“Please don’t look at me like that,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment. “I do want a child. I want to be a mother. I want to be a wife. I was too young before. I was too naive. But you are my husband, and you need an heir, and I want a child of my own.”

She had just said the one thing that could cement her hold on him—she wanted his child. More than anything he wanted children, squads of them, hanging from rafters, filling the old bailey and bouncing on his bed. He would give everything he had to his children. Could she ever understand how difficult it had been for him after she’d left to suppress his own needs so that he’d not bring an illegitimate child into this clan? Could she understand how, if she were to give him a child, he would live every waking moment fearing she would flee once again with that child?

But Arran saw something in her green eyes in that moment. It was the same thing he’d seen last night—the sorrow.

He glared at her, furious with her.

“Please don’t banish me,” she whispered.

He curled his hand into a fist and held it tight against his thigh. “All right, then,” he said, slowly nodding. “Prove to me that you want to be my wife, Margot. No’ the wife of some English dandy, mind you, but my wife. A woman who is no’ afraid of feast or famine, of toil, of trouble. A Highlander’s wife. And you a Scot. Can you be that wife to me?”

“Yes!” she said. But the confidence in her voice belied the look of alarm in her eyes, and for that, he had to endeavor to suppress a wee bitter smile.

Chapter Nine

CHAPTER NINE

MARGOT HADN’T BEEN at Balhaire even twenty-four hours, and she’d already made a shamble of things. Mostly by lying to Arran after he’d expressly warned her against it.

A child, she’d said!

It wasn’t a complete lie, because Margot truly wanted children. But that was not why she’d come back, and frankly, she could think of nothing worse than conceiving a child with a traitor to the crown. Unfortunately, her pride had gotten the best of her, and she’d said a desperate thing in a desperate moment.

God, but this was confusing—now she had to prove to Arran she wanted to be a good wife? As if she were one of a dozen debutantes vying for his hand?

Oh, but the charade would begin in earnest tomorrow night, apparently. He’d delighted in telling her that in honor of her change of heart, there ought to be a gathering with singing and dancing to celebrate her return to the clan’s fold. And then he’d sent a lad running up to the castle to inform Fergus of it.