Calybrid reached out and rested his hand on the portly man’s knee in a gesture so tender, Samantha’s eyes stung.
Not wanting to cry, she blinked and shifted her focus back to Callum, who still watched her with those eerily perceptive eyes. “That it’s better to just live alone in a cave,” he murmured in agreement.
A fraught melancholy threatened to swallow the room, and Samantha refused to let it take her. Rising to her knees, she swiped the bottle of Scotch and topped off everyone’s drink in turn. “Except on nights like this one,” she said, lifting her glass a little. “To warm hearths and full bellies, which is more than some have.”
“Aye.” Callum’s sharp eyes softened a little as he drank to that.
“To Sam.” Calybrid lifted his Scotch. “The best cook in Erradale.”
“To Sam!” the drunk Locryn echoed. “The only cook in Erradale.”
“To Alison Ross,” Callum said, casting her one of his speaking glances.
Samantha blanched as she made an intense study of his shuttered features. This was the second time he’d referred to Alison Ross as though she were someone not present.
It was as though the enigmatic man was trying to tell her he knew who she was.
Or … at least … that he knew who she wasn’t.
CHAPTER SEVEN
For your own safety … never set foot in Ravencroft Keep.
Alison Ross’s dire warning ricocheted in Samantha’s thoughts, drowning out the more pleasant sounds of soft rain against glass and the metronomic tick of a grandfather clock.
She hadn’t just crossed the threshold of the red stone keep on Ravencroft lands, she’d climbed two flights of stairs and navigated three lush hallways, only to be shown into a receiving room done in dark greens contrasted with spun gold and burgundy.
The burgundy matched both the port wine in her glass and the Marchioness of Ravencroft’s wealth of upswept hair.
“I’m thoroughly glad you’ve called on me.” Mena Mackenzie’s genuine smile was possibly the warmest, most lovely expression Samantha had witnessed in her entire twenty and four years. “I’ve been expecting an announcement card from Erradale, and it only just occurred to me that you might not have that custom in American society.” Lady Ravencroft’s grace both put her at ease and made her supremely uncomfortable. How could this gently bred and unmistakably noble English lady be married to a violent laird whom all of Europe knew as the Demon Highlander?
Samantha carefully forced herself to focus on Lady Ravencroft’s regal features, instead of her form, as she worried that one glance below the neck would send her into a fit of nervous giggles.
Locryn hadn’t been wrong. The voluptuous woman was blessed with a luxurious abundance of curves. There was a great probability that someone, somewhere, had written odes to her incomparable tits.
Fighting the urge to cover her bust, or lack thereof, Samantha took another sip of the port offered by Lady Ravencroft in lieu of tea after she’d appeared on the castle’s grand doorstep, drenched from riding through the icy November drizzle.
As the Laird Ravencroft had been temporarily detained at his distillery, the lady of the manor had agreed to visit with her while they waited.
Next to the elegant, stunning, and—she assumed—stylishly clad noblewoman, Samantha felt both conspicuous and dowdy. She fought not to squirm beneath Lady Ravencroft’s curious jade gaze as she groped for a reply.
“I—I’ve never had much use for calling cards,” she stated honestly, spreading a restless hand over the garnet and butter-yellow stripes of her finest wool skirt and failing in her efforts not to measure it against Lady Ravencroft’s imported violet silk gown. In quality and voice, Samantha very much compared the two of them to their skirts. One coarse, ordinary, and practical, the other smooth, stunning, and majestic.
“I can’t imagine what’s keeping my husband.” Lady Ravencroft cast a glance at the clock. “But I’m very glad that I get this opportunity to know you. It isn’t every day one meets an American railway heiress. You can regale me about the American West. Is it truly as wild as we tedious Brits are led to believe?”
“It sure can be,” Samantha hedged, finishing off the syrupy port in two nervous gulps.
“Are you a … connoisseur of port?” Lady Ravencroft asked alertly.
Samantha shrugged. “If ‘connoisseur’ means I like it, then I surely am. Though I confess this is the first time I’ve ever tried it.”
