But I caution you, Alison, for your own safety never to set foot inside Ravencroft Keep. Your mother told me it’s an unspeakably dangerous place.
I will write more soon, dear friend.
Yours,
Mrs. Grant Rollins
(Or I will be once this reaches you, God willing)
* * *
If Samantha were to compile a list of things she hated, riding a horse in a skirt was only just beneath rapists, people who were cruel to children and animals, and handsome, arrogant Highland lords.
Murderers used to be higher on that list … but, she supposed, she’d need to ponder that a bit.
Seeing as how she was one.
And she only hated herself a little.
Instead of riding bareback, she chose a saddle this time to keep her skirts from gathering dust from her horse’s hide. She picked her way through the Erradale moors atop the bay gelding she’d come to favor, all the while practicing what she’d say when called in front of the magistrate.
This morning, she’d dressed in her finest blue silk-lined wool frock, arranged her heavy hair into a neatly braided knot at the nape of her neck, and had done some damage to her scalp trying to pin her best hat in place. The clouded mirror atop an ancient bureau had confirmed what she knew all along, that she’d never resemble a regal lady.
Alison Ross—the real Alison Ross—had been confident and lovely in a way Samantha could never hope to be. Sure, she could shoot a bull’s-eye at a full gallop, mend a fence, help brand a herd, and whelp a calf. But she’d never glide across the floor in that way that made a person wonder if a lady’s feet even moved beneath the ruffles of her skirts. She wasn’t made to sparkle brighter than the gems gifted by scores of admiring suitors. She wasn’t elegant, fashionable, or refined.
She was just skinny Samantha Masters.
I like my women plump, pleasant, and pretty, or slim, smart, and sassy, Bennett used to say with that crooked half-smile of his.
Well, she’d definitely been the latter, Samantha thought as the familiar breath-stealing pang sliced through her at the thought of her late husband.
There’d never been enough food for her to get plump. Being pleasant got her exactly nowhere in Nevada. And as for pretty … She’d heard the word to describe her before, but not as often as other descriptions.
Like capable, for instance. Or smart. Diligent. Hardworking. Agile. Men were more likely to praise the way she sat a horse or lifted a hay bale than the way she filled out a dress.
Mostly because she didn’t.
Bennett hadn’t seemed to mind too much. He’d said her sweet face was enough to make up for her bony hips.
It had been the nicest thing she’d ever heard anyone say.
He’d praise the length and weight of her hair, always requesting that she let it loose when she was naked. He’d drag it over her breasts and nuzzle his face into it when he was above her.
She’d been so desperate to get away from the ranch where she’d been raised—from the Smith family—that she’d believed every word that ever left his charming mouth was intended to praise her.
Now … dark and hateful suspicions and insecurities shadowed every one of the good memories she had of him.
Had he used her long, thick hair to cover a body that didn’t please him?
I like lookin’ into your beautiful blue eyes while we fuck, he’d say. Why would I look anywhere else?
All she’d taken from that was he thought her eyes were pretty.
Now she was certain he’d meant that there wasn’t much else to look at.
Cresting Gresham Peak, Samantha found the road that led between her lands and Inverthorne. She wished it was only the view of such untamed beauty that took her breath. Or the blue-gray stones of the castle spires in the distance jutting over the ancient forest that put the ache in her chest.
But during moments like this, when she wasn’t working, her mind ceaselessly churned with a thousand disturbing unknowns.
And every one of them hurt.
During her engagement, Bennett had come home with Boyd and Bradley a week late from selling the Smiths’ herd with extra cash in hand. Had he really stayed to help with the slaughter of the herd, as he claimed? Was the blood she’d washed from their clothes even bovine?
Or had their butchery been more insidious?
The prior night, Samantha had lain awake and thought of the day she’d shoved her husband’s shirt, reeking of perfume, beneath his nose and demanded answers. They’d been married four months at the time. He’d laughed at her, and then praised her possessiveness. He’d explained patiently that she was well aware that every hotel in Reno supplied whores, and that whores all drenched themselves in perfume.
