On a Highland Shore (31 page)

For a few days.

I
t was two days later, in the middle of a sunny afternoon, that Rignor found Margaret and Nell. His movements were abrupt and his face flushed, but whether from anger or drink she could not tell. He did not greet them. Margaret watched him warily. They’d not had words; she had no idea what had caused his mood.

“I’m going to Somerstrath,” he said flatly.

Margaret blinked. “Now?”

“Now. And in a few days, Dagmar will join me. And I willna hear any complaints from ye about it.”

“I have none. But should ye not stay…?”

“Ye willna tell me what to do!” he roared.

Margaret took a step back and bit back her angry response. Perhaps Rignor going to Somerstrath for a bit was the best idea for them all.

“Rignor!” Nell cried. “What about Dagmar and Tiernan? How can ye…?”

He glared at her. “Dinna say it, Nell! I’ll not hear a word about her, and not from ye, who kens nothing. The filthy Irish bastard tricked her is all that happened. She shouldna have been so trusting, and she kens it. It willna happen again.”

“But she…” Nell began.

He cut across her words. “Ye dinna understand, Nell. Dinna try to.” He stalked away.

“He’s an idiot,” Nell said.

Margaret looked after her brother, wondering what he was planning.

Rignor left in the gloaming with a handful of men. Nell and Margaret went to the courtyard to see him off, but should not have bothered. Rignor did not even look at them, did not answer their waves of farewell, just leaned from his pony to give Dagmar a quick kiss and a few whispers, then was gone. Dagmar stood in the center of the courtyard as the gates closed behind him, then smiled smugly as Tiernan stepped from the shadows to join her. Nell felt part of her heart die. It was not enough that she was invisible to Tiernan; apparently she was meant to watch them together as well.

“I’ll talk with him,” Margaret said. “I’ll go to Rignor and see if I can talk sense into him. He needs to see what Dagmar is before he does something rash. We have to heal this breach between us, Nell. We canna have this.”

But there was no need for Margaret to go to him, for Rignor returned in the night, on the pretext of having forgotten something. And found Dagmar and Tiernan in bed together. He woke the entire holding, his roars all but taking the roof off. He was stopped from killing Tiernan by Rufus, who would not listen to Rignor’s tirade against his daughter. Nor would he allow Rignor to shout curses at Gannon’s brother, nor even to draw his sword. Rignor was escorted out through the hall and courtyard, passing Gannon as he went. Rignor spit at Gannon, swearing vengeance on all Irish. Gannon neither spoke nor moved except to wipe the spittle off his cheek.

Margaret, watching with a pit of dread in her stomach, tried to talk with Rignor, but he shook her hand off his arm.

“Dinna touch me!” he growled at her. “Ye’re just as bad. Ye betrayed me as much as them!”

“I never did!” she said, trying to keep her voice from trembling. “I never would!”

“Ye did, Margaret! I needed yer marriage, and ye wouldna even try.” He threw a wild glare at the assembled people and was gone. “Ye all ken I was being betrayed, and none of ye stopped it. None of ye told me! Ye will regret yer actions! Ye will all regret what ye have done!”

The gates were locked behind him.

She could not sleep, worrying about what Rignor would do, what he was feeling and thinking. She would not put it past her brother to attack Gannon’s ship or do something else quite mad. He must, despite all his earlier protestations, have known what Dagmar was. He’d planned his return, knowing what he might find. He was hurt, no doubt thoroughly shamed by Dagmar’s betrayal. She turned over, staring into the darkness, knowing what she must do.

Morning came, full of the usual duties. She should, she knew, be pleased with the changes she’d made at Inverstrath, at the clean rooms and new routines that she’d taught Rufus’s people, purposefully ignoring Dagmar’s position as the woman of the household and knowing Dagmar could do nothing about it. She told herself it was simply so that Inverstrath would be run properly, but she took great satisfaction in knowing that she’d usurped Dagmar altogether. It was a petty revenge, and fairly ineffectual, since Dagmar did not even seem to notice, but it was a revenge nonetheless. Which brought her thoughts back to Rignor, for whom revenge was a passion rather than a petty occupation.