Lady Ravencroft’s husky, melodious laugh washed her with pleasure, though Samantha suspected it was a little at her expense. “Please, have some more, then.” She gestured to a servant with skin the color of dark exotic pine, clad in an outfit so startlingly vibrant, she’d have said he was wearing a desert sunset if she didn’t know any better.
“I, um, did try some Ravencroft Scotch the other night. It was mighty good.”
“Won’t Laird Ravencroft be glad to hear it?” There was that smile again, one completely charming, but lacking in any amount of artifice. “Pray, tell me about yourself, Miss Ross. What are your interests and accomplishments?”
Samantha froze. Perhaps she’d made a gigantic mistake coming here. She’d already known passing herself off as a San Franciscan socialite was a stretch, but thus far, she’d only had to convince a bunch of unobservant men who would barely know silk from wool unless they had to wipe their asses with it.
A lady, though … would see through her in a New York minute.
She should have anticipated that.
“I … can’t say I’ve accomplished much of anything to speak of, yet, my lady,” she answered vaguely.
“Call me Mena, please. We are neighbors, after all,” Mena admonished through another good-natured laugh. “What I meant to ask was, what is it that you do in America, Miss Ross? Do you paint, stitch, or study anything in particular?”
Stymied, Samantha shook her head.
Mena’s smile lost a bit of its sparkle. “Do you sing, perhaps, or play an instrument?”
“Not where people can see or hear me.”
They each took another drink before the marchioness tried again.
“I’ve heard that Americans are also very fond of the waltz…”
Samantha knew she’d failed to keep her panicked expression from her features when Mena’s sentence trailed away. The Smiths, who’d raised her, believed dancing was of the devil. She’d never so much as been to a barnyard reel.
“Do you favor more physical pursuits, I wonder?” Mena persisted, abandoning her wine to a delicate table at her elbow. “I enjoy all things equestrian, and we host a fantastic stag hunt in the summer.”
The gold velvet of her delicate settee abraded the wool of her jacket as Samantha straightened. “I can ride, it’s about all I’m good at.” She nodded a bit too enthusiastically, she feared. “And I can shoot.”
“Wonderful!” Mena clapped two delighted hands together and leaned forward, as well. “I was raised on a small baronetcy in the southwest of England. I’ve always counted riding among my favorite pastimes. We simply must schedule a riding afternoon.”
Delighted that she shared common ground with a marchioness, Samantha almost blurted that she, too, had been raised in the southwest. But she swallowed the admission just in time.
“Every afternoon is a riding afternoon for me,” Samantha explained. “I spend my time with a few hired hands rounding up the herd that’s taken a decade to scatter from here to perdition.”
“Perhaps I can come visit you at Erradale, then,” Mena suggested. “Come to think of it, with the harvest long over and the distillery rather quiet until spring, more than a few local men would enthusiastically accept an offer of employment at Erradale, if you’re in need of extra help gathering your cattle.”
“I might just do.” Samantha abandoned all sense of suspicion at this point, though whether because of the disarming Lady Ravencroft or the two glasses of port, she couldn’t be certain.
Darting her gaze to the gilded framed canvases and delica
tely painted china, she asked, “Can you do all those other things you mentioned? Do you have those other … accomplishments?”
“Yes. Indeed, all of them.” The grand lady had the grace to look discomfited at her admission of skill, and cast her gaze down at the lush carpets while stained with a soft peach blush. Suddenly she straightened, as though struck by an idea. “Are there any that interest you? The winter months can be lonely here in the Highlands, and we weren’t exactly planning on going to London for Christmas, as my husband’s duties tie him to Ravencroft this year. Perhaps when the weather permits, you can call and I could … tutor you in something? I was a governess for a while, before marrying Laird Ravencroft. Do you have a notion of what your proclivities would be?”
Not in the least. “Um—what’s your favorite thing?”
“I’ve always adored dancing.”