Can’t walk down Main Street without coming out the other side smelling like a French dandy. He’d laughed, picked her up, and tossed her onto the bed. Can’t all women smell as sweet and clean as you do, darlin’.
Another time, when she’d found the smears of what she knew to be rouge on his collar, he’d admitted sheepishly that he’d lent his best shirt to Bradley so he could go to a saloon and have his pick of the working women.
It had never occurred to her that he was a liar.
When he’d convinced her to elope on her twentieth birthday, she’d only seen him as her knight in shining armor, saving her from becoming the third wife to a disgraced Mormon elder.
When he’d stolen the Smiths’ cattle, she’d helped him, thinking they’d deserved it for working her fingers to the bone since she was seven only to sell her to an old, lecherous man.
When he’d become an outlaw, forcing her to do the same, she’d truly believed it was because the cattle business was overrun by government-subsidized land barons, and there was no more work left for men like them. The Masters brothers had claimed that their way of life was not only threatened, it was dead. She’d believed them when they spoke of tyranny. That they were like Robin Hood taking their oppressors’ ill-gotten gains to start something that would employ displaced homesteaders, and people whose jobs were now done by machines.
“You might be slim and sassy, Sam,” she muttered to herself. “But you’re none too smart.”
An intelligent woman wouldn’t have landed herself in this unholy mess.
“Who’s Sam?”
“Jesus Jehoshaphat Christ,” she gasped, pulling her pistol and aiming it at the interloper before the curse had completely escaped her.
Down the sight of her gun, Callum put up his hands. “Sorry to startle you, lassie,” he said with a conciliatory grimace. “I thought an entire regiment could have heard me canter up here, but I didn’t notice that you were conversing with your ghosts until I got closer.”
Not for the first time, Samantha was struck by the chilling perception in his golden eyes. She found herself wondering if, beneath the layer of black sand on his face that he claimed protected him from the sun and cold, he was a young man. A handsome man, even. Beneath those skins and furs, she knew he had a lean, predatory ranginess to him that indicated a long life. His gaze held a haunted, secret pain that suggested the soul beneath had witnessed all there was, and wanted to see no more. However, something about him seemed so … vital, for lack of a better word. Perhaps the way he moved? With the loose-limbed ease of a man in his prime.
“Ghosts?” she queried, looking at him askance as she holstered her pistol.
“You were talking to someone named Sam,” he reminded her simply.
Was she a ghost? Had Sam also died when she’d pulled that trigger?
No.
“No,” she repeated out loud with confidence. “I am Sam. It’s what I’m called back in America.” She smirked. “I was talking to myself.”
“Sam?” he repeated skeptically. “How do you get Sam from Alison?”
“How do you get Bill from William?” she volleyed back. “Or Dick from Richard?”
“Fair point.” His eyes traveled the length of her dress with more curiosity than masculine
notice.
Typical.
“Thank you for the fish you left.” She remembered her manners. “I’d have to slaughter a cow to survive without your little deliveries, and I’d like to avoid that.”
He nodded, and she got the sense that he understood her meaning as well as her words. She appreciated the offer of sustenance that appeared on her doorstep in the morning, but would not be beholden to him for any favors he might ask in return.
“I was on my way to Inverthorne to visit my da, and noticed you were traveling toward Gairloch dressed for church … or a wedding?”
Samantha found that she liked this lonely man. He had more social graces than one would expect from your typical hermit. She liked the way he communicated. If he wanted to know something, he outright asked it. If he thought you might want to be left alone, he’d open a door and let you decide if you wanted to walk through it.
“I’m off to see the magistrate,” she offered. “Do you remember the letters and documents that you kindly delivered from Gairloch the day before our little … encounter with Lord Thorne?”
“Aye.” Though he said the word with ease, Samantha read tension in the wide shoulders beneath his ever-present cloak. And maybe a sharpening of his intense regard.
