She left Scotland shortly after that final argument. It hadn’t been an escape, really, because as the coach was pulling through the massive gates of Balhaire, Arran and his men had come riding up from the sea. He had reined to a halt to the side of the road to let the coach pass. She would never forget the stony look he gave her as the coach slowly rolled by. He remained on his horse, his fists clenched as tightly as his jaw, watching her go.

He hadn’t tried to stop her. She’d imagined him happy to be relieved of her.

When the coach had passed, he spurred his horse through the gates and behind the castle walls, and his men had followed him, and that was the last she saw of him. She had collapsed onto the leather squabs of the coach, heartbroken. She’d been such a foolish girl then, wanting both worlds. She’d wanted desperately to go home, away from that crude castle and society. But she had also wanted him to fight for her.

Ah, what silly, romantic notions lived in the minds of girls who were not yet women.

In England, with time, Margot had managed to detach what feelings she had for Arran Mackenzie and go on about her life. Her father had been unhappy with her, but he’d assured her he understood. “Of course it is well-known that the Highlands are full of barbarians,” he’d said without hesitation. She’d thought it odd that he did not seem to see the irony in how he had been quite at ease marrying his daughter off to one. “You’ve done your duty, my girl.” Now that he had his agreements and lands in Scotland, made inviolable by her marriage to Mackenzie, he’d seemed satisfied.

He’d left Margot well enough alone, and she had turned her attention to...what? Nothing. There was no life to speak of as an estranged wife of some distant Scottish chieftain. She was a novelty—that was all. A married woman with no husband in sight who enjoyed vast liberties that other women did not. Margot had a robust social life, free to come and go as she pleased. She hosted soirees and flirted with gentlemen. She attended balls and suppers and flirted with more gentlemen. She was wanted by those men, pursued and courted by those men. However, that attention never seemed enough.