking several steps as if to follow him before halting, unable to embarrass herself further.
He didn’t look back at her; he didn’t stop. She hugged herself, feeling more alone than she ever had in her life.
TWOweeks passed, and Maggie never saw Owen on the stairs again. He lived in the same building, but he might has well have been in London. At another assembly, she saw him dancing, but not with the redhead from her dreams. Maggie prayed that she’d been mistaken, that no one would die.
He never looked her way. And the anger she’d kept buried finally rose up, and it took everything in her to remain calm. She hadn’t deserved any of his treatment of her.