She would go to him as soon as she could. In the late morning, when everyone was busy, she slipped away from the others, not telling Nell what she was up to, nor Rufus, and especially not Gannon. She made her way to the kitchens to gather food for her brother. It was there, with all the kitchen staff, that Gannon found her. He entered the room slowly, ducking his head under the lintel and straightening, looking large and formidable, as he had the first time she’d seen him. And as then, he surveyed the room, his gaze narrowing when he saw her.

“Margaret,” he said. “I would have a word with ye, lass, if ye would.”

She knew by his tone and manner that he was angry, but still she followed him outside. The kitchen gardens were green, the last of the summer’s vegetables and herbs about to be harvested. Shadows were short, with the sun almost directly overhead, and she shaded her eyes with her hand as she looked up at him.

“Are ye going somewhere, Margaret?” he asked.

“I’m going to take food to Rignor and talk with him.”

“It’s a fool’s errand, lass.”

She froze, thinking of all she might say. “Then I am a fool,” she said at last.

“Did ye not hear what he said to ye? To all of us there?”

“And did ye not ken how hurt he was? How could Tiernan do such a thing?”

“Tiernan? He’s the least of it. It’s Dagmar who…”

“And Tiernan who joined her. If he hadna, she might have gone to Somerstrath with Rignor, and I might have had a chance to smooth things over between us. Now he thinks we’ve all betrayed him.”

“No one betrayed him. He needs to think of more than himself.”

“Which is exactly what he told me.”

“Ye need to let him be a man, Margaret. He’s no longer a wee lad. He’s a man and should act like one.”

“He is acting like one!” she cried. “The woman he cares for was with another. That’s a man’s pain, not a boy’s. And it’s yer brother who was with her, despite kenning how Rignor felt about her. What kind of man does that?”

“He’s besotted, lass. He’s not thinking straight.”

“And that’s forgivable? But Rignor’s being angry about it isna? Strange way ye have of thinking, Gannon.”

“Strange way ye have of thinking, Margaret. Ye’ve coddled him so much he thinks the world should obey his every wish. Dagmar lied to him, but that’s nothing new, and if it hadna been Tiernan with her, it would ha’ been another.”

“Tiernan kent the pain he would cause, and he dinna care.”

“Dagmar kent the pain she would cause, and she dinna care. It’s none of yer concern anyway.”

“None of my concern?”

“No. Ye canna be going to Somerstrath on yer own. I willna allow it.”

“Ye willna allow it?” She kept her tone quiet, trying to keep her anger in check. How had she, even for a moment, had dreams of a life with this man? He was no different than the rest of them. “Who are ye to allow me to do anything?”

“Lass,” he started, but she shook her head and walked away.

“Ye have no say in what I do, Gannon MacMagnus,” she said over her shoulder. “Ye’re not my father, nor my kin, nor my husband.”

“Margaret…”

She hurried into the hall, hoping he would not follow. But when he didn’t, her mood only grew more foul.

She left early that afternoon, when Gannon was training Rufus’s men on the strand, when Nell was in the village, and Rufus was busy overseeing the rethatching of the cottages before the winter rains. It took only a few moments to ask Rufus’s groom to prepare a pony for her, only a moment longer to gather the food, only a moment to clear the walls of the fortress and head north along the inland trail. This task was hers alone. Rignor was her brother. She’d go to him alone and try to mend this rift. He needed comforting, and she would be there.

The fog was hovering overhead as the pony walked briskly through the trees. The inland path, they called it, but it wound through the clumps of trees, sometimes far from the water, sometimes at the very edge of the shingle. There were seven headlands between Inverstrath and Somerstrath, four streams that had to be crossed, and she counted each one rather than let herself think of what it would be like to return to Somerstrath. The breeze blew briskly off the sea, and although the sunlight was dimmed by the low-hanging fog, it was plentiful now. She took a deep breath of the clean air, closing her eyes as she raised her face to the sun and cleared her mind, hearing the waves and the calls of the seagulls.

On a day like this her mother would sigh and say the fog would lower and then the laundry would never dry. Then she’d tell the story about how her grandmother had strung lines across her husband’s hall and laughed when he’d not even noticed the wet clothing overhead. She thought of all the times she’d hoped that Rignor’s obsession with Dagmar would end. But she’d never envisioned it happening like this. And if he spurned her offers of peace? But she would not think of that now. She’d count the headlands and the streams and think of nothing more than the journey itself.

