A Trust Betrayed by Candace Robb Page B

perhaps all of Perth had known. Margaret’s face was hot. She pounded her thighs with her fists. Damn them.
     
    Roger had not been wounded, nor had he been dying somewhere without aid, as she had feared, but he had been helping a stranger flee Berwick before the summons to sign the Ragman Rolls. Perhaps not a stranger. Whether Andrew was right that Roger and Mistress Grey were lovers, or Murdoch that they worked together in some political scheme, the woman seemed of more concern to Roger than his own wife.
     
    How foolish Margaret felt for hoping that she and Roger would grow closer, that her husband would come to value her opinion, her companionship. When Longshanks had arrived in Perth with his army in June she had been so afraid. Her father had already fled the country, her mother had retired to Elcho, Fergus threatened to join a group of young men who were hiding food and goods in the countryside, Jack had ridden to Dunfermline to see how his aunt fared. On the second evening Roger had returned, unexpectedly. He said he had ridden hard to be there to protect her. And when a few mornings later a soldier grabbed her as she walked to the kirk and demanded a kiss, Roger, departing the house a moment behind her, had fallen on the man with a fury that was frightening to behold. The town’s calamity had seemed her marriage’s great chance.
     
    But at the beginning of August, when Longshanks had moved on, Roger had departed again.
     
    Margaret slowed her pacing. In March Edward Longshanks had moved on Berwick with a large army and slaughtered a great number of the townsfolk. Ye t this Mistress Grey had not fled then, she had waited months. Until August—until Roger went for her? Margaret did not like all that implied.
     
    Murdoch had asked what she knew of Roger. So little, she realized now. But she had not felt the lack until after they were wed. When he had approached her father about a possible match Roger already owned his house and had established his business in Perth. She had often wondered at his settling in Perth when it was Berwick that was vital to Roger’s trade. His explanation was that many merchants sold the same wares on the east coast, but Perth reached a needier market to the north. She had known from the beginning that there were parts of his life he did not mean to share with her. He had assured her that his mother had never bothered herself with much knowledge of the family business. Margaret had used Jack’s willingness to explain the importing and exporting, the shipping agreements, to learn more. But it had not occurred to her to question others about Roger.
     
    Mistress Grey might be the wife of a merchant of importance to Roger, even a friend. Margaret would not know.
     
    She sank down at the table. She might confront Roger, but she could not force him to confide in her. She tried to think of an instance in which he had expressed a need of her beyond her housewifely skills.
     
    Though she had had glimpses of Roger when he consulted with her father on trade, greeting him at the door, offering refreshment, bringing his mantle, Margaret had known nothing of Roger’s temperament until the afternoon he settled in a chair near hers and asked how her mother fared. A frightening vision had sent her mother to bed for several days. All Perth knew of the incident.
     
    “She rests comfortably.” Margaret had been particularly exasperated by the incident, which left her to manage the household at the busy time of airing before Easter.
     
    “As you are the only daughter in this household, much falls to you at a time like this, I should think.”
     
    An intuitive comment that had surprised her enough to lift her eyes from her needlework. “Who has told you that?”
     
    “I see it with my own eyes.”
     
    “Needlework is not my complaint.”
     
    “I know. But you have just this moment sat down after rushing about seeing to the servants.”
     
    “It is a daughter’s duty, nothing more.”