#also I want to give a shoutout to kristsune for persuading me to go with the more assertive option for Margaret

[staches-and-sabres]

A Drabble...

Margaret slowly opened her eyes as her mind drifted back into consciousness, and the first thing she noticed was her husband’s absence.  Her husband.  She and Edmund had been married for almost a week now, and had been staying at his family’s castle in Stirlingshire since the day after the wedding, but she was still adjusting to her new identity as his wife.  As a viscountess.  As a Buchanan.  The latter, to her surprise, was proving to be the most novel experience of the three.  She was raised in a family of English commoners, whose surnames and property ownership were the only clear threads connecting them, but Edmund’s family in Scotland shared so much more than that.  They had their own coat of arms, their own motto, even their own particular textile patterns that set them apart and brought them together.  And from the moment she set foot on the Buchanan estate, they embraced her as one of their own.  In fact, she was nearly overwhelmed by their enthusiasm upon meeting her, and it had taken most of the week to become accustomed to such frankness and vigor the likes of which she had rarely encountered in England.  But they welcomed her.  Loved her, even.  Just as Edmund had assured her they would .  .  .  

Margaret reached over and felt the cool sheets on Edmund’s side of the bed, then recalled that he had planned to go walking with his uncle Robert before breakfast.  She sat up and drew back the bed-curtain on her side, letting the early morning light wash over her.  It was almost eight o’clock, so she presumed that the men would be coming back soon if they weren’t already, and she decided she would go out and meet them as they returned to the house.  She quickly got up and dressed herself, then quietly made her way downstairs and greeted the servants she encountered as she padded toward the main entrance.  One of the footmen met her at the door and offered to let her out, and she nodded her head and thanked him before stepping outside into the gentle morning breeze.  

The air was crisp but not unpleasantly so, and Margaret absently pulled her ivory knit shawl closer around her shoulders as she looked out over the front lawn and listened for the voices of either Edmund or his uncle.  Hearing nothing, and since she was outside already, she descended the steps and wandered over to an elm tree by the garden so she could sit down on the bench beneath it and simply take in the morning for a while.  After some fifteen minutes or twenty, she heard a faint crunching of gravel and looked over to see the two men rounding the corner at the far end of the house.  They were both kilted, which didn’t surprise Margaret anymore -- in fact, she had hardly seen Edmund in trousers since they arrived in Stirlingshire except the ones he wore to bed -- but she was struck once again by how handsome he looked, and yet how extraordinarily different.

Lord Robert was the first to see her from across the way, and he greeted her with a wave and shouted, “Good marnin’, milady!”  

Margaret shook her head in amusement as she stood and called back, “Good morning, Uncle!”  She strode towards the two men until they were all at a more reasonable distance from one another, then extended her left hand to her husband and said, warmly, “Good morning, Ed.”

Edmund took her hand and replied, “And to you, my dear,” then planted a soft kiss on her cheek.  

“Och!” Robert exclaimed in mock reproach.  “Goan an’ give ‘er a proper kiss, lad -- there’s nae wee ones aboot!”  He winked impishly and chortled as his nephew’s face grew red, and in that moment Margaret realized what she ought to do.  In one fluid motion propelled solely by determination, she took a half-step toward Edmund, cradled his jaw with her hands, and gave him a ‘proper’ kiss she typically reserved for moments when there was no one else around.  Her heartbeat pounded in her head as she drew back, and before her brain had time to register what she had just done, she nodded sharply and turned and marched straight back to the house, pulling her shawl tightly around her trembling shoulders.  If Edmund or Robert made a sound, she couldn’t hear it over the drumming in her ears, but she still felt their eyes on the back of her head until the front door was closed behind her.