Eammon regarded the woman for a silent, compelling moment. His familiar golden eyes moved over her elegant frame as though reading her like the page of a book he couldn’t put down.
Samantha saw Callum in his father’s look. The long-denied yearning. The unbreachable loneliness. What did Callum long for? she wondered. Or who? Because with Eammon, the answer was readily apparent.
“I’m after checking on my patient,” the Irishman sang. “Someone tried to poke holes in all of you at Erradale, and I did my best to sew you back together. ’Tis a wonder they missed Locryn if you ask me, as you’d think he’d be the easiest target.” He patted his own belly beneath his vest, only a mild testament to a love of evening ale and sweet rolls.
Despite her pain, Samantha joined him in a short laugh. “You should have seen him, Mr. Monahan. For a man so short and round, he sure can move.”
“Aye, well. Desperation makes us do all sorts of things we’d not thought ourselves capable of,” he stated blithely, blinking quizzically when Samantha’s smile disappeared.
“I—I’ll be going.” Lady Eleanor stood, the once graceful lady moving as though her bones and joints were trying to remember how.
“And leave this one with a strange man in a bedroom with no chaperone?” Eammon teased, his tone a strange mixture of aghast levity.
“You’re hardly a stranger, Mr. Monahan,” Lady Eleanor said patiently, inching along the wall.
“I am to the lass,” Eammon argued merrily. “And I’ll have to lift her nightgown to the knee to check the stitches. If that’s not enough to cause a scandal, I can’t think of what is, can you? What would your son say? Better yet, what would the queen say?”
“I’m not wearing a night—” Sam clamped her lips shut the moment Eammon’s pleading eyes met hers.
Eleanor hesitated. “I—I could get Alice…”
The man’s brawny shoulders deflated much in the way Eleanor’s had done only moments before. “It’s all right, my lady,” he crooned softly, as though speaking to a skittish filly. “I’ll fetch her for you. She’s all the way down in the kitchens, and … that’s a lot of stairs for you to navigate on your own.”
He set the bag in his hand down at the foot of the bed and turned to leave.
“Will it take you long?” Samantha queried, allowing more of the pain she was in slip into her voice than was strictly necessary. “I foolishly tried to walk on my leg this morning, and now it feels like a fire poker ran it clean through.”
“Och, nay.” Lady Eleanor made an exquisitely feminine sound of distress and returned to the bed, groping for her hand and clutching it when she found it. “I didn’t ken you were in such pain, lass. Mr. Monahan, Eammon, you must see what is wrong immediately. Do you think it’s infection? Are you feverish, Sam?”
Samantha flashed a conspiratorial look at Eammon, who squinted at her with a skeptical glance of which she’d seen the identical like in the eyes of his son.
A soft, motherly hand traced from her wrist, up her arm, her shoulder, and found her forehead, checking for a rise in temperature and finding none.
“I don’t think so,” Samantha said pathetically. “It just … hurts. Will you stay and hold my hand?”
“Oh, aye, lass. I’d not leave you in pain.” She clucked again before asking anxiously, “Is there aught you can do, Eammon?”
Samantha didn’t miss that Eleanor had forgotten to address the stable master as “Mr. Monahan” twice now.
“Aye,” Eammon said slowly as Samantha fought a smile and tugged the blanket above her knee, revealing her bandages. Scandal be damned, it really did hurt, but not as bad as that time she’d tripped and fallen on the red branding iron when she’d been naught more than a gangly girl of fifteen who hadn’t yet learned to control her long limbs. Now she sported a Circle T branded sideways on her hip as an eternal reminder of what pain really was.
“How is Calybrid?” she asked as a gentle hand with rough skin held her ankle still while the other undid her bandages.
“He was awake and thirsty this morning, and bleating curses at Locryn like an ornery old ewe,” Eammon answered. “I don’t at all think this is the end of that old bas—” He stiffened, catching himself in time. “Bloke,” he finished lamely, glancing up at Eleanor, who still smoothed over Samantha’s brow.
“I’m glad,” Samantha answered. “He’s become a friend.” She hissed in a breath of true pain when Eammon’s fingers tested the skin around the stitches.
“There’s no swelling or redness,” Eammon remarked with satisfaction. “’Tis a good sign, lass. Would ye like any more laudanum before I reapply the salve?”
Samantha shook her head, making a face. “I think it made me sick this morning.” Not a complete lie, but she knew it was now time to keep her wits about her. Pain or no pain.
“Aye, it’ll do that to some. Best to avoid it if you can, lest you develop a taste for the stuff.”
Another word he’d said struck her. “Salve?”
“Just something I concocted to use on the horses when they’re injured. Keeps them from going lame. Miracle stuff, this.” He fetched a tub of a repulsive-looking gelatinous substance the color of bog mud, and dipped his fingers into it.
“What’s in it?” Both Samantha and Eleanor wrinkled their noses at the smell.
“Just some garlic, lavender, honey, blessed thistle, and…” He squinted a little, as though debating something. “A few things you need not worry about overmuch.”
“But—”
Samantha hissed as he plopped a generous portion of it onto her wound, and then glared at him as though he’d betrayed her, promising retribution. And after she’d guilted Eleanor into sticking around and everything!
