Margaret paced the small space of her room, limping as she went.
“Please sit, my lady.” Osanna pushed a chair in her direction for the third time in as many minutes. “You need rest.”
There was a soft knock at her door. Osanna opened it to reveal Gillis. He smiled at Margaret like he always did. There was something about this silent boy that put her at ease. He was dressed in a fine velvet doublet with a starched ruff, the likes of which she’d not seen in this lawless northern place. He looked a gentleman, to be sure.
Margaret glanced down at her own worn gown. Not an inch of lace anywhere. It served her well when she needed to blend in with the common folk but left her completely lacking amongst an earl’s household. Osanna had wrapped her hair in a silver-trimmed veil. Margaret had no idea where it had come from, but it helped a little.
As grateful as she was for Osanna’s help, Margaret cursed the moment she’d decided to traipse into the underbrush and investigate the group of boys. If she’d minded her own business as planned, she wouldn’t be trapped here in this house of finery. She was a pebble amongst the pearls.
“Gillis, I cannot go. Tell them I am ill or something.”
As though his lack of voice gave strength to other senses, he seemed to understand her perfectly. He motioned at her, a gesture that encompassed her head to toe, then put his hand over his heart, all the while giving her that grin of his.
She shook her head. “I don’t know what that means.”
Gillis’s eyebrows went up. He was calling out her bluff. And he was right; his meaning was clear.
“Thank you,” she said.
He held out his arm, and Margaret took it, simple dress and all. What did she care what any of these people thought of her? Her mission was not to impress the Scottish barons. If all had gone according to plan, she would never have met them.
Gillis walked her down the corridors toward the great hall. Past tapestries of hunts and portraits of nameless faces. Margaret studied them as she passed, in case one of them was the brother she’d just learned about.
“Gillis, who is James?”
Gillis turned to her, surprised by her question.
“I overheard his name mentioned,” she explained.
Gillis nodded, pointed to himself, then indicated something larger.
“Your older brother?”
He nodded again.
“Older than Angus?”
Another nod.
“How did he die?”
Gillis’s brow creased, and his face clouded over. He looked down at his feet, then along the back of the corridor. Clearly, this was not something he wanted to talk about. Margaret waited, not willing to back down from her question. After what she’d overheard between Angus and his father, she was desperate to know.
Gillis breathed out heavily, made a stabbing motion to his side, then pointed to Margaret’s injured leg.
“He was wounded.”
Gillis nodded his head once.
“And the wound festered and killed him?”
Another nod.
Immediately, Margaret felt sorry for this James. Such a painful way to die. “Why didn’t Angus tell me about him before?”
Gillis shrugged, but his eyes veered away again.
“Was James unkind to Angus? Or you?”
He answered with a scowl and a vigorous shake of the head.
All right, then. He wasn’t like his father. So why did Linkirk hold Angus in such contempt?
Margaret stepped closer and spoke softly. “I heard your father telling Angus he wished he had died instead of James. Why would he say such a thing?”
Gillis stepped back, his eyes darting down the corridor. He shook his head.
“You don’t know?” But it seemed like he did know and didn’t want to say. She might have to ask Angus herself. But she wasn’t sure she dared. Already, she’d pressed Gillis far beyond what would be considered proper, yet the picture was incomplete.
There was a way to find out what was locked inside Gillis, trapped behind his wordless voice.
She slipped her hand out of her glove. Bare skin.
It was a risk. His mind might have moved on, beyond James. They’d nearly reached the doors that opened to the great hall. Now was her chance. She would need to bring his mind back to James before touching him. She held out her hand, as if allowing him to kiss it. Gillis would think her ridiculous. As if she were the noble and he the wayside waif.
He did seem surprised, but he reached for it nevertheless.
Just as his hand closed on hers, she asked, “Won’t you tell me what happened to James?”
It hit her like a wall of tumbling rocks. Angus sparring with Gillis. He was always willing to give Gillis his time. Gillis spun around. He didn’t see James standing behind him. His sword sliced into James’s side. He didn’t mean it. It was an accident. James fell to the ground. Gillis’s silent screaming—
She pulled away but not before she caught one final image: Angus telling his father it was he who had injured his brother. She leaned against the wall for support, pressing her hand against her temple. Her body slid down the stones as she sank to the ground, her head burning as if someone were trying to get into her skull with a red-hot iron.
Gillis bent down beside her, trying to understand what had suddenly come over her.
“It was you,” she muttered as the pain ebbed. “Yet Angus is the one taking the blame.”
Gillis’s eyes doubled in size, and he stepped back, his face suddenly pale.
