“Do not touch me,” Margaret whispered again, her skin aflame with Angus’s nearness. She rested her hands on his chest.
He tilted his head to the side so he spoke from a hair’s breadth away. “Why should I not?”
“I cannot.”
“I believe you can,” he said, tilting his head to the other side.
She closed her eyes and let her mind wander to a place where the touch of a man’s lips would be nothing more than a moment of shared affection. She would give anything to be there now.
A loud thud came from outside.
“Gillis,” Margaret said. She opened her eyes.
“Gillis can wait.”
The door was wide open. Gillis would see. Not that they’d done anything. Not that she could.
“Margaret Grey?” a voice called. A man’s voice she did not recognize. She pushed Angus away, and a moment later, a man knocked on the open door and poked his head in.
Timothy Tilghman. He smiled at her as he crossed the threshold. Angus still stood very near, and when Timothy’s eyes moved from Margaret to him, his smile vanished.
Angus took a step toward Timothy. “Good even.”
Timothy ignored him. “Lady Margaret. You are back. You’re alive.”
A reacquaintance with Timothy Tilghman was not something Margaret wanted. “I’m only back for a short while. ’Tis very late. Why are you here?”
“I beg your forgiveness. I thought I saw you recently on market day. I came out several times, but the place was always empty. I was passing by and saw smoke from your chimney.” He did not exactly answer her question. “Where have you been?”
Did he mean the last few weeks or the last few years? Rather than admit she’d been staying with Angus Robson and his family, she opted for the latter. “I’ve been in London.” Not the whole story, but enough.
Angus cleared his throat. “Who are you?”
“An old friend,” Timothy said with about as much friendliness as a dog guarding his bone. He moved closer to Margaret. “Might I have a word with you? Alone.”
Whatever infatuation she’d had with him in her youth had burned up with her home that dreadful night. The very sight of him only brought back the dancing flames rising from the courtyard. He smelled of ash and smoke. Surely because he worked over a forge all day, but in her mind, she tasted the tang of burning thatch.
How could she put the past behind her if it kept stepping in front of her? Every new tie she made to this place would only make her mission harder to complete. And harder to leave behind.
She glanced at Angus, wishing he would make the smithy leave. Wishing they could go back to the moment when he’d been leaning over her, separated by naught but a breath of air.
Angus misinterpreted her look. He nodded. “I’ll see to my horse.” Then he walked out the door.
Timothy stood quietly for a few moments, until Angus’s shadow passed the window on his way to the paddock.
In a blink, Timothy was beside her. “Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head. “No. Of course not.”
He seemed relieved beyond his right as an old acquaintance. “Why are you here? How did you survive the fire? Why did you come back?”
Timothy Smithy was hardly the man she would explain that night to or especially reveal her plans to. She’d known him well in her youth, but that was a long time ago, and much had happened. She was certainly not the same girl who had met him in the stone circle six years ago. It would be foolish to think he was the same lad. “I have business here. When it is finished, I will be leaving immediately.”
She thought he’d press her about her business, but he did not. He asked a different question. “What in the name of Saint George are you doing with Angus Robson?”
This was no matter of his. He had no claim to her or her dealings. “He is a friend. He has helped me considerably.”
Timothy shook his head. “Never thought I’d see the day when you join yourself to a reiver.”
Nonsense. She had no intention of joining herself—“What?”
He stared at her, watching her intently. “You did not know?”
She opened her mouth to speak, but no words would come.
“He is a reiver. Like his father. Like his father before him. His whole family. A whole pack of border raiders. A blackguard through and through.”
But—a reiver? How could Angus be a reiver? She would have recognized a murderer and a plunderer the moment she saw him, wouldn’t she?
“Are you certain?” But even as she questioned, it made sense. He was from a large and wealthy clan. In these parts, most men like that were reivers. She’d been under duress by the Hall brothers at the time she’d first met Angus. Compared to them, Angus was a saint. Or so he seemed. She’d even been at his house and still had not had a single inkling of whose roof she’d been sleeping under. All this time, he was one of them? She felt ill.
“I met him out on the moor,” she explained. “He and his brother saved me from the Halls.”
