The hollow exhaustion he’d initially recognized created a twitch and a tug in an altogether more dormant organ than the one that had taken to responding to her presence. One Gavin had long since deemed infinitely less reliable.
He idly rubbed at his chest as he asked, “Were ye not a Ross, and I not a Mackenzie, would my offer to buy Erradale tempt ye?”
She eyed him warily. “I—I couldn’t say.”
He took a careful step forward, and then another when she didn’t shy away. “Just because our fathers were enemies, doesna mean we have to be,” he reasoned, reaching out to tuck one silken strand of hair behind the shell of her ear. The motion was astonishingly familiar … almost … natural. “Ye can still sell to me, bonny, walk away a wealthy woman instead of a ruined one.”
Her lower lip disappeared into her mouth as she seemed to consider his words very carefully. Then, it slowly reemerged glossed and plump.
Lord, but he wanted a taste of it, as well.
“This isn’t fair … or right…” she murmured weakly. “You have me bent over a barrel, here.”
“Not yet,” he breathed against her ear. “But if it would convince ye to sell, I might be persuaded to bend ye over and—”
“I’m not falling for your wicked, arrogant attempt at seduction.” She enunciated every word with clarity. Jerking away from him, she leaped for the paper they’d both abandoned to the desk, and brandished it at him like a hatchet poised for the death strike. “You can shove this up your ass, you son of a bitch.”
“’Tis proper to address the magistrate as ‘Yer Worship,’” he corrected, crossing his arms so they didn’t feel so empty.
“All right then…” She took a centering breath. “You can shove this up your ass, Your Worship. You’ll not get Erradale through some closed-door deal or by treating me like a back-alley whore. I’ll make you fight for it.”
All the while she said this, he stalked her until she landed with her back to the office door.
“Perhaps,” he said, feeling like a lion about to pounce on a gazelle. “It seems, bonny, that neither of us are inclined to back down from a fight.”
His hand grazed her hip as he reached for the door and pulled it open, crowding her toward him. She ducked beneath his arm and sidled out of his reach but not before losing her hat.
“You are such a bastard,” she accused, swiping the frilly thing out of his offered hand after he’d bent to retrieve it.
“For a legitimate son, ye’d be surprised how often I hear that.”
“No,” she spat, “I wouldn’t.” She whirled on her boot and stalked past his slack-jawed clerk.
Gavin suppressed the disquieting urge to call her back by watching the furious sway of her skirts. All he could think as he adjusted himself and reclaimed his seat was that he missed whatever those blue trousers were she’d been riding in the other day. The ones that had appeared to be painted on like a second skin.
Blue, like the fire in her eyes.
It occurred to him just then that blue fire burned the hottest.
* * *
“I’m not speaking to you.” Samantha slammed the door, opened it, swiped the offering of plucked grouse from Callum’s hand, and then slammed it once again.
“I brought salt,” he called through the keyhole. “And some fresh rosemary and fennel that grows wild by the cliffs. But it only comes in if I do.”
Her mouth salivated at the thought of succulent salted fowl, but she didn’t make up her mind to invite Callum out of the driving rain until poor Calybrid’s quivering voice replaced his at the keyhole.
“Ye’re not sore at us, are ye? Because I canna quite stomach another winter of Loc’s potted meat stew. I’ll go daffy.”
Samantha couldn’t quite catch Locryn’s low-registered reply, but it sounded something like “Then cook for yerself, ye tarty invert.”
With a put-upon sigh she only half meant, Samantha released the latch and stepped aside, allowing the small parade of misfits to drip bog mud and freezing sleet onto the ancient entry.
By means of sharp elbows and tenacity, Calybrid scrambled in first, his knobby knees fairly knocking together beneath a kilt of red and gold. Wild wisps of white hair poked out from beneath his trusty wool tam-o’-shanter cap, and the lone strip of his chin beard dripped water onto his wool sweater. That, along with his bristly, overgrown eyebrows, lent a more literal meaning to the term “old goat.”
