“It is time to finish your meal,” Arran said. “You dawdle now, aye? You and I have much to discuss.” He stood up.

Margot looked up as she fit the spoon in her mouth. More than six feet of man towered over her. She chewed slowly as she regarded him. He’d always had a physique honed by his training of soldiers, as big and as strong as an ox. Three years hadn’t softened him in the least. Quite the contrary—he looked even leaner and harder now, his hair in need of a cut, his ice-blue eyes as shrewd as ever.

“Be quick about it,” he added, and stepped off the dais, to where her father’s men sat. He spoke to them, gesturing to two of his men who had instantly come forward. Moments later, Pepper and Worthing stood up, glanced uneasily at Margot, then followed the Scots out of the great hall. Arran went in another direction.

Margot panicked slightly, but then again, Worthing had warned her they’d not be allowed to stay. He was her father’s confidant—in fact, it was Worthing and two other gentlemen who had brought from London the rumors and accusations against Arran to her father.

“He’ll not want any Englishmen in his hall,” Worthing had warned Margot. “You must be prepared to see us depart.”

“No,” Margot had said. “I’ll ask him—”

“He will instantly suspect you if you speak for us, madam. You must play the part of a disobedient wife who means to make amends.”

Disobedient wife. Is that what they thought of her? As if she were a child who had disobeyed all the men in her life? As if she’d been expected to stay in an untenable position merely because men had put her there? Frankly, it would have helped tremendously if she knew just how a disobedient wife behaved when she wanted to make amends. Margot did not.

She watched Arran walk through the hall, pausing to speak to one or two people, glancing meaningfully back at her once or twice. His long, dark hair was a tangled queue, and his buckskins, lawn shirt and waistcoat were soiled, his boots scuffed. Who knew what the man had done all day? Margot bowed her head and recalled the sensation of his body in hers, carrying her away to that sensual place.

She missed that, anyway. She hadn’t realized how much she would miss it, how empty her life would become. She missed knowing that someone could be gentle with her, careful of her.

Margot felt the sickly warmth of fear as she thought of it. She had wounded him in the worst way one could wound a man, and she had no hope that he would care much for her now—she had seen the harshness in his gaze. She was afraid of him, disgusted by him, attracted to him.