“Alas, I fear I would, as a bairn comes with a mother,” he said. “The bairn would bind me to her. As a wife, even.” He actually shuddered.
“Would that be so terrible?” She couldn’t help smiling.
“Aye, it would,” he said. “A wife would be like an anchor around my neck.”
Her smile died on her lips. His words were too near to what her husband said of her the night he threw her out. Before she could hide her reaction, the Highlander touched her arm. It was a light touch, and yet his hand left a heated imprint on her skin right through her sleeve.
She shifted her gaze away from him and called to Ella. “Don’t go too far!”
“What have I done?” he asked.
“Other than kidnapping me and carrying me off in the middle of the night?”
Her attempt to divert him with a jest did not succeed, judging by the furrow between his dark brows. Another man would never have looked past her smile. She would have to be more careful with this Highlander.
She stood up and for the first time really took in her surroundings. In the distance, she could see the sea coast, which made no sense at all.
“Ye must have taken a wrong turn,” she said. “We’re not on the road north to Stirling.”
“Nay, we’re not,” he said.
She recognized the coastline now, and they were not far from Tantallon, the Douglas stronghold. Had he lied to her from the start and intended all along to deliver her to Archie?
“But ye said ye were taking us to the Highlands,” she said, keeping her voice light with an effort.
“We’re sailing there,” he said.
She was relieved he was not taking her to her brothers, but any hope she had of escaping her kidnapper and finding her sister Sybil when they crossed MacKenzie lands were dashed. If they traveled to the Highlands by boat, rather than through the interior, they could end up as far from her sister and MacKenzie lands as when they started.
“But…why go by sea?” she asked.
“’Tis faster to reach our destination by boat,” he said.
She remembered now that in her last letter Sybil had written that her family planned to stay at Eilean Donan Castle in the west until after their new babe was born. The kidnapper was taking her up the east coast to the opposite side of the Highlands.
“The sooner we get there, the sooner I’ll be done with this miserable task,” the Highlander said, “and the sooner you’ll be returned home.”
But Margaret had no home with her brothers.
And she was never returning.
###
Finn could have sworn Lady Margaret was dismayed when he told her they were traveling by sea, though she hid it well. Perhaps she had hoped to escape if they traveled north through Edinburgh and Stirling. Or maybe she suffered from seasickness. God, he hoped not.
“Who’s Brian?” he asked. “Is that Ella’s father?”
“Brian is the son of the woman she lived with in the village,” she said. “How do ye know his name?”
“She was crying for him when she woke up.”
Lady Margaret looked so stricken that Finn had a bad moment, fearing the lass would start weeping on him.
“They were verra fond of each other,” she said with only a slight quiver in her voice. “He’s gone to sea.”
Ella returned then, sat down, and clutched her empty bowl, which he’d left out for her.Ach, she was such a quiet, wee thing. From the way she dove into the first bowl as if the porridge was the best meal she’d had in a long while, he thought she might still be hungry.
“More?” he asked her.