Shit. Samantha had to wipe suddenly clammy hands on her dress. She hadn’t expected to be invited over on the regular. Besides, should she be dancing with the enemy? Weren’t they enemies? Because right now, Mena Mackenzie looked very much like a friend.
But … so was Alison Ross. She had to remember that. She wasn’t here to play like a princess, she was here to hide from her adversaries, from her sins, and look after Erradale.
She was saved from committing herself to anything when a footman informed them that the marquess would be much longer than expected, and certainly not back in time for Samantha to return to Erradale before dark.
“Oh dear, I’m terribly sorry your call was wasted,” Mena lamented. “Is there any atonement I can offer? Sometimes, since I am the Lady of Clan Mackenzie, Laird Ravencroft asks me to hear certain matters and advise him in those respects. I’m especially familiar with civil disputes, if that is your particular need.”
She gave Samantha a look that said she already knew it was.
Samantha decided she’d had all the niceties she could handle. “Lady Ravencroft—”
“Mena, please.”
“Are you aware your husband’s younger brother, the Earl of Thorne, is trying to steal my land from me?”
“Thorne?” The marchioness gasped, blinking rapidly. “That doesn’t sound like him at all.”
To Mena’s credit, she listened very intently to Samantha’s account of her plight, her winged auburn brows shifting lower and lower as a troubled expression overtook her pleasant one.
“I was aware he’d filed paperwork to claim the abandoned Erradale land,” she conceded once Samantha had finished. “But now that its rightful owner is returned, it doesn’t seem like he would persist in his pursuit of ownership. Especially not to the extent of harassment.”
“He said I could take his deal or forfeit it to the Laird, from whom he’d buy it for cents on the dollar.”
The marchioness frowned. “Forgive me, but I’m not familiar with that expression.”
“Um … pennies instead of pounds,” Samantha converted.
“I see. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t he offer you a great deal of money for it?”
“A fair bit.” More like a staggering amount.
“And you don’t want to stay here for the long term, nor do you want to sell it to him? May I ask why?”
Once again, Samantha shifted, not wanting to cede diplomatic ground on enemy territory. Despite herself, she liked the statuesque Mena Mackenize. She wasn’t the anticipated old, stodgy matron, but someone not a great deal older than herself. Though the lady was fine and far more worldly, she had an approachable kindness that opened up a sort of void in Samantha that she hadn’t known was there.
Finishing her port with the queasy feeling that it would be her last for a good, long time, she decided to tell the truth. “No offense meant, Lady Ravencroft—Mena—but I promised my father that no son of Hamish Mackenzie would ever own Erradale…”
Regret lined Mena’s otherwise smooth ivory skin as she offered her a sad smile. “There’s none taken, my dear. I do not begrudge you the sentiment, and neither will my husband. He’s well acquainted with his father’s crimes against his own people.”
Stunned, Samantha groped for something else to say. She hadn’t exactly expected such a delicate and understanding reply. In fact, she’d gripped her pelisse in anticipation of being tossed out by the tall East Indian listening intently from the corner.
“I’ll discuss it with Lord Ravencroft, and he with Lord Northwalk and Lord Thorne before the Magistrate’s Bench convenes. We shall see what can be done for you and your family’s honor.”
“That’s mighty kind of you…” Samantha offered her halting gratitude. Unsure of what to do next, she stood abruptly, which seemed to oblige the marchioness to do the same.
“My previous offer is still extended, of course.” Mena took Samantha’s rough hand with gloves as soft as goose down. “I’ll personally deliver you an army of amateur cattlemen to gather your herd should you need it.”
“I’d—be obliged.” Samantha gave the lady something like a bow or a curtsy, but ultimately less graceful, and turned to follow the footman out when she paused, remembering something.
“May I ask you something else, Lady Ravencroft?”
“Of course.” The question seemed to please her.
“Do you know the meaning of the Gaelic insult ‘bonny’? Lord Thorne insists on using it to address me, and I’d like to find a comparable offense.”
It was Mena’s turn to be astonished, as it took her a full minute to recover her wits. “Well, Miss Ross, ‘bonny’ is certainly a Scottish word, but it is more endearment than insult.”