“Well…” She hesitated, but decided she was giving away no great secret. “Those were the documents I’m required to present to the magistrate in order to retain Erradale.”
“I see.” He looked over to Inverthorne. “There was a letter from a friend, as well, I think,” he prodded lightly.
“Yes,” she said brightly. “I miss my American friends, and they promised to write so I wouldn’t get lonely.”
After reading the letter from Alison Ross, Samantha had congratulated herself, once again, that she’d had the restraint to keep herself from shooting Lord Thorne when he’d trespassed.
Maybe she’d be lucky enough to get another chance.
But first, she had a promise to fulfill. If Alison was kind enough to lend her the land, then she had a duty to protect it with her life … whatever that was worth.
“This magistrate an acquaintance of yours, Callum?” she asked.
The Mac Tíre turned back to her and nodded. “I was raised as a lad with him.”
She smiled, considering this encouraging news. “Any advice on how to proceed?”
He thought for only a beat before answering. “Keep your wits about you. Some people have a hard time with that around the magistrate. And remember this above all. Though you are meeting in an office, in a civilized place, we men, especially Highlanders, are little better than beasts. Appeal to our baser natures, and you’re likely to get a more predictable response.”
Samantha thought on this a moment, wondering if he’d been a fantastic help or none at all as he steered his mount in the direction of Inverthorne. “Why help me, Callum? Aren’t you and Thorne friends?”
Instead of looking at her, he glanced west, out across the Atlantic. His expression would have been cryptic even without the sand and shadow of his hat. “Aye, we are. We always will be. But I believe this land belongs to Alison Ross. And I’ll help you fight to keep it.”
“Thank you.” Samantha welled with more gratitude than she thought herself capable of.
His only reply was a nod as the dark horse disappeared into the Inverthorne woods.
Every friendly feeling Samantha harbored for the hermit disappeared the moment she arrived at the Wester Ross magistrate’s office in Gairloch and saw the name on the placard.
Magistrate and Justice of the Peace. Lord Gavin St. James, Earl of Thorne.
CHAPTER SIX
Gavin didn’t so much as glance up when someone punched his door open with such force, it crashed off the wall.
He knew who it was. He’d been expecting her.
His blood quickened in time with his breath, and he had to set his pen down for fear of a slight tremor in his hand revealing his reaction.
Alison Ross charged into his office with all the subtle, ladylike remonstration of a rutting stag charging his opponent.
It surprised Gavin how much he’d been looking forward to locking horns, as it were.
From the moment he’d spied her name on the docket he’d been, for all intents and purposes, utterly useless. He’d heard a few cases, rescheduled most of them, and directed his clerk to clear the rest of his afternoon until the lass was scheduled to appear before him at half past two o’clock.
It’d taken him until about lunchtime to identify the disquieting sensation plaguing him in regard to bonny Alison Ross. It started with a vague, nagging discomfort, and graduated to something altogether more consuming.
Hunger.
In the space of two very intense interactions with the woman, he’d gone from being willing to fuck her to get what he wanted, to wanting to fuck her above all else.
Above all else, that was, but Erradale.
“What in the ninth level of hell is the meaning of this pile of horse shit?” she demanded, tossing the document he’d instructed his clerk to give her on his desk with a flick of her ungloved hand.
“Ah, bonny,” he greeted with the warmth he’d afford his cherished niece or beloved mother, knowing it would irk her beyond her apparently limited capacity for self-containment. “Still pleasant as a cornered hedgehog, and as well mannered as a badger, I see.”
“I’ve told you not to call me that,” she hissed. “My name is—is—” Her voice died away as he rose from his desk chair.
Gavin knew the moment the glacial ice of her eyes became liquid pools of azure heat …
That she wanted to fuck him, too.
He read desire in her body’s every slight reaction to him before she violently rejected it. Her pupils darkened and dilated before she slammed her lids shut. Her lush lips parted and her jaw slackened before she clacked her teeth together and pressed her mouth into a furious hyphen.