It was unnerving to approach her home and hear nothing. No voices of the people calling to each other, no barking of the dogs and shouts of the children as they came to meet her. She steeled herself, knowing that there would be no bustle of a busy village to see as she came over this last rise, no children playing on the strand, no fishermen mending nets or women at their looms. She would not stop for a visit with Fiona, would not talk with every person she passed.

Despite her preparations, she’d not steeled herself enough. Nor the pony. It shied away as they neared the village, and she could not blame it. The sight of the charred wood rising into the gray sky, the blackened shells of homes, assailed her. The bodies might be gone, but the stains of blood—and more—were still evident, and her mind supplied the missing details. Where there was only the outline of a doorway, she remembered the fallen body of a child; where a bench was stained a rusty color, she remembered the man who had died upon it.

And the smells. The odor of the burned homes still lingered, the stench of charred flesh and hair, the rank odor of food still in pots, mixed with ordure. Flies were everywhere, crawling on dark stains and through the occasional body of a dog that had not yet been buried. She clamped her hand over her mouth and forced her pony forward. She could not see the harbor from here, nor the keep, and she made her way through the ruins with care.

“Lady Margaret.”

The man, one of Rufus’s, stood before her, lowering his sword as he greeted her. She stared at him, then took a breath, reminding herself that she’d known Rignor had men with him. But it seemed strange to see a healthy man amidst all the destruction.

“Sorry, miss, I dinna mean to startle ye. We’re guarding the village, ye ken.”

“Is all well here?”

“Oh, aye. We’ve begun fixing the wall around the courtyard of the keep. It’s going well.”

“Rignor’s here, I assume?”

The man’s expression did not change, but he stiffened. “Aye.”

“I’ve come to talk with him.”

The man nodded and gestured to the path behind him. “Mind yer step.”

She thanked him and moved forward, her heart pounding as she saw the keep and now heard the noise of men working. She stopped for a moment, gathering her courage, then slipped from the pony’s back.

She saw Rignor the moment she walked through the gates, standing over two men who were digging a trench. She took two steps, then stopped as he looked up at her without expression. She met his gaze across the space between them. He looked somehow diminished. There were lines around his mouth, and his hair was lank as it hung around his pale face. He looked worn and weary and yet somehow energized, his tension visible, as though excitement simmered under his stern manner.

There was a flash of affection, only a flash, in his eyes, and regret, quickly smothered, as though he were fighting an inner battle, not sure whether to rebuke or embrace her, as though there were two Rignors: the brother she’d been raised with, whom she loved, and the new Rignor, filled with hate and distrust and thoughts of revenge, who hated as fervently as he loved, who ignored actual slights and focused on imagined ones and had no room for anyone’s needs but his own. The new Rignor, whom she feared. And feared for.

“Rignor,” she said. “How are ye?”

He gestured around him. “How could I be, Margaret?”

She nodded, taking in the dusty courtyard and the men who watched her, some with welcome in their eyes, some with only curiosity. “I came to talk.”

“Have ye brought more food? Or more men?”

“I brought some food. It’s on the pony.”

“Who brought ye?”

“I came myself.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Who sent ye?”

“No one. I was worried about ye.”

His laugh was bitter. “Aye, I’ve already seen how concerned ye are.”

“Would ye like some water, Lady Margaret?” one of Rufus’s men asked.

“Aye, I would,” she said, and moved forward to take the cup from his outstretched hand. She drank deeply, aware of Rignor moving to her side, then handed the cup back to the man. “Thank ye.”

“We can talk in here,” Rignor said and walked into the keep without looking back to see if she was following.

They did not speak as they climbed the stairs, nor when they passed the spot where their father had died. The hall was empty, the tables and benches in disarray, as though men had pushed back from them and left. Which, she supposed, was exactly what had happened. A few stone cups had been left scattered on the tables, and bundles of blankets and packs were lined up against the walls. Rignor threw himself onto a bench and, from the floor, lifted a stone bottle that she’d not noticed. He poured himself a measure of the ale and drained it.