Margaret woke to sun streaming in through a glazed window. Tapestries lined the stone walls, and a fire burned in the fireplace. This was not her tower. These stones were too dark and the room too big.
She’d had such a nightmare. Fire raged around her family, but instead of burning them, they danced as if they were devils worshiping its blaze. A man stood waiting for her at the circle of stones. He spoke to her from a distance, his voice always soft.
She turned her head. Where was she? A cup rested on the table beside her bed. She reached for it. Empty. She tried to swallow, but her throat burned.
The door opened, and a girl came through. Thin as a sapling in winter but with hair the color of burnt autumn. “My lady,” she rushed over. “Ye’ve woke at last.”
Margaret was not a lady. “Where am I?”
The girl poured water for her and held it to her lips. “Carrigdean. The house of Robson, remember? The Lord Angus and his brother, Master Gillis, brung ye here.”
Angus. She remembered him at her tower but had no memory of travel. “Who are you?”
“Osanna.” She set the empty cup down. “From the woods that day. Them boys was going to stone me, but ye come along and saved me.”
“The witch.” She had a memory, but it was fuzzy and distant and hard to see.
“Yes, my lady. Only I’m not a witch. Leastways, I don’t think so.” She gave Margaret a perplexed look. “My mother was a witch. Or that’s what they said. She was burned at the stake either way.”
Osanna didn’t keep much back when it came to personal details. But at least they had something in common. “My mother was burned also.”
“Was she a witch?” the girl asked.
“No.”
A dull ache thrummed in the flesh above her knee. She shifted the blanket and pulled up her hem. A strip of linen covered the wound.
Osanna reached for it. She seemed eager to help. But her hands were bare.
Margaret stopped her. “I’ll do it.”
She unwound the bandage. It was still red and sickly, but the burning had ended. Last time she’d seen her leg, the whole of it glowed like hot iron, unbearable to touch. At the very least, she had assumed she’d lose her leg; at most, she figured she’d lose her life. To have both, well, that was something. The real blessing was that she’d been senseless while they’d worked on her so their touch had not ignited her curse.
“In truth, my lady, I don’t think I know what it means to be a witch.” Osanna talked as she prepared clean bandages. “Does it mean you can heal things? One time, I found a crow with a broken wing and fixed it up. Does that make me a witch? If so, I think Gillis might be a witch also. He’s got himself a whole barn full o’ mending animals.” She dipped a cloth in some water and dabbed it around the wound. Margaret clenched her teeth, partly for the sting and partly in fear that Osanna’s hand would touch her bare skin.
“I haven’t never put a spell on anything. I don’t know any spells, so maybe I’m not a witch. Is it something yer born with, or do ye have to learn it?” She looked at Margaret, waiting for an answer.
Margaret shrugged. She knew nothing of such things. But if Osanna wished to avoid the same fate as her mother, better to keep the witch talk to herself. “Osanna, I think it best if you don’t speak about your mother and witches and the like. Not in front of other people. They might get the wrong idea.”
Osanna winked at her. “Right ye are, my lady.”
“Why are you here?” The last time she’d seen the girl, she was fleeing into the thicket. No, wait. In her tower. She’d seen Osanna there as well. So how did she end up across the border at Carrigdean, dressed in a decent kirtle and her tangle of reddish hair at least partly tamed?
“I followed ye.” She wrapped a clean bandage around Margaret’s leg. “Ye saved my life. I owe ye a debt. When I saw that ye were all alone, like me, I knew it were fate what brought us together.”
Fate. Margaret’s greatest enemy. As much as she hated fate, truth be told, it was not fate that had brought them together. It was the border reivers—her other greatest enemy. And now she had yet another setback in her plans for revenge. She tried lifting her leg, testing its strength, then gasped.
“The physician put a handful of leeches on it. He left ’em there for two days. ’Twas the foulest thing I ever seen.” Osanna’s whole body shuddered. “They swelled up like big black eels.”
Yet another reason to be grateful she’d been asleep. Who knew what else they’d done to her. But her fever was gone. Her head no longer ached. And her stomach groaned.
“Yer hungry, my lady.” Osanna curtsied. “I’ll fetch ye some food. And the master wants to be told the moment ye wake.”
“No.” Not Angus. He need not see her like this. But Osanna was already out the door.
Margaret brushed her fingers through her long hair. Though it was the color of raven’s wings, just now, it must look more like a crow’s nest. She smoothed the bed covers as if that might make up for her tangled mess.
No matter how hard she tried, she could not get rid of Angus. Everywhere she turned, there he was. Now, as she waited for his approach, her heart betrayed her, fluttering in her breast as though it were a lark taking to wing. Such foolishness.
She reclined into her pillow. The room was pleasant. Warm and inviting. Not like her tower, with its barren stone walls and tiny slits of windows, barely letting in the sun’s rays. This room was aglow with soft beams. Dogs barked from somewhere out in the courtyard. The sound of chopping wood. A shout, but she could not make out the words.
A knock sounded on her door, then the door pushed open. Angus’s head appeared. He smiled at her. Again, such foolishness.