Locryn, on the other hand, boasted legs just as skinny, but they bowed beneath a jolly apple-shaped torso and strong, heavy shoulders. Samantha thought he had the kindest, most handsome pudgy face she’d ever seen, which was why his finicky surliness always surprised and delighted her. He eyed her with such rank skepticism, one russet brow dropped so low, it forced the lid to close.
“Preparing grouse is no mean feat,” he announced. “Perhaps I should do it meself.”
Calybrid set his hands on Locryn’s shoulders and steered him toward the blazing fire in the great-room hearth over which Samantha had erected a spit. “Why doona ye put the peat and cedar chips o’er the fire and get a nice smoke going?”
Distracted by the prospect of lingering near the fire after a tromp through the winter storm, Locryn grunted “Aye,” and ambled toward the blaze.
Thus had become their supper routine. After a long day of herding cattle, the men dispersed, only to reappear after dark when smoke from the great-hall chimney beckoned.
Aside to Callum and Samantha, Calybrid muttered, “Last time he prepared a bird, my body violently expelled it for a week, if ye ken my meaning.” With an overdramatic shudder, Calybrid’s lanky saunter was only interrupted by the slap of his wet outer clothes hitting the flagstones of the great hall. First his scarf, then his sweater, beneath which was another sweater, and then one of each of his boots discarded five steps apart.
“Ye can eat outside with the cattle if ye’re just going to leave shite all over the ground as they do,” Locryn bellowed.
“I always pick it up on my way out, do I not, Sam?” Calybrid didn’t wait for her answer. “So shove one of those peat bricks in yer mouth, if ye’re planning on being peaky nag all night.”
“Why do ye pick up for Sam and not for me?” Locryn planted plaintive fists on his hips, looking like a red-bearded matron with shockingly hairy knees. “She doesna do half of what I do to deserve the courtesy.”
“Oh, stop yer havering, Loc, or Sam’ll force ye to sleep in the coop with the rest of the pecking hens.”
Both amused and bemused, Samantha leaned over to Callum, whispering out of the side of her mouth, “They bicker like an old married couple.”
“’Tis widely thought that’s what they are,” Callum whispered back.
“Oh?” Samatha curled her lip as though it would help her decode his insinuation, then her eyes peeled wide. “Ohhhhhh,” she drawled more meaningfully. Looking back at the squabbling fellows, she fought both a grimace and a giggle as their relationship, their lifestyle, and their seclusion here at Erradale made a great deal more sense. “Which one’s the husband, and which one is the wife?”
Callum’s chuckle was a deep, pleasant rumble, not unlike the thunder over the distant Hebrides. “’Tis been the cause of much speculation between Thorne and me over the years.”
At the mention of her nemesis, Samantha was reminded of her ire with the handsome hermit, who met her frown with a look of contrition.
“I assumed you knew who the magistrate was.” His beard parted in a penitent smile, and Samantha caught herself noting that the silver peppered into his beard hadn’t quite reached his shaggy hair yet.
“Yes, well, we have a saying about assumptions in America,” she muttered, accepting his peace offerings of herbs and salt before bustling over to skewer the little bird carcasses over the warm fire.
“What’s that?” Callum queried, his golden eyes sparkling with mirth and intellect. He was familiar with the saying, and they both knew it.
“That they make an ass ou
t of you and … well, in this case just you.”
“Granted, lass. Granted.” His laugh was a low harmony to the melody of hers, and it did as much to warm Samantha, as did the firewood she’d finished chopping just in time for the storm to reach them.
It had helped her to imagine that each one of the logs was Lord Thorne’s smirking face.
The ax had split them with the most satisfying ease.
Damn his perfect, dimpled chin and his stupid, rolling burr. The arrogant bastard knew the effect he had on women. He understood just exactly how to artfully use his lean, predatory body and wicked, crooked grin to steal a woman’s wits from her.
Not this woman, Samantha thought darkly as she roasted supper. Not this time.
“I gather your meeting with Thorne didn’t at all go well?” Callum correctly guessed the direction of her meandering attention.
“He supposedly found a hundred-year-old lease that contradicts the bill of sale. Though which is the forgery is anyone’s guess. They both look legitimate to me.”