Good. He’d begun to fear he was losing his touch.
Her delicate nose flared but, come to think of it, that could be as much irritation as arousal.
With bonny wee Alison Ross, it seemed the two went hand in hand.
“Did ye forget yer own name, bonny?” he rumbled. “Doona fash yerself, happens more often than not when a foreign lass first sets eyes on a Highlander in his native garb.” He gestured to his sporran, kilt, and tunic. “Do ye recognize the plaid, lass? Ye should.”
He’d expected a reaction of fury in response to his brandishing her Ross colors. Instead, she glanced away. “I—I thought I’d be appearing in front of the magistrate in court—with witnesses—not in his—your—office.”
Gavin’s eyes narrowed. Was the lass truly so Americanized that she’d not even recognized her own clan colors?
That couldn’t be so. Though his cynical mind whispered ’twas more likely the canny lass was less easily manipulated than he thought. Did she want him to underestimate her? Was she hiding her true intentions behind a veneer of artless vehemence?
“I thought it would serve us both better if we were to meet in private to discuss this new … evidence I’ve uncovered.” He didn’t miss her retreat as he stepped around the desk, splaying his hand on the documents she’d thrown down like the proverbial gauntlet.
“It seems there is some dispute to the claim that yer great-grandfather Sir James Ross bought Erradale. These papers maintain that he leased it from the Mackenzie clan for ninety and nine years. Come January 1, 1881, yer payment of a thousand pounds is due if ye want to keep the land out of Mackenzie hands for another century.”
“And if I don’t pay?” she demanded, her shoulders squaring beneath the puffed sleeves of her handsome pelisse.
“If payment isna received, ye’ll forfeit Erradale to Laird Mackenzie.”
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” Vibrations of her muttered expletives shimmered over his skin until his cock twitched in response.
“Are all American women so vulgar, or is it just ye?” he queried shortly, bemoaning the husky note
that crept into his sleek voice.
She ignored the question. “But that doesn’t help you at all,” she reasoned aloud. “You said yourself that you’re no longer a Mackenzie, and so the land will not be forfeit to you, but your brother.”
Gavin leaned on the front of his desk, studying the delicate woman as she stood against him. He’d dubbed her a shrew. Perhaps shrewd was the more appropriate word.
She might not be a lady, but neither was she a fool.
“The emancipation proceedings will take a great deal longer than these.” He shrugged. “So technically, I’m still part of the Mackenzie clan. Despite our differences, Liam has no use for, or interest in, the upkeep of Erradale, nor will he want to pay the estate taxes owed on the land. He’ll be happy to accept my offer to surrender my shares in his distillery. He’d be rid of two millstones from his neck for the price of one.”
An unwanted parcel of land, and an unwanted brother, he thought bitterly.
“I have a bill of sale that directly disputes this so-called lease.” She brandished it at him, but snatched it away from his hand when he reached for it. “I’ll fight you in court, tell me when and where.”
His smile felt as sweet as warm honey and spread just as easily. “Ye produce all evidence to the contrary, and plead yer case to the Bench of the Magistrate.”
Her brows slammed together in a rather adorable show of bedevilment. “But … but you’re the magistrate.”
“Och,” he said in mock surprise. “So I am.”
As he watched color rise from beneath her collar, Gavin wondered just how far down her lithe body the delightful pink spread.
“You dirty, low-life crook!” she huffed, the papers in her grasp loudly protesting her fingers’ propensity to curl when angry.
“I am a servant of the law, not its master.” He bowed for effect.
“That’s a conflict of interest, and you know it!”
“We’re not as worried about such things here as Americans are. Servants of the crown are most often served by it, as well.”
Her superbly squared shoulders slumped, and he glimpsed a flare of panic beneath her expression of defeat. “There has to be something I can do,” she said, more to herself than to him, he surmised.
The Scot Beds His Wife Page 7