She pinched her lips closed. She’d not meant to say it out loud.
Gillis looked down at his hand, where he had touched her, as if some residual effect remained from the contact. Perhaps there was, as she’d never thought to wonder if her touch affected the other person.
She pushed herself off the wall and stood, tugging her glove back on. Gillis’s silence always made her too bold. How many secrets must be buried in his muted mind.
He stared at her, then shook his head. Whether in answer to her question or in a show of general disapproval, she could not tell. Either way, that was all she was going to say about it. Whatever he thought might have happened just now, he couldn’t know anything for sure.
Margaret smoothed her skirt before stepping toward the door leading to the great hall. Gillis stretched out his arm, barring her from passing. He pressed his finger against his lips. She gave him a nod. She’d not tell anyone the truth about James’s death. Curious as she was, she had no intention of getting involved any deeper in the Linkirk family secrets.
Gillis nodded back. He watched her for a little longer, his eyes teeming with questions. At last, he lifted the latch and pulled open the door.
Margaret stepped into the great hall. Several trestle tables had been set in the room. There was one on the dais for Linkirk and his family and two others on the floor for the lower members of the house. Margaret tried to veer toward a lower one, but Gillis’s hand wrapped around her arm, guiding her toward the dais.
Mercy. Up front and on display for the entire hall to speculate. Lord and Lady Linkirk stood in the center of the room. Gillis stopped in front of them. Linkirk’s eyes swept over her, apparently confused as to why such a commoner stood before him until a flicker of recognition lit his face.
“Margaret,” Lady Linkirk said. “Allow me to say how grateful I am that you’ve stayed to dine with us. My Angus will be so pleased.”
“Oh,” Margaret said. This woman did assume too much about their relationship. “Thank you.” Her eyes roved the hall for Angus, but she could not see him.
“I understand you met my husband earlier today.” Lady Linkirk motioned to the man beside her, who paid her no mind.
“Yes.” Margaret’s eyes flicked to his face, then quickly away. The very sight of him made her hand slide to her misericorde. He treated Angus like filth because of James’s death, and it wasn’t even Angus’s fault. But Angus, as always, protected his brother.
“My lord,” Lady Linkirk said to her husband. “Won’t you greet our guest?”
It was a question, one Margaret was sure the man would ignore. But he did not. He looked at his wife, and his eyes softened.
“Good even and welcome,” he said to Margaret with a minute tip of the head. Lady Linkirk really was an extraordinary woman to have influence like that on such a hardened man.
Linkirk’s eyes snapped to the door. Margaret followed his gaze and saw Angus enter the room. His dress was even finer than Gillis’s, with gold thread stitched onto his velvet doublet and a cap with gold trim. His ruff was starched and white as the first snow.
He came forward and bowed to his father without meeting his eyes and then reached out and kissed his mother’s hand. This was an Angus she’d never seen before. He might as well be a courtier from London, for all his fine attire and grand ways.
Lady Linkirk’s every finger displayed a jeweled ring in gold or silver. Margaret was reminded again that she herself was but a pebble here.
Angus turned on his heel until he was facing Margaret. He lifted her gloved hand and kissed it with all the ceremony he’d given his mother. “My Lady Margaret. Thank you for joining us.”
She tugged her hand away. “I should never have consented to this.”
He grinned. “But you did, and now you cannot turn back.”
The door to the hall opened again, and a tall man entered with a woman on his arm. If the Linkirk’s were dressed to the hilt, these two were positively resplendent. She’d never seen so much silk and jewels and brocade. It must be the much-admired Elizabeth and her brother, George, whom Margaret had seen riding in with Linkirk.
Angus shared a quick glance with Gillis, and a world of understanding passed between them. The bond between those two continued to amaze her.
Angus welcomed Elizabeth with a kiss on her hand, just as he had Margaret and his mother. His personal mark. Elizabeth smiled warmly.
“Elizabeth, how lovely you look.” He spoke the truth on that score. She was perhaps the most striking woman she’d ever seen. “I’d like you to meet—”
Margaret coughed loudly. He’d given his word to keep her as unknown as possible. These people from Hawick need not know her identity.
He grinned. “Our friend Meg.”
“Meg?” Elizabeth said when no other identification was forthcoming. She turned to Margaret and gave a little curtsy. “Pleased to meet you.”
Angus continued his introduction. “Meg, the lady Elizabeth Graham.”
“Hello,” Margaret said.
“And her brother, George Graham, son of Sir Robert Graham,” Angus finished with the smallest of smirks.
“Hello.” Margaret gave him the same indifferent greeting as she had his sister. Angus seemed genuinely happy to see George, but his feelings about Elizabeth, she could not discern.
