Wild Wicked Scot. Julia London

asked.

      She turned her gaze to him, and he was surprised by the terror in her eyes. “Nell and I practiced all week.”

      Arran laughed. “You donna need a lot of practice for this,” he said, and stood up. “Lady Mackenzie, will you dance with me, then?”

      “No,” she said immediately. “No, I can’t.”

      “Margot—”

      “Please don’t ask me again, Arran. I won’t dance.”

      She stood up and hurried off the dais, disappearing into the crowd.

      Arran slowly resumed his seat, bewildered. What had just happened?

      It was a quarter of an hour before she came back, coming up the dais steps as if she were trudging to her doom. She took her seat and stared straight ahead, her hands curled tightly on the arms.

      All around them, Mackenzies were dancing and shouting in their tongue, drinking ale—they did not seem to care for the champagne he’d had brought in from England for a dear price—and calling up to the laird and lady their felicitations on their marriage. Margot said nothing. She did not smile, did not nod, did nothing to acknowledge them.

      Arran grew angry with her. He didn’t understand her sullen behavior, her refusal to dance when she’d seemed so excited by the prospect. When he could bear it no more, he stood up and walked off the dais, and asked a lass to dance with him.

      He didn’t know how many sets he spun through, but he drank and laughed and enjoyed himself. He would not sit on the dais with his sullen bride.

      When he at last looked to the dais, he was not surprised to see she’d gone.

      Fueled by whisky and humiliation, he went in search of her. He found her in her bed. Margot’s beautiful dress was lying in a heap on the floor, and the pieces of hair she’d used to arrange her coif were thrown onto her dressing table. He sent the maid scurrying.

      “What is the matter with you, then?” he demanded.

      She sat up and stared at him. “Is it not obvious?”

      “Obvious?” he exclaimed hotly. “There is no’ a bloody thing obvious about you, Margot. I gave a ball for you, and here you are, crying into your pillow like a child!”

      “I’m not crying into my pillow. I am plotting my escape!”

      “You want to escape?” He threw open the door and gestured to it. “Go. Escape.” When she did not move, he slammed the door shut and heard the sound of it reverberating down the stairs.

      “You canna imagine the effort it has taken to give you this ball—”

      “That wasn’t a ball!” she cried, and suddenly swung out of the bed, stalking to her vanity. “That was just another night in your great hall!”

      “Diah, but you are a petulant child, are you no’? Those people came to celebrate your marriage, and what do you do, then? You sulk and mope and then flee like a rabbit instead of welcoming them as you ought as lady of this house and clan!”

      She slammed down the hairbrush she’d just picked up. “I tried to greet them, but they speak in that awful language! Not one of them wore a ball gown or a proper evening coat. It was all plaid! They wouldn’t drink the champagne, and dear God, the dancing!” she exclaimed, shaking her hands to the ceiling.

      “You wanted dancing!”

      “Not that sort of dancing! I’ve never seen anything like it!”

      “You hate it all, is that it?”

      She gasped and looked at him. “No, that’s not—I never said that.”

      “You didna say it, Margot, but it is in your every move, your every glance, your every look! You are—”

      He caught himself. He ran both hands over his head and sighed.

      “What? What am I?” she demanded, folding her arms tightly. Defensively.

      “Bloody impossible, aye?”

      “So are you. And this place.”

      “Diah, what is wrong?” he roared to the rafters. “I canna put it to rights if you willna tell me what it is.”

      Margot stared at him. She seemed to be debating what she would say. She rubbed her nape and said, “Frankly, I’m a poor dancer and I don’t know—”

      He snorted.

      Her face darkened. “You asked, didn’t you?”

      “For all that is holy, I donna know how to please you,” he said coldly.

      “And I don’t know how to please you,” she snapped.

      Her tone undid Arran—he strode forward, caught her by the arm and whirled her around. “Enough of playing the wounded lass, Margot. We are married, we are, and you may as well learn to live with it as fight it, aye? You are a Scot now.”

      “Never,” she said defiantly.

      Her eyes were glittering in the low light. Her hair fell wildly about her shoulders. It was funny in a strange way—Arran had always thought himself full of might, capable of anything. But he was a very weak man when it came to Margot. She was wretched and haughty, and yet he could see her youth and the abject vulnerability in her eyes.

      He cupped her face with his hand, stroked her cheek. “I’m asking...no, I’m begging you. Donna make this harder than it is, aye?”

      There it was, a single tear sliding from the corner of her eye. “I can’t possibly make it any harder than it is,” she muttered, and closed her eyes and lifted her face to him.

      Arran, confused as he always was by her, kissed her. He drew her to the bed, removed her clothes, covered her body in kisses. And as he sank between her thighs and she drew up her knees and curled her fists in his hair, gasping with pleasure at what his tongue was doing to her, he thought that at least they had this. If nothing else, they had this.