“You sure?”
“I’m quite positive,” she insisted with a secret smile. “You see, ‘bonny’ is the Gaelic word for beauty.”
* * *
Gavin had always been an excellent hunter. A consummate predator. From the Sahara Desert to the Black Forest to the most exclusive salons and royal boudoirs in the empire and beyond, he’d been known to stalk his prey with unsurpassed mastery. The trick, he’d learned, was to know your quarry. To get close enough to expose their weaknesses, and to strike with perfect, lethal efficiency.
Sometimes that meant making oneself unassuming … donning the sheep’s clothing and waltzing among the bleating herd like one of their own. Other times, it meant becoming the lion, parting the tall grasses with wide shoulders and a broad chest, prowling the landscape secure in the knowledge of his dominance over all territory in his scope. There were moments that absolute stealth was required. He’d make no sound. He’d leave no footprint. Naught but shadows and vapor. There, and yet intangible.
Until it was too late.
His favorite was pretending to be the prey. Allowing himself to be stalked, to be desired, pursued. Then, just as the predator thought him ripe for the picking, he’d turn and strike, savoring the openmouthed, confounded astonishment of his opponent.
This tended to be just as efficient with women as with wolves.
There was something more than a little satisfying about ripping the heart out of someone the moment before they expected to do the same to you.
Perhaps his enjoyment of that made him a monster.
But the blood of monsters ran in the Mackenzie family, did it not? He’d been sired by one. His body sullied. His name tainted.
His mother ruined.
He’d initially thought that if he learned to be something else, anything else, his family curse wouldn’t touch him. He’d taught himself to be everything. The poet and the prince. The lordling and the lion. The lover and the hunter. What were the Scots before steam and smoke and English money?
They were hunters.
He’d learned his artful skills from observation, experience, and the most remarkable tutors of all …
Pain. Hunger. Failure.
He’d been a fool to assume this new venture at ranching would be any different. That it wouldn’t be one more thing that would chip away at his soul before he mastered it. He’d thought he could study enough books, discuss it with enough
experts, that he’d slide into it as easily as he did a lathered countess’s quim.
Why, he wondered with an expelled breath, must everything be such an arduous battle? Why did all he sought come at such a price to his very being? When so many seemed to hack their bloody way through life, heedless of the devastation left in their wake, and still the heavens poured bounteous blessings on their undeserving heads. While he was left in the mire with no choice but the difficult, undesired one.
Cocking his rifle, Gavin watched the prey he’d hunted by way of small puddles of blood and such flail about in piteous distress before relaxing back to its side.
“I’m sorry it had to come to this,” he muttered.
The beast looked up at him with eyes both gentle and wary from beneath a fringe of ridiculously long russet hair.
There was pain in those eyes too, and fear.
Strange, he thought bitterly, how there’s always a little more innocence left to lose.
The click of someone else’s firearm froze the finger he’d inched toward the trigger. Gavin knew just who was behind him before she even opened her mouth.
He could sense her, somehow. In the way the hairs on his body seemed to lift and vibrate at her approach.
“Oh, it’s you,” she lamented.
“Aye, bonny…’tis me.” William Blake he was not, but he’d not the temperament to cultivate a persona at the moment, as he was just about as happy to encounter her as she sounded to have happened upon him.
“Where I come from, butchering someone else’s cattle is a hanging offense.” Her threat was wry, if not subtle.
Gavin cursed every square inch of that capitalist mecca that turned what should have been a good Scottish girl into a goddamned, trigger-happy American.
“I’m not butchering anything,” he replied from between clenched teeth. Fury at himself for allowing her to sneak up on him surpassed his ire at the strange anticipation that heated his blood as she nudged her horse nearer. “I’m putting it out of its misery.”
“That right?” Her dismount from behind him was muffled by the soft ground cover. “She keel over from tedium after too long in your company? Can’t be the first time that’s ever happened. No reason to put a bullet in her head.”
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