“In here,” Linkirk called into the corridor.
Moments later, Angus rushed in. “Margaret.” He crossed the room in three strides and knelt in front of her. “Meg?” He brushed her hair away, inspecting her new wound.
Margaret closed her eyes. Angus was here. Perhaps God was not so cruel after all. She leaned into him. “I am sorry.” She should have heeded his many warnings. Now she’d put his life at risk as well.
He scooped her up in his arms. “You had better be sorry.”
She heard the relief in his voice, but she could not get her eyelids open to see it. Angus carried her out of the warden’s room. She leaned her head in, resting it on his shoulder.
When a blast of cool air rustled her hair, she opened her eyes. She was outside. They must have come out a back door, for she did not recognize the area. There was a horse waiting for them.
Angus set her on her feet. “Can you stand?”
Margaret nodded.
He steadied her, then swung up onto his horse. He reached for her and settled her in front of him.
“What about Osanna?” Margaret asked.
“She is safe,” Angus replied. “My father already brought her out.”
“Your father?” The last time Margaret had seen Angus’s father, he’d been berating her for trying to comfort his dying son.
“Aye.” Angus spurred his mount forward.
Margaret clung to him to keep her balance. They rode fast into the night, leaving the shouts and commotion of the reivers and the warden’s household behind. After awhile, he slowed his horse.
“Where are we going?” Margaret asked.
“I’m taking you home. And don’t even begin your protests because I shall not hear them.”
Margaret did have a protest. But before she could make it, he spoke again. “I can’t believe you made me come rescue you so soon after losing my brother.”
It must have been quite a disruption to his family’s mourning to ride out like this. “I am sorry,” she said again. “I would not listen. I would not change my course, and I’ve ruined so many lives.”
“Margaret.”
“I am even more sorry because I cannot go to Carrigdean with you.”
She heard his grunt through his jerkin. “Meg, really. I’m not in the mood.” He steered his horse along the road leading away from Redesdale. “I will have some of my men accompany Osanna back to Hartfell for your things, but you can never go back there. The warden will not let this go.”
It seemed no matter where she went, her fate followed her. If she went to Carrigdean, she would only be dragging her curse along with her. Putting Angus’s family in even more danger.
“What is to stop him from coming to Carrigdean?” she asked. “He will come for me there; you know he will. And then whose family will be left burned in their beds? Your mother. Your father. I will not hide away at your place and put you in danger.”
“Meg, look at me.”
She did. She leaned her head away to see him. He wore the yellow jerkin of the reivers. The steel bonnet. He even rode the small, sure-footed Galloway of the reivers. A sword hung from his waist, and a spear was tied to the saddle.
“You are reiving again?”
“I am not reiving. I am rescuing. The others are reiving—or at least creating a distraction. But the only thing I’ve stolen tonight is you.”
She turned her face away. “Thank you.” Once again, he had saved her. “He will come looking for me. You know he will.”
Angus gave a nod. “He will. But you are forgetting that Carrigdean lies in Scotland. The warden’s authority ends at the border.”
She’d forgotten about the border. “That won’t stop him.”
“We are not afraid of William Dacre. Besides, I have a plan that will secure your safety forever.”
“Forever? That seems unlikely.”
“The warden will not dare cross the border and trifle with the Lady Linkirk.”
“Your mother?”
He shook his head. “I mean the new Lady Linkirk.”
She thought for a moment, and then his meaning became clear. Her. Margaret. He meant to marry her. To make her the new Lady of Linkirk. Mercy. She could never, no matter how much she wished to. She still had this curse lingering on her skin. She could not marry until she found a way to get rid of it.
“Angus.”
He pulled her closer. Not that there was any empty space between them, for the saddle was small, and if she did not keep herself snugly against him, it dug into her leg.
“You know I cannot.”
He’d been there. He’d seen her with Gillis. And even if she didn’t have a curse, she did not fit in Angus’s world. “I am not cut from the same cloth as you and your family. You are silk and ermine; I am wool and sackcloth.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Your father would never allow it. Besides, he has already chosen for you.”
“It will not be Elizabeth, if that’s what you are thinking.”
They were nearing the turnoff to Hartfell. It gave Margaret an idea. What if there was a way to break her curse without having to kill the warden?
“Go this way.” She pointed along the narrow path leading south along the River Rede.
“You cannot go back to Hartfell. That is the first place the warden will come looking for you. And he will come looking; mark my words. Whatever he has done to you this night, if he gets his hands on you again, it will be tenfold worse.”
“Not to Hartfell. Take me to the stone circle.”
“Why?” he asked, his voice filled with suspicion. “We should hurry across the border.”
“I must go to the stones.”