“You’re alive.” He entered and sat in a chair beside her bed.
“Thanks to you, I suppose.” Another reason she would be beholden to him.
He shook his head. “You are a fighter. The physician did what he could, but you seemed determined not to go down without a fight.”
She had no such determination. Her life was worth very little to her. She’d managed to stay alive so far, but the prospect of death had always seemed a welcome relief, not something to fight against. “Why?” she asked.
He seemed confused by her question.
“Death is not my enemy,” she explained, because truly she did not understand what would make her cling to life. “I rather believe I will welcome him with open arms when he comes for me. Why should I fight to live if I have nothing to live for?”
He leaned forward. “How can you say such things? You have much to live for.”
“There is more to life than the beating of a heart and the drawing of air. When all else is taken from you and blood and air are all you have left, it does not feel much like living.” She looked up at him. “’Tis no matter. No one would miss me if I slipped quietly into the night.”
“Do not say such things. Hamish would be terribly put out if you died.” He smiled again.
“Hamish?”
“Indeed. He’s grown quite fond of you.” Angus watched her so intently that for a moment, she thought perhaps he wasn’t speaking of the dog anymore. Then he shrugged his shoulders. “What about Sister Constance? Certainly she would mourn your loss.”
“How do you know about the her?”
“You spoke many things in your madness.”
Mercy. What had she said? Things he had no right to know. Things that would make her cringe. She dared not ask.
“Do not worry. Your secrets are safe with me.” He thought for a moment. “And Gillis, obviously. And Osanna, I’m sure. And likely the physician will keep his mouth shut. Um, a few servants—”
“Stop.” If he meant to lift her spirits, he was failing. “Enough. Whatever you heard in my madness was just that—madness.”
“In any case, Hamish is not the only one pleased you have decided to live.” He reached his hand out as if to take hers or possibly to stroke her brow.
Margaret recoiled. She had no desire to share his thoughts just now. Or ever.
A shadow crossed his face. He sighed. “Gloves?”
“Gloves,” she said.
The tappity-tap of clawed feet sounded in the world beyond her door. Hamish bounded in, leaping onto the bed. He buried his head in her chest. Her fingers twined into his rough fur while he painted her face with kisses. She hadn’t intended for Angus to see how much the dog meant to her, but when his familiar warmth covered her, she could not help herself.
“He’s barely left your side all this while.”
“All this while?” Osanna had said the physician was here two days. “How long have I been . . . in my madness?”
“It has been five days since I came to your tower and found you ill.”
Five days? She’d lain here in a stranger’s home for five days. Anyone could have stood over her, watching her burning with fever and crying out about things they should not hear.
“I’m sorry I’ve been an imposition.”
“No imposition.”
Osanna stepped into the room, carrying a small tray of food. “Here ye are, my lady. I brought ye some nice broth and warm bread just out o’ the oven.”
“I’m not a lady.”
Osanna set the tray on a table. “But he says ye are Lady Margaret Grey.” She glanced at Angus, and he nodded.
“I was Lady Margaret Grey . . . in another lifetime. But that girl no longer exists.”
“Yes, my lady.” Osanna pulled a wedge of bread off the loaf. “Let’s sit ye up and get this food in ye.” She reached for Margaret.
Margaret pushed her hands away. “I’ll do it myself.”
Angus laughed. “I’m glad to see it’s not just me, then.”
Too many people. Too many hands. She tried to pull herself upright, but she had not recovered as much as she’d thought. She dropped back onto the pillow.
Angus took out a pair of gloves that had been tucked into his belt. He put them on with a great flourish. “May I help you now?”
She nodded.
Angus’s hand slipped between her shoulders and the bed linens. The lark in her chest fluttered its wings, beating against the bars of her rib cage. Never in a stone’s age could she have imagined a man would stir her heart.
It had to end. As soon as she could walk, she must leave. Return to the tower and away from him. All her efforts must go to avenging her family. But more than that, as long as the curse was upon her, she could never be with a man. Never.
Osanna propped another pillow behind her so she was mostly upright.
The effort sent a lance of pain up her leg. She stilled for a moment, catching her breath as the burn settled back to a dull ache.
Osanna sat on the edge of her bed and lifted a spoon of broth to Margaret’s mouth. Margaret’s leg was injured, not her arms. She took the spoon from Osanna and fed herself.
After a few mouthfuls, she put the spoon down. “I’m done.”
Osanna shook her head. “Master says you have to eat it all.”
“Master?”
Osanna pointed at Angus.
He grinned. “All of it.”
Margaret lifted the bowl to her mouth and sipped until it was empty. Osanna set it on the tray. Margaret sank down in the bed. If Angus was right, she’d already slept for five days. She should be well rested by now, but she was still so tired. So tired.
Osanna picked up the tray and carried it out.
“I’ll leave you to rest,” Angus said.
“Wait,” Margaret mumbled, her eyes closing of their own accord. “Don’t leave till I fall asleep.”
A furry mass of warmth shifted in the bed beside her. She placed her hand on the beast, letting his simple mind take hers to fields of budding heather and hares darting in and out of the clumps.
A gloved hand brushed across her cheek.