“Get off,” she said, pushing at the dog. The dog’s tail wagged harder.

“He willna bite you,” Arran muttered through a yawn.

“I don’t care—what’s he doing on the bed?” she demanded.

Arran shrugged. “He fancies you, aye?” He yawned again and stuffed the pillow up under his head. Meanwhile, the beast of a dog turned in one or two circles at the foot of the bed, then plopped down with a loud sigh.

She was to sleep with a dog? Arran’s tenderness forgotten, tears welled, and Margot lay back down, turning on her side, away from him and the dog, silently cursing her father for having bartered her to this hell.

Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

The Scottish Highlands
1710

HE WATCHED EVERY bite she took. Margot was uncertain if he was counting the minutes until he could take her to his bed, or the minutes until she succumbed to the poison he could very well have instructed be put in her stew.

She was counting the minutes until he demanded her duty to him. The prospect of being in that massive bed again excited and frightened her at once. In the few short months they’d existed in their conjugal state, Arran had introduced her to the intimate pleasures husbands and wives shared. She had enjoyed it...but she hadn’t realized just how much she had enjoyed it until she’d gone and was without it.

She could honestly say that in the privacy of their marital bed, there had been no discord. It was the other twenty-three hours of the day that had undone her.

Margot had quickly discovered that Arran was a man with many passions—there were no degrees with him. It was all or nothing, all brawn, all daring, all lust. There had not been room for a wife.

And while she did like the brawn in him, his passions and appetites could be too intense. Memories had come flooding back to her the closer she and her party had drawn to Balhaire: his passion for hunting. For sailing the sea. For drinking and gambling and training his men to be the best soldiers in the kingdom. She had never experienced a gaze as intent as his, and she’d never seen a look as blackly angry as his the day she’d left.

The matter of her leaving him for England had not been resolved, and quite honestly, Margot didn’t know if it could ever be resolved. She hadn’t the slightest idea what he thought or wanted, especially after all this time. She couldn’t even say what she wanted...but she did not want this, to be a pawn in a dangerous game.