He offered his arm to Elizabeth and escorted her to the table while Gillis escorted Margaret. Gillis sat Margaret beside Elizabeth, then joined Angus and George at the right hand of Linkirk. This was going to be a long meal, banished as she was to the women’s end.
The other tables slowly filled with servants and stewards, and even Osanna found a seat near some men at arms. Margaret would have traded places with her in a heartbeat.
The food arrived—steaming trenchers of salmon and eels, seeing as it was a fish day. A far cry from the scraps she’d been eating in the back rows of London—or at her pele tower.
Margaret reached for a boiled eel.
“You wear your gloves at meal?” Elizabeth asked.
As usual, Margaret had her kidskin gloves on, stained and rubbed bare from constant use. Elizabeth could think what she wanted, but in this crowded place, she would keep as much of herself covered as possible.
Elizabeth smiled at her as though Margaret were a child. “A lady does not wear gloves at the table.”
“I’m not a lady,” Margaret said perhaps a bit too loudly, because Angus’s face turned to her. Elizabeth’s eyes darted to her woolen kirtle and then her silver-trimmed veil, trying to work things out. Why would a commoner be seated at the master’s table?
Elizabeth tore off a dainty pinch of bread and dipped it in some broth. She turned her attention to Lady Linkirk.
From what Margaret could overhear from her end of the table, Lord Linkirk was regaling his sons with information about a recent trip to Carlisle. Names kept fluttering down the table toward her. Elliotts. Armstrongs. All reivers, from the sound of it, as quantities of cattle and horses kept drifting past in the tendrils of conversation she was able to catch. Whatever those men—the Elliotts and Armstrongs—had done, Linkirk seemed impressed by it.
Osanna laughed as she ate. It seemed things were all cheery and merry down at her end of the hall. Margaret nearly picked up her trencher to go sit with Osanna, but then Elizabeth’s attention was back on her.
“Meg?” Elizabeth asked, but Margaret had no idea what the woman had just said. She’d not been paying attention.
“Yes?” Margaret answered.
“I asked where you are from.”
Margaret took a sip from her cup, then looked over to meet Elizabeth’s genteel eyes. “I’m from London. From the wynds and alleys and backstreet ratholes.”
A bit of color drained from the lady’s rose-tinted cheeks. “How did you come to be here?” Surely she thought Margaret should be begging for scraps at the kitchen door instead of seated on the dais.
“I took on a pack of ruffians and was injured in the skirmish,” Margaret said. “I stopped them from despoiling a young lass. They didn’t much appreciate my interference.”
Elizabeth’s face grew white. What delicate flowers these high-bred ladies were, so easily rattled. And so amusing to watch them cringe.
“Angus took me in,” Margaret continued. “So I could heal.” She stabbed an enormous beetroot with her knife and wedged it into her mouth. Ofttimes it was easier to present the expectation rather than explain that she’d been raised the daughter of a knight and fallen into wanton ways. She’d had all the education due her station. It wasn’t until her family had come north to this godforsaken place that she’d really come face-to-face with true vulgarity. If Elizabeth thought her ill-mannered, why try to change her mind? Her opinion meant nothing to Margaret.
“Sir Angus is very generous to take you in,” Elizabeth said with feeling. She turned and gazed down the table at him. He was watching them steadfastly.
Margaret couldn’t resist. For the second time in one night, she pulled the glove off her hand. Her head had barely stopped aching from her experience with Gillis. But once again, her curiosity got the better of her. Undoubtedly, she would regret this.
Margaret reached for the salt cellar, letting her fingers brush along Elizabeth’s bare hand. This common girl is nothing. I am sure he loves me. Our marriage will unite our families. Soon now—
Margaret yanked her hand away, pressing her fingers against her temple. Why was she so weak? Nay. It was Angus who made her weak. Weak in her mind and, oh, so weak in her heart. Thank the merciful saints she was leaving tomorrow.
Now Gillis was peering down the table at her, the lift of his brows asking if she was unwell. He must have recognized the aftermath of contact with another person. Angus too was watching her.
Margaret stood. She could not breathe in here. Too many eyes, and no place to hide. She’d eaten her fill and had no desire to partake of the subtlety the servants were parading toward the upper table. Some kind of marzipan confection shaped like a white goose. Or perhaps it was a swan. Either way, Margaret had had enough.
“Excuse me,” she said to Elizabeth as she turned from the table. Without glancing back, she made her way to the door at the far end of the room, hugging the stone wall, limping on her leg.
She slipped through and took half a dozen steps.
“Meg?”
She stopped, put on her smile, and turned around.