Yes, the spark had always been there. But the marriage had been wrong. Surely, in his heart of hearts, he knew that was true.

Margot leaned over him now. His hair had come undone from its queue. She could see a nick or two in his skin, as well. Fresh scars, undoubtedly earned in training his men for war. That was part of their marriage bargain—he would provide the renowned Highland soldiers for the British army. He would have lands in England, and she would have lands in Scotland, belonging to each of them outright. He was made a baron, too, and she...she was made the chattel by which two men had feathered their nests. She was the shiny bauble that had brought Mackenzie to the bargaining table.

How could such a glorious specimen of a man be a traitor? She touched one of the scars.

Arran instantly pushed himself up, coming off the bed. He ignored her and walked to the hearth, squatting down to build a fire. When he finished, he refilled his goblet and drank thirstily. He glanced at her over his shoulder, quite at ease with his nudity. But his hand, she noticed, was gripping the goblet. “Why?” he asked gruffly.

It was curious how two people, separated longer than they’d been together, could still understand one another. Margot knew very well that he was asking why she’d left. “You know why.”

“Was I unkind, then?” he asked impatiently. “Did I mistreat you?”

Margot sighed wearily. Her reasons had felt so sharp and urgent at the time, but had dulled with the years. “Not unkind. Indifferent. We were so different, you and I.”

He stared down at her for a moment, then looked away. “Aye. We still are.”

“You had no use for me, Arran.”

“No use for you? Was it no’ enough that you were mistress of all this?” he asked, gesturing around him.

“In name only,” she said. “I had no society, no friends.”

“Only because you’d not allow it,” he countered. “There are women in my clan who would have befriended you with the slightest bit of encouragement, aye?”

“That’s not true,” she said. “I tried to make Balhaire what I thought it ought to be, but they resisted me at every turn.”

“You wanted to do things in an English way.”

“What other way could I possibly have done them? I am English.”

He looked away, to the windows. “My own cousin Griselda was your friend.”

“Griselda!” Griselda Mackenzie was quite possibly the most unpleasant person Margot had ever met in her life. “She could scarcely tolerate me! She hated me for being English—you know that is true. Can you not see that you had what you wanted from our marriage, but I had nothing? I was miserable, Arran.”

“What I wanted,” he repeated. “Pray tell me, what the bloody hell did I want?”