When she was alone, Margot would often pull his letter from her pocket and read it again. “The beginning of my world and the end of it...” She wondered, was this the end of their world? Would this be their world? Margot slowly began to comprehend that she wouldn’t mind in the least if it was their world. How curious that she had feared this sort of life, loathed it from afar...yet this life had made her feel strong and capable in a way she’d never felt in her life.

Unfortunately, the rest of the world began to creep into theirs.

They were dining on leek soup one evening and were sitting together at the kitchen table, drinking from earthen bowls.

“I saw riders today,” Arran said.

Margot gasped and looked up. “Where?”

“Going north. They didna see me.”

“Are you sure? What if—”

“No, leannan, they didna see me.”

She was struck with the cold fear of what would happen if they were discovered here.

“What would you do?” Arran asked.

“If I saw riders?”

He put down his spoon and held her gaze. “If I were captured. What would you do then?”

The thought made her feel sick. She suddenly stood up from the table with her bowl and carried it to the pot. She didn’t want to speak of it. “Don’t even speak of it.”

“Would you return to England?”

“England! I’d likely die right here!”

She heard the scrape of his chair, heard him come up behind her. He slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her into his chest. He took the bowl from her hand and set it aside. “If there comes a time that we might return to Balhaire, what then? Will you stay? Or will you return to England?”

She hadn’t thought of England in days, maybe even weeks. She’d concentrated on existing and had not allowed her mind to be cluttered with all the scenarios of what-if. “I don’t... I don’t know,” she stammered.

Arran suddenly let go of her. Margot whirled about as he stalked to the door. “Wait. Where are you going?”

“The hell if I know.”

“Why are you asking me these questions?” she snapped. “I’ve not thought of it. I’ve only thought of us here, and now—”

He grabbed the handle of the back door. “That’s the difference between you and me, aye? I think of little else.” He barged out, the door banging behind him.

She thought of the two of them, too—she thought of them all the time. But Margot was a different woman now. She was her own woman. But she hadn’t figured everything out just yet.