“Perhaps ’tis time to employ a solicitor of your own,” Callum suggested.
Samantha nodded. She’d considered doing just that, but being unfamiliar with the British economy, she wasn’t sure if the money Alison had sent her was generous or a pittance.
“Callum,” she ventured. “If I were to go over the head of the magistrate to argue my case, where would I go?”
“To the Queen’s High Court, I suppose.”
“It says in this summons here that I have to first argue in front of the Magistrate’s Bench that the Ross bill of sale trumps the lease Thorne found. But the magistrate is Thorne. How is that just or fair?”
“Did you say the Magistrate’s Bench?”
Samantha looked up from her rotisserie at the note of disbelief that crept into Callum’s tone.
“Yes.”
His genuine smile crinkled the corners of his eyes and flashed shockingly clean teeth. “What Thorne neglected to tell you is that though he’s the main justice of the peace, three men sit the quarterly Magistrate’s Bench, and their jurisdiction reaches from the Isle of Mull all the way north to Lochinver.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that the majority rules. You only need two out of three of the magistrates to rule in your favor.”
The breath rushed from her. “Who else sits the bench?”
“An English earl who replaced Hamish, the younger, after he was killed for treason. The Earl of Northwalk, I believe?”
“The Blackheart of Ben More, ye mean,” Locryn corrected, adding another peat brick to the fire.
“‘The Blackheart of Ben More’?” she echoed. “That doesn’t sound very promising.”
“He owns yon Ben More Castle on the Isle of Mull. Don’t worry, lass. He’s known to be a reasonable justice,” Callum soothed. “If a bit unscrupulous. ’Tis rumored he’s a Mackenzie bastard; however, he generally takes his cues from the Laird.”
“The Laird?” Samantha was beginning to feel like a rather traumatized parrot. “You don’t mean…”
“The Demon Highlander,” Locryn announced dramatically.
“The Laird Mackenzie.” Callum shot him a censuring look while Calybrid simultaneously elbowed him in the guts. “Also known as the Marquess Ravencroft. He’s claimed the third seat since his return from his adventures abroad.”
Sam’s flying hopes plummeted. “Then we’re well and truly buggered.” She blew a lock of hair away that had fallen in front of her eye.
“Not necessarily,” Callum supplied. “Ravencroft and Thorne rarely agree on anything.”
“Because Thorne slept with his first wife?”
The Mac Tíre shifted away from the uncomfortable subject, and Samantha was again reminded that he did owe his friend, Lord Thorne, more fealty than to herself. “Well … I’m sure that didn’t help,” he muttered.
Something the scoundrel Thorne had said against her ear produced unwelcome waves of gooseflesh, despite the heat of the cook fire.
Isna the enemy of my enemy my friend?
“Do you think this Laird Mackenzie would be swayed by my plight?” she fretted. “Do you know him very well?”
Calybrid peeled a charred piece of skin from one of the grouse and crunched it before Samantha could swat his hand away. “Everyone from Dorset to Cape Wrath knows if ye want in good with the Demon Highlander, ye’ll get his wife to champion ye,” the old ranch hand stated sagely.
“Aye,” Locryn readily agreed. “If ye want my opinion, it’s on account of her large—” He held his arms away from his chest, curving them as though to support a hefty bosom.
“Heart.” Calybrid seized Locryn’s wrists and pulled them down. “She’s reputed to be unceasingly kind.”
“Aye, that she is.” Locryn attempted to grapple his wrists away from his wiry counterpart. “But also, she is blessed with an uncommonly generous—”
Calybrid slapped his hand over Locryn’s mouth. “Spirit,” he crowed. “Ye’d like her, generous as ye are with yer home and land and supper and whatnot.”
“Nay!” Locryn succeeded in peeling Calybrid’s hand from his beard while simultaneously shimmying his shoulders like a bawdy saloon dancer. “I’m referring to her big—”
Abandoning all pretense, Calybrid just slapped him upside the head.
“Ye’ll answer for that,” Locryn threatened.
Unceasingly amused, Samantha guessed, “You’re referring to her tits, right?”
