Page 110 of The Laird's Masked Desire
Her hands were blackened with soot. The hem of her gown was ruined entirely, heavy with saltwater and sand. A strand of her hair had come loose, clinging damply to her cheek.
She did not care. For once, she did not think of how she appeared or how she ought to appear. There was no court here to judge her, no father to correct her posture or her words. There was only the wind, the sea, and the quiet knowledge that something had been set right, if not fully, then enough.
“Ye should sit.” Domhnall’s voice came from behind her.
Margaret turned, though she had known it was him before he spoke. He looked no better than she did. Worse, actually.
Soot marked the planes of his face, dark against his skin. His hair, usually bound with care, had come loose in the day’s labor, strands falling about his brow. His shirt clung damply to him, and his sleeves were rolled, exposing forearms streaked with salt and effort.
He did not look like a laird in that moment. He looked like a man, like any one of them down at the village. This, more than anything else, made her proud to be his wife.
“I will,” she said, though she made no move to do so. “In a moment.”
His gaze lingered on her, as if waiting to do what she had just promised, and his eyes made her pulse shift, though she could not have said why.
“Ye have nae stopped since we arrived,” he said.
“Nor have ye.”
“Aye,” he returned, as though that settled the matter.
Margaret huffed a faint breath of amusement, turning her gaze back to the water. “Then perhaps we are both at fault.”
There was a pause. She allowed herself to nestle into it. Then, after a moment, she felt him step closer. She became acutely aware of the warmth of him, even through the chill that clungto her damp skin, and of the quiet steadiness in his presence, so different from the force he carried among his men.
There was no command in him. He simply wasashe was.
“Ye were right,” he said at last.
Margaret glanced at him. “About what?”
“Coming.”
She studied him then, more closely than she had allowed herself to before. There was no attempt to hold her at a distance for her own safety or his control. He was simply acknowledging the fact that he appreciated having her there. And that meant more to her than she could have described in mere words.
She swallowed, though she did not know why.
“I could nae remain behind,” she told him something he already knew himself. “Nae kenning what had happened and that these people needed help.”
“I ken.”
And he did. She could see it in the way he looked at her, not as though she were fragile, or foolish, but as though he understood the choice she had made.
The wind shifted, tugging at her gown and brushing cold against her damp skin. She shivered before she could stop herself. Domhnall noticed. Without a word, he reached for her. His hand came to her arm first, steadying, then sliding upward just enough to draw her closer to him. It was not a command to step closer. It was an offering.
Margaret did not resist. She stepped into him as though she had always been meant to. She became aware of everything at once: of the solid warmth of his body, of the faint scent of salt and smoke clinging to him and of the steady rise and fall of his breath. Her hands, still marked with soot, rested lightly against his chest, leaving faint traces against the fabric of his shirt.
It should have felt improper, yet it did not. It felt…right.
“I didnae think…” he began, then stopped.
Margaret lifted her gaze to his. He was not a man who faltered. And yet, something in him did now.
“I didnae think I would ever feel this way again,” he revealed more quietly than she had ever heard him speak.
She did not interrupt for clarification, although her curiosity was tugging at her every nerve.
“I buried it,” he continued calmly, but she could see how much this confession meant to him. “When me wife died… it was done. There was nae place for it after that.”
