“I despise you,” she cried desperately. “Would you stoop to rape?”
His calloused hands cradled her face and brushed away the tears that collected in the corners of her eyes. “It will not be rape, Mairi. I promise you that.”
She sobbed and cursed him as his mouth moved from her eyelids to her throat and then to her breast. When he removed her gown and lifted her to the bed, she was strangely submissive. He wooed her with memories, with soft words, firm lips, and skilled, careful hands. The driving force of his kiss broke her reserve. With a last despairing moan, she threaded her fingers through his hair and pulled him inside of her.
***
Later, much later, when her naked, sweat-dampened body lay curled against his, he spoke. “Did you think I wouldn’t know?”
She turned her head, her eyes meeting his in the shadowy darkness. “Know what?”
“The child. Did you think I wouldn’t know she was ours?”
Mairi closed her eyes. Even if she’d wanted to lie, she could not have forced the words from her throat. The time for dissembling was over. “What did you name her?”
“Margaret. I call her Maggie.”
“Maggie.” She tested the name on her tongue. “Maggie. Does it suit her?”
Edward grinned. “It does.”
“Eleanor said you wouldn’t know.”
“Eleanor is a fool,” he said emphatically. “But for the color of her hair, the lass could be you.”
Mairi’s eyes widened. “The bairn was the image of you, Edward. How can she be like me?”
“’Tis more a similarity of temperament than feature,” he explained. “She is fair, but not so fair as an English lass, and her temper is wondrous to behold.”
“Are you sure it isn’t you she takes after?” Mairi retorted.
“She is tall for a lass and slim with eyes as gray and clear as rainwater. No one who knows you as I have would believe Eleanor is her mother.”
“Does Eleanor know your thoughts?”
“Aye,” said Edward shortly. “She knows.”
Mairi bit her lip. “Then it was all for nothing.”
His arms tightened around her. “How could you do it, lass? Why did you lie? I would not have thought it possible for you to leave a child of your blood to be raised by another.”
“I had no choice. You were leaving for Falkirk. What future was there for us if you never returned?”
“But I did return,” he reminded her, “and you were gone. I was in the devil’s own temper, Mairi. I would have come for you immediately, but I learned of your marriage to Murray.” He tilted her chin up and looked down at her face. “Have you any idea what you did to me? For an entire year, I fell asleep dreaming of painful ways to murder David Murray.”
She drew a deep sobbing breath and buried her face against his chest. “Oh, Edward. I am so sorry. What have we done to each other?”
His breath was warm and soft against her ear. “I love you, Mairi. Whatever pain I’ve brought you, know that at least. You hold my heart still as surely as you did the first moment I saw you.”
Tears slipped from beneath her eyelids and rolled down her cheeks. She wiped her nose on the back of her hand. There were words to be said, and the saying of them would be difficult. “You must leave in the morning and never come back again,” she whispered. “Please, Edward. I cannot bear it if you do not.”
His lips were on the curve of her throat. Her skin burned where he touched her.
“Never fear, love,” he murmured. “I shall leave in the morning, but I’ll be back. Until the day I die, I’ll come back to you.”
***
Three weeks later
Mairi slipped out of bed and pulled on a robe over her nakedness. With a quick glance, reassuring herself that her husband still slept, she walked out of the room and closed the door quietly behind her. David Murray needed his rest. He had been with Wallace at Falkirk and now rode with Robert the Bruce. His stay would be brief, his purpose to assure himself that his wife and son remained unharmed after Edward’s visit. Tomorrow he would ride out at the head of the Bruce’s army.
Making her way to her son’s room, Mairi chewed at her bottom lip and fervently prayed that her husband would soon be on his way. She loved David Murray as dearly as she had every day of her life since she was eight years old. They had