“Margaret—”
“If you won’t take me, I’ll jump off and take myself there. You know I will.”
“By the devil, why can you never listen to anyone, not even once?” But he tugged on the reins, and the horse turned around and found his way onto the smaller path. “What is so urgent that you have to go there right now?”
“There is something I need you to do for me. I’ll tell you when we get there.”
Angus urged his horse faster, but he was carrying two, so the beast put only minimal effort into quickening his pace. They followed the river past her tower and up the hill to the clearing where nine stones formed a circle about as wide as her tower. One had fallen over; most leaned, as if moments from toppling. The stones went deep into the ground. It would take more strength than several men to bring them down.
Angus brought his horse up and around the blueish stones, coming to a stop under an old oak tree.
“We are here. What do you need?”
Margaret slid forward, and Angus lowered her to the ground.
“Over here.” She tramped across the grass to the place she’d been standing that night six years ago.
Angus looped the reins around a low-hanging branch and made his way through the deep grass that topped the hillside. Heather surrounded them on all sides, and some trees, but nature must have respected this place, because only grass grew in the center of the ring.
When he reached her, he stopped. “What now?”
“I’ve been thinking,” Margaret said.
“That cannot be good.”
If she could recreate what had happened to her that night, perhaps the spell would be broken, even without the death of the warden. She’d not been back here since the day of the reiving. She ran her hand along the stone, and the hairs of her arms stood on end. This was right. The warden might have started her curse, but it was the power here in this magical place that had kept it alive. After all, such stone circles were where the realm of this world and the faery world crossed paths.
“I need you to hit me. Hard enough that my head crashes into this stone here.” She drew a circle around the target area.
Angus stared at her, his eyebrows up near the top of his forehead. “What?”
Of course he would have objections, but this was important. “Hit me.”
“Margaret.” He glared at her. “You are already injured. It needs attention. How could you ask me to hit you again? You know I won’t.” He walked a step closer. “I fear you are worse off than I thought.”
“Angus, please. I’m begging this of you.” She rubbed her fingers where there was already dried blood and a bump the size of a robin’s egg. “This is where it all started. This is where the warden first came after me.”
“I don’t understand the purpose of this ridiculous notion.” By the furrow in his brow, he needed a full explanation.
“On the night my family burned, I was here, in this circle, standing exactly where I am now.” She adjusted her position to the best of her memory. “Timothy was here—”
“The smithy?” Angus glanced around as if he might still be near, lurking in the bushes. “He was one of the reivers?”
She should not have mentioned Timothy. Now she had even more to explain. “No. Forget about him; he is not important. I was here when a man—a reiver . . . not Timothy Smithy—approached me. It was the warden. He threatened me. I used my dagger. My misericorde, but he struck back, sending me into the stone. Just like he did earlier in his chamber.” Her hand went again to the growing welt on her temple. “It was that day when my curse began.”
“What curse?”
He still didn’t understand. He didn’t know how her whole life had been dragged off course. She ripped her gloves off and held up her hands. “This curse.” She waved her hands in his face, yelling, “This one, that makes it so I cannot touch another person. This one, that makes me an outcast from all society. This one, that assures I will be alone until my dying day. This is my curse, Angus Robson,” she cried out into the night. “This.” Margaret lowered her hands. Angus was staring at her as if he finally understood, at least in some small part, what her ability meant to her. How it burdened her.
“This is why I want you to strike me like the warden did. Because maybe it will end it the way it began. Back on that night.”
Angus gazed off into the darkness for a few moments, lost in his thoughts. Then he looked back at her. “So you think if I hit you like the warden did, you will no longer be able to hear the thoughts of others when you touch them?”
It didn’t seem that complicated to her. In fact, the more she dwelt on it, the surer she felt that this was the answer. “Yes. I cannot marry you until I remove the curse.”
He nodded slowly. “And so, now you expect me to strike you.”
“Yes.”
“Even though you are already in need of a surgeon.”
“Yes.”
“Margaret—”
“Please.” She lowered her head and dipped into a deep curtsy.
“Get up. You have been right all along. As flattered as I am, it does not suit you.”
She rose. Her head ached, her vision was still not fully recovered. She blinked, squeezing her eyes to clear her sight.
Angus took a step closer, staring into her eyes. He lifted a gloved hand and stroked her hair, his fingers lingering on her chin. Her neck. She should have been wary, standing in the stone circle again with a man in reiver’s clothes. Yet she’d never felt safer. All the fates in the world could conspire against her, but if she was with him, it seemed they could not touch her. He was the one piece in her life that felt right. The one thing God had given her that wasn’t a punishment. At least, he wouldn’t be a punishment if she could get rid of this wretched curse.
“Very well,” he whispered. “I will do it.”