“Nay,” said Calybrid only a beat faster than Locryn’s “Aye.”
“You know you can be frank around me.”
“Who’s this Frank?” Locryn scratched his russet hair.
“It means candid.” Samantha laughed. “You don’t have to mince words just because I’m a woman.”
“We ken that,” Calybrid said sheepishly. “It’s just…”
“I think Cal didna want ye to feel slighted because ye doona have any breasts,” Locryn said.
“I do too have breasts,” Samantha argued, then crossed her arms over her conspicuously flat chest when three pairs of eyes skeptically surveyed the unimpressive topography.
“Doona fash, Sam.” Calybrid, spying her scowl, hurried to balm the wound. “Ye’re plenty fair.”
“Aye,” Locryn agreed.
“With eyes the color of the Alt Dubh Gorm.”
“Sure, that too.”
“Just … no one will write odes to yer breasts is all.”
“On account of ye not having any,” Locryn supplied, rather unnecessarily, in Samantha’s opinion.
Calybrid knocked Locryn again. “It’s like ye doona even want supper, ye daft ox.”
“Well, I know who’s not getting the grouse breasts, anyhow,” she teased, winking her forgiveness at the odd, elderly pair.
When Samantha summoned the courage to glance over at Callum, she noted a bit of pink had crawled from beneath his collar and disappeared beneath his beard. His eyes gleamed like amber in the sun, though, with good humor and perhaps something else.
Something that made her look away.
While her little operation of outcasts ate grouse, wild greens, and gravy she made with the drippings, in companionable silence, Samantha considered her position.
Despite her promise to Alison, she realized that she truly didn’t want to lose this place. In the week she’d been here at Erradale, she’d fallen in love. The manor house itself was a rather labyrinthine, rambling estate that seemed to have been added onto by each generation. This main hall, its windows rippled with age and thick wood and mortar walls, was bigger than any cabin she’d ever lived in. The structure itself older than her entire country.
Because she spent her days rounding up cattle spread for miles across bog-riddled moors dappled with splendid lochs, she was left with no time for the care and upkeep of the house. Nor could she split wood for a fireplace in both the spacious master suite and the great hall. And so each night, she rolled a plethora of soft furs ont
o the giant flagstones of the great hearth, and let the dancing ghosts cast by the firelight on the blue stones lull her exhausted body to sleep. Sometimes, she’d wake with a start and the shadows created by nothing but dying embers would loom over her.
Sometimes they wore the faces of her demons. Of her sins.
Of the man she’d murdered. The man she’d loved.
At least she thought she’d loved him.
However, Samantha had begun to wonder, if she’d truly loved Bennett, would she not mourn him more deeply? Would she not remember him more fondly?
Would she have been unable to pull the trigger, in spite of everything he’d done? Of everything he was threatening to do …
Troubled, she felt the hairs at the nape of her neck prickle with awareness, and she looked up to find Callum silently studying her with the steady gaze of an cartographer deciphering a foreign map.
Unwilling to be caught in a brood, she ran a tongue over her teeth to clear any remnants of her supper and flashed him an unrepentant grin, which he blithely returned.
“Callum,” she ventured, having dispensed with proprieties almost immediately after they’d become acquainted. “Have you always lived here … in the Highlands, I mean?”
To her surprise, his smile disappeared. “Nay,” he answered carefully. “I’ve traveled to every place you can imagine. From the Orient to Argentina. Even to America. I only returned here recently.”
Flushing, Samantha changed the subject, dearly hoping he hadn’t been to San Francisco in his travels. “It makes sense that you chose this place to settle,” she said, gesturing to encompass the storm, the sea, the high beams of the ceiling, and the grandness of the stone hearth. “I wonder, though, why the Dubh Gorm Caves? Why not settle somewhere … more comfortable?”
Something dire surfaced from the depths of his eyes, something ancient, and hollow, and infinitely sad. “I’ve seen all there is of humanity, and you know what I learned?” he asked.
“What’s that?” she breathed.
Locryn cut in, his voice warm and tongue heavy with Scotch. “It’s better … to just live alone in a cave.”
The Scot Beds His Wife Page 8