The Striker Read online

  She glanced around, seeing that as in previous nights, the others were giving them space. “What will you do if war breaks out again?” she asked in a low voice.

  It might have been a trick of the torchlight, but she swore he stiffened defensively. “What do you mean?”

  “My father wants you to fight with him. He said your abilities would be valued by those loyal to King John.”

  This time she was not mistaken: his expression went rigid. There was a steely glint in his eye she’d never seen before. “My duty is to my father.”

  “And his is to his overlord, Alexander MacDougall, the Lord of Argyll, and to his king. Not to his kinsman,” she added, referring to Bruce.

  She waited for a reaction, but there was none. His expression betrayed not a hint of his thoughts. He wore the same serious, intense expression on his face that he always did when he was with everyone else. But not usually her.

  “My father knows well where his duty lies, Margaret.”

  Hope sprang in her chest. “Does that mean you will—?”

  He stood. “It means this is a pointless conversation. When the time comes—if the time comes—he will do what he must. As will I.”

  He started to walk away, but she stood and stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Wait, why won’t you talk about this with me?”

  “There is nothing to discuss, and it has nothing to do with you.”

  “I’m your wife! Of course it has something to do with me.”

  He held her gaze, saying nothing but challenging all the same. She didn’t understand. Why was he doing this? Why was he shutting her out? Did he not value her opinion? She might not be as smart as he was, or know how to read and write, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t understand.

  “I have to go,” he said impatiently.

  She let her hand drop, not knowing or understanding how the conversation could have gone so wrong. “Where?”

  “It’s my night to be on guard duty.” He paused. “I won’t be to bed until midmorning. Perhaps it would be best if you slept in the tent the last night?”

  She was stricken. “Why are you acting like this?”

  His expression changed, and once again he was the man she loved. He drew her into his arms. “Ah hell, I’m sorry. But it is your fault.” She looked up at him questioningly. “You have pushed me to the edge of madness. I can’t take another night of it.”

  He was teasing her, but only partially. Suddenly, she scowled. “You volunteered for guard duty, didn’t you?”

  He winced, not bothering to lie. “It’s only one more night.”

  Or so he thought. But the next night, after they’d finally retired to the private chamber that had been arranged for them (his mother had insisted on showing her every room of the beautifully decorated tower house), Margaret had a surprise for him.

  “Your what?”

  “Shhh,” she said. “Do you want the whole castle to hear? My flux. It will only be a few days.”

  She thought he’d find the timing amusingly ironic, but apparently he didn’t. He was strangely quiet, his expression almost pained.

  Her brow furrowed. “I don’t exactly have much control over these things, Eoin.” She grinned wickedly and slid up against him, covering him with her hand. “Besides, there is plenty of privacy here, and no reason for you to be quiet.”

  He jerked her hand away. “Damn it, Margaret. Stop it. You don’t understand.”

  More than a little hurt by the rejection, she moved back a few steps to look at him. “Then why don’t you explain it to me,” she said softly.

  A strange sense of doom settled around her like a thick gray mist.

  He moved to the glazed window, staring out for a few minutes before turning to answer her.

  “I’m leaving.”

  For a moment she didn’t think she heard him correctly. Her heart was beating too loudly in her ears. “You are what?”

  “There is something I have to do. I must leave by Saturday.”

  Margaret just stared at him, dumbfounded. Saturday was in two days. “When will you be back?” she managed chokingly, a ball of hot emotion seeming to have stuck in her throat.

  “I don’t know.”

  She flinched as if struck. “What do you mean, ‘I don’t know’? A few days? Weeks?” He didn’t say anything. “Christmas?” she could barely breathe.

  “I hope so.”

  He hoped so? There were still almost two weeks until All Saints’ Day! Christmas was more than two months away. This wasn’t happening. Please let someone tell her this wasn’t happening. The room seemed to be swaying as if they were still on the ferry. “Where are you going?”

  “I . . .” He dragged his fingers through his hair, the way he did when he was anxious or uncomfortable. “I can’t explain. It’s just something I have to do, all right?”

  “Of course it’s not all right. How could it be all right? We have been married barely over a fortnight, have not yet shared a roof, let alone a bedchamber for the night, and you are leaving me in two days, telling me nothing about where you are going, what you are doing, and how long you will be gone, and it’s supposed to be ‘all right’?” Hearing the rising hysteria in her voice, she forced herself to try to calm. But how could she be calm? How could he do this to her? “How long have you known about this?”

  He had the shame to look away. “Since the day before we left Stirling.”

  Her chest stabbed. “And you didn’t think to tell me?”

  “I intended to, damn it, just not like this.”

  “Then when? After you’d made love to me, until I was too exhausted to argue?” She gasped, her eyes widening at his guilty expression. “Good God, that’s exactly what you intended, wasn’t it?”

  “Ah hell, Maggie, I know I should have said something earlier. But I knew you’d be upset, and . . .”

  She straightened her spine, her anger the only thing that kept her from collapsing into a ball and sobbing. “And you thought it would be easier this way.”

  “Nay, that isn’t what I was going to say. You were so happy. I didn’t want to do anything to ruin that.”

  “And you thought this would be better?” He didn’t say anything. She stared at him. “Please don’t do this. Don’t go.”

  “I have to.”

  “Then wait a few more days. At least give me that.”

  “I can’t. I’m late already.”

  He reached for her, and for the first time, she flinched from him. Also for the first time, she didn’t want him to touch her. “Then go, Eoin. Just go.”

  And to her utter despair and misery, two days later he did exactly that.

  11

  CHRISTMAS CAME and went. But Eoin was hopeful he’d be able to leave the Isle of Skye, where he’d been training with the other elite warriors recruited for Bruce’s secret guard, and return to Margaret for a few days in January.

  When he’d ridden away from her all those weeks ago, he’d had his anger to hold on to. For two days he’d tried to explain to her that this was what he did. He was a warrior. He went where and when his chief told him to. But she refused to listen to any explanations. When it became clear that he would not delay or change his plans—or explain them—she’d turned as cold as ice and would barely even look at him.

  He’d expected tears and pleading, but maybe he should have known better. Margaret MacDowell might not be as refined and sophisticated as the noblewomen he knew, but she had the steel in her spine and iron in her blood of royal ancestors and generations of the proud Celtic chiefs who’d come before her.

  Frustration at the situation, and her reaction, had turned to anger. But over the long weeks of training, including almost two weeks of hell that had been aptly named “Perdition,” that anger turned to guilt. The hurt in her eyes—the look of betrayal—haunted him. He couldn’t escape the feeling that each day they were apart, he was losing her more and more.

  And then there were the tortured dreams of her turning to another m