Work Text:
Margaret has always loved the wind in her hair, especially now that it’s long enough for a strong breeze to stream it behind her like a flag when she’s at ease. It’s braided and bound under kerchiefs most of the time, of course, what with barley to tend and thresh, and sheep to raise, round up, shear and eventually slay. The plants and the livestock do not care about her body as long as her hands are sure, and her father does not care what she chooses to call herself or clothe that body in, as long as she cares for herself properly and tends to the grain and the herds with the expertise he’s imparted to her.
Margaret’s father could not have taught her well if he hadn’t been a good judge of creatures and of character. She doesn’t hear the questions he poses to the laird, or the answers he provides, but somehow there is a meeting of minds, and her hair is a shining banner in the sunlight as she rides to Drum with Alexander.
She is not surprised at the discourtesy of the four-and-twenty knights, or the sneering of her new in-laws. The tale of his unhappy first marriage is illuminating: it explains why the sight of her hard at work captivated him so.
The kissing tells her that her new husband intends to cherish her properly. The kisses to her cherry cheek and chin are gentle, like a thumb wiping away tears, and the first flurry of kisses on her mouth are light and playful as well. By the twentieth kiss, her lips are tingling, and she feels her body shimmering in welcome, anticipating the laird’s open mouth traveling across her skin.
In their bed, he makes good on the unspoken promise of his fingers and lips, spelling out his appreciation across every inch of her. The coarse and the sleek, the scarred and the smooth—he does not flinch from all the revelations of her body, just as he didn’t wilt under the torrent of disapproval from his brother John. She will ask him later about his knowledge—she hasn’t traveled far and wide nor read any book in her life, but it doesn’t require long voyages or late nights with old tomes to recognize that the way he’s making her body sing, he didn’t learn that from his time with the first Lady Drum. Nor does it require a looking glass for her to see her pleasure mirrored and magnified: their bodies melding together as a long sigh of spring, when tiny crumbs of soil and dew cling to the tips of new green stems.