Beloved Highlander

She was a new bride, he reminded himself. Maybe he had hurt her last night with his ardor and she was too shy to tell him so. No, Gregor smiled, Meg would have no qualms about telling him if he had hurt her. Probably she was just embarrassed at the thought of everyone in the household knowing they were in bed together again, after they had only just gotten up. It did not matter to Gregor if they knew—such things had never concerned him—but Meg was different. She liked to maintain a certain façade of purity and respectability: the Lady of Glen Dhui. He would not push her into a situation where she might turn against him.

But neither was Gregor fool enough to believe she did not want him anymore. He had been with enough women to be clear about how she felt. Meg was in the throes of a genuine passion for him—for what they had done together last night. She was as enraptured by their lovemaking as he.

Perhaps that was what had frightened her.

That losing control of herself, that insatiable hunger for another human being, that sense of being swept away.

Gregor didn’t blame her for wanting to take a moment to catch her breath, because so did he. He had wed her for a tangle of reasons, one of them being his desire for her, and another Glen Dhui. But he had never expected her to creep inside him like this, to make a home for herself where no woman had ever been.

He would need to be vigilant.

Gregor had been hurt too many times, used too many times, to ever trust a woman easily. And Meg was no exception, for wasn’t she using him, too? Using his strength and experience to protect Glen Dhui?

“There he is!”

Malcolm Bain’s harsh whisper brought him back to the present. Gregor blinked, and obediently turned to follow Malcolm’s pointing finger, over toward the stables. A lad was leaning against a mounting block, his fair hair bright against the gray stone wall, watching intently as the men drilled.

“Is that your lad?”

Malcolm Bain swallowed, as if his heart was too full for him to speak.

“What is his name again, Malcolm?”

Malcolm Bain clenched and unclenched his hands, fighting for control. When he spoke at last his voice was almost normal, except for the underlying angry tremor. “His name is Angus. Angus Forbes, they call him. By rights it should be Angus MacGregor.”

“He looks like a fine, braw lad. I dinna see much of Alison in him.”

“Aye, the stronger MacGregor blood has swallowed up the feeble Forbes strain,” Malcolm declared with relish.

“How old is he?”

Malcolm Bain sighed, all pleasure leaving him. “He’s twelve years old,” he said, desolation in his voice, and a sense of waste. All those years gone, and he had not known he had a son.

“Give it time, Malcolm,” Gregor advised. “She’ll come ’round. She loved you once. She might again.”

“She loved me, aye, Gregor, and I dinna treasure it as I should have. Instead I tossed her love aside, like a worn penny I dinna need.”

Gregor could think of nothing to say to that. Besides, he felt a sense of guilt for being the cause of Malcolm Bain’s leaving Glen Dhui. Perhaps for that reason he should be the one to do something about it. He did not particularly fancy facing up to Alison’s famous temper, but maybe he owed it to them.

“One more time through with the pistols and muskets,” he said brusquely, putting aside both his own and Malcolm Bain’s emotional problems. “Then we’ll send them all off home. I’m in urgent need of a dram, and you can keep me company.”

Malcolm Bain gave a grim nod. “My head still hurts from last night, but I’ll be glad to, lad. If I drink enough, mabbe I’ll forget all about Alison and my son.”

Gregor thought that was unlikely, but he didn’t spoil his friend’s delusion. In his experience, once a woman got under a man’s skin, there was nothing could get her out, not even the finest whiskey in all of Scotland.

Chapter 21

Gregor had been drinking. Meg could smell the whiskey strong on him when he came in for his midday meal. She said nothing—what could she say? If he felt the need to drown his sorrows in drink, then that was his business. But she thought it was more likely that he was keeping Malcolm Bain company while he drowned his sorrows.

It had been clear from Alison’s behavior that all was still very wrong between Angus’s parents.

Surely, Meg thought, if all feeling was dead between them, they would be completely indifferent to each other, wouldn’t they? Didn’t this amount of ill feeling mean that some spark still existed? Although whether it was a spark of love or hate was debatable.

Meg had tried to speak to Alison while they and the other women were putting the Great Hall to rights, but Alison just shook her head. After a time Meg gave up, deciding it might be best to let them be. Eventually they might sort it out for themselves.

Perhaps Gregor had come to the same conclusion.

She didn’t ask him, she barely spoke to him as they ate, and she left the table before he had finished, pleading a dozen excuses. He gave her a look that was both patient and resigned, both qualities most unlike the Gregor Meg knew.