Page 63 of Wed to the Highlander
He looked up sharply. “You don’t think Maggie—”
“Never,” she affirmed decisively.
“Then…you’re suggesting someone…poisoned her?”
“I think that something doesn’t add up,” Catherine said carefully. “Maggie has never been a sickly girl. Never prone tonerves, not one to wilt. This”—she gestured toward the book she gripped—“would explain much, wouldn’t it?”
He pulled Maggie closer, his arm sliding around her shoulders. He needed her near, needed to feel her warmth and weight beside him. Safe. Alive.
His mother-in-law’s discerning gaze met his. “The only question left is who would do this? Who would do this—who hates or resents her, or perhaps you, enough to want rid of the child? And to forego the inheritance the child secures.”
His mind raced as he considered the possible culprits. Isla, with her erratic moods. Agnes, embittered since her laird husband’s death, her influence waning. Or someone else he never imagined—someone not obvious but cloaked in civility and shadows.
Catherine reclaimed the book from him and closed it with a snap. “With the slow dosing of the herb,” she murmured, “no one would suspect it was more than pregnancy sickness. It’s a cruel plan, but quite clever.”
“You mean diabolical,” he said hoarsely. The rage boiling inside him must have bled into Maggie; she stirred but didn’t wake. When he spoke again, it was softer, but with no less dread. “And I’m returning her tae that viper’s pit.”
“She will be well guarded, but we must be vigilant. Nothing she ingests will be prepared by other than a loyal hand—if I have to do it myself.”
The train’s wheels clacked beneath them, but in Duncan’s ears, the sound had turned to thunder—relentless, rising, deafening. He would find the villain. And they would pay—painfully.
He looked up, squinting against the flicker of afternoon light through the window as he met Catherine’s gaze. Her composure, her cunning to have figured this out, her willingness to travelnorth and endure the drafty halls of MacPherson Castle for his wife and child’s sake humbled him.
“I’m grateful you are accompanying us.”
“I wouldn’t miss the birth of my first grandson for anything.”
“You sound certain Maggie will have a son.”
Catherine shrugged, the gesture light, almost amused. “A mother knows.”
“Andrew and Cici’s bairn may arrive first.”
“Yes, but she’s carrying high and devouring confections as though they were going out of fashion. They will give me a granddaughter,” she said confidently. “And frankly, a little girl who wraps him around her finger is exactly what my sometimes-too-arrogant son deserves.”
Duncan smiled faintly. Having this woman as an ally eased the tension in him just enough to let the moment settle. Her children had inherited her strength, her intellect, her resolve. His thoughts drifted to the moment Andrew had pulled him aside at Sommerville House.
“If you fail her again,” he warned. “If anything happens to her or my mother—I will not forgive you, and I will never forget.”
It hadn’t been a threat but a promise of reckoning.
Catherine rose, laid a hand on his shoulder—reassuring, in yet another show of support. Then she returned to her seat and signaled the porter. She sipped her wine and stared out the window, her expression carved from granite.
Maggie shifted beside him, her fingers tightening around his.
He would protect her. Not just with guards and midwives or her formidable mama. But with every ounce of vigilance he possessed.
This time, he would not fail.
***
The carriage crested the final rise, wheels jostling over uneven earth where the old bridge had once stood. The new stonework was sound enough, but Duncan noted a flaw in the arch—too shallow, not reinforced the way he would’ve done it. Still, he hadn’t been here to oversee the rebuild, so he held his tongue.
As the castle came into view, Duncan assessed it with a builder’s eye and a brother’s skepticism. The north tower showed fresh cracks near the parapet, and the rotting stairs had been removed—a good thing. But the western wall bore new fortifications, heavier than needed, which he had vetoed before. It was as if they expected a siege. The crest above the gate had been reworked—still MacPherson, but the stag now faced north, antlers sharpened—the replacement couldn’t have come cheap.
Lachlan hadn’t mentioned any of it in his letters. He could already feel the weight of unspoken expenditures.
Maggie shifted beside him, wincing slightly as she adjusted her posture. Her belly was pronounced now, the curve unmistakable beneath her traveling cloak. Duncan remembered his mother’s complaints—he’d been a large bairn, stubborn even in the womb. He prayed his wee wife wouldn’t suffer the same. It was another worry to add to the growing heap.