Timothy let out a grunt. “More likely he was out collecting black rent. And that explains why he took his people across the border and depleted the Halls of half their livestock. More than half, as nearly all the ewes were with lamb.”
Margaret sank down on the edge of her bed. The Halls. No wonder she’d not been bothered by them since that first night they’d come calling. How foolish to think it was because Harry had looked kindly on her. The Robsons, doubtless led by Angus, had raided them and, like as not, left a warning that the lady of Hartfell was not to be touched. Apparently, she owed her black rent to Angus and not the Halls.
All of this he’d done without a word to her. Secret works he was ashamed of, else why keep it hidden? He had many secrets, this Angus Robson.
What a fool she was. Instead of falling under the spell of Angus Robson, she should have spent her time relearning the ways of the Marches.
“Might even be he was the one what led the raid on your family.”
Her eyes swung back to Timothy.
“Or at least his father.”
No. It could not be.
Surely, in her heart, in the marrow of her bones, she would have sensed such a thing. If he’d had any part of her family’s death, she would have known. It was unthinkable. She’d heard enough. “Stop. Stop this, Timothy.” She pointed to the door. “Go. Leave me.”
He stepped back. “But I cannot leave you here alone with that man.”
By the rood, why not? Why could the lot of them not understand that alone was the only thing she’d ever wanted. “Go,” she said again, louder. “Get out!”
Timothy gaped at her, then turned and left, brushing past Angus as he did.
Angus had a panicked look on his face. “What happened?” He took a few steps toward her. His arms open, waiting to receive her. “I shouldn’t have left you alone with him.”
“Stop.”
He did, watching her carefully. “What is it?”
How could Timothy’s words be true? And yet, how could they not be? Timothy had no reason to lie. Most of the great families in the Marches were all raiders of one kind or another—she’d known that all along. Why should Angus be any different? Her feelings had clouded her judgment.
“Meg? Are you hurt? What did he do?”
Angus had taken great pains to keep his life’s work a secret from her. A reiver and a deceiver. A man who made a living from depriving and plundering. And murder.
“You are a reiver.”
He didn’t seem overly surprised by her accusation. “Is that what the smithy told you?”
“Is it true?”
He shrugged. “Everyone is.”
She turned her back on him, pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes. She’d been so blind.
“What do you want me to say? That is the way of life. Raid or be raided. There is no middle ground. Would you have my family lose all?”
She spun around. “Do you mean like my family?”
He realized his mistake immediately. “Meg.”
“No.” How had she let herself become so diverted from her purpose? She’d lost sight of her mission. No more. From now on, her family’s revenge was the only thing she’d put her mind to.
“I have no choice,” Angus said. “My father expects it.”
Now he blamed his father. “Whose choice was it to raid the Halls?”
He ran a hand across his face. “I did that for you. To keep you safe. I couldn’t step aside and do nothing knowing those filthy Halls were threatening you. I threatened back, that is all.”
“You threatened back?”
He nodded.
“You and how many men?”
He sighed. “We were twenty strong.” His gray eyes simmered as he watched her, churned as they seemed desperate to convince her of his innocence. But he was not innocent. He was everything she despised.
“How is it different from you?” he asked. “How many purses did you borrow without the owners’ knowing? You told me yourself you stole to survive.”
She turned her face to him, her fists tight balls hanging stiffly at her side. “That was different. I would have died without coin. Would you rather I lifted my skirt to buy my bread?”
His face went pale. “No. Heaven’s no, Meg. Of course not. What a notion.” He took a step toward her as if he would wrap her in his arms, then he caught himself. “I only meant that life demands different things of all of us. We cannot always choose.”
Just as she’d had no choice when the reivers had come and burned away her life. “You must think me a fool,” she said. “That I went unknowing for so long. You have deceived me well, and that is not an easy thing to do.”
He took another step toward her, his voice soft. “It was never my intent to deceive you. You are not a fool. Nor am I. I knew your feelings about us and our way of life. I held my tongue for one reason only.” He gestured at her, toward her face. “I did not want to see this in your eyes.”
It was too late. Nothing he could say would change the matter. His reasoning meant nothing. He was a reiver. And she could not abide it.
But there was one thing she had to be certain of. “Hold out your hand.”