White teeth flashed at her from behind his beard, and his big shoulders lifted as though to say, the damage had already been done, she might as well allow it.
Samantha had to admit, after the first initial shock, some of the throbbing in her calf did abate after the application of the dubious substance.
“Worry not, lass, the wound isn’t as deep as we feared. The bullet grazed you by instead of poked you through. More a cut than a hole, which will heal faster, and did less damage to the muscle.”
“Oh, that’s excellent news,” Eleanor breathed, patting Samantha’s hand.
That it was, Samantha agreed. Being helpless was bound to make her mad. If she couldn’t walk, then she couldn’t run.
And something told her she’d need to run before long. Because if her lies didn’t catch up with her, the Masters brothers might. As much as she relied on Gavin’s offer of protection, she didn’t want to bank on it for longer than she had to.
Just in case …
In case her instincts about him turned out to be as terrible as they had about the first charming, beautiful man she’d married.
Samantha decided to save a brood for a more private time, as Eammon’s attempt to charm Lady Eleanor distracted her.
“Did ye know, my lady, that Great Scot sired another foal?”
Samantha suspected Eleanor had carefully constructed her placid façade during her years as the wife of the dreaded Laird Hamish Mackenzie.
“That is welcome news,” Eleanor said politely.
“They named him Great Scot’s Ghost, and what do you think of that?”
“How clever.”
“And … uh … he’s a bright lad. Friendly, too. Softest ears I ever stroked, like those fine velvet chairs I carried to your solarium a few months ago. Might welcome an apple or some sugar cubes if you and Alice are ever inclined to come by the stables during your three o’clock walk.”
“I don’t much have use for the stables anymore, Mr. Monahan,” Lady Eleanor murmured.
Eammon nodded, swallowing loudly enough to be heard as his large, meaty hands deftly dressed Samantha’s leg with a fresh bandage.
“Aye, well … your son’s fiancée rides astride, I’ve heard tell.”
Lady Eleanor’s winged brows lowered. “I
s that true, Sam?”
Samantha nodded, feeling like an outsider in this interaction. “Might not be proper, but it’s safer,” she offered by way of explanation.
“It is, at that,” Eammon agreed. “Just about anyone could stay aloft, if they had the right mount.”
“I would never have been allowed to…” Lady Eleanor trailed off.
“Well, you are mistress of your own mind now,” Eammon said softly. “You could do what you like.”
“So I am.” Eleanor thought on that for a moment as Eammon finished his work and retrieved his bag.
“I think you can keep your leg, young lady.”
“Praise be.” She returned his cheeky smile with one of her own.
“I’m leaving you a dollop of this sleeping drought for tonight if the pain gets to you. And I hear congratulations are in order. Never thought our Lord Thorne would be enticed to the altar.”
“Not so much enticed as contracted,” she clarified with a look that assured him that she was more a coconspirator than coerced.
“Even so. Let me know if there is aught I can do.” He stood to take his leave, reaching down to take her hand in a firm shake. “Miss Ross.”
“Mr. Monahan.”
He hesitated about what he did next, and then his jaw set behind his beard in firm resolve. “My Lady.” Before Lady Eleanor could protest, he caught her hand in his and bent to press a lingering kiss to her pale, delicate knuckle.
She gasped, but didn’t move, her sightless eyes round as jade tea saucers.
Samantha enjoyed the look of pleasure on his face so intensely, that she couldn’t stop herself from saying, “Mr. Monahan, if Alice is downstairs, would you very much mind escorting my mother-in-law down to her?”
“Oh no!” Eleanor surged to her feet. “That is, I couldn’t impose upon Mr. Monahan’s precious time.”
“I would be delighted.” Eammon recovered his wits faster than she’d thought he would after such a shock.
“As he said, Mother, that’s a lot of stairs,” Samantha reasoned innocently. “And it’s been so long since I’ve eaten … maybe you could ask the kitchen to send me something to settle my stomach?”
“Yes, but—I could wait for…” Eleanor folded her hands in front of her, and Samantha didn’t miss that she covered the hand that had been kissed with the other, not as though to scrub the kiss away, but to protect it.
Eammon took her delicate hand once more, and tucked it into the crook of his arm, gallant as any lordly gentleman, even in his workshirt and vest. “Haven’t you waited long enough?”
It was Eleanor’s turn to audibly swallow, but after a breathless moment, she took her first hesitant step forward, the long-legged Eammon allowing her to lead the way.
“Thank you, Mr. Monahan, for everything,” Samantha called.
Eammon looked back at her from the doorway, regarding her as though she’d worked a miracle. “Thank you,” he said softly.
Samantha settled back into pillows soft as down clouds and breathed in the scent of the man to whom they belonged as she listened to the couple make their way down the echoing halls of Inverthorne.
“Tell me, Mr. Monahan, was Great Scot’s foal as dark a gold as he is?” the dowager asked, politeness overtaking her terror.
“That’s just it, my lady,” came the husky, delighted reply. “He’s more white than gold, but for a bit at the mane and tail.”
“Which is why they named him Ghost?”
“Aye, you have the right of it.”
“I believe I like that name…” Their voices faded with distance.
Samantha looked around her, at the chamber in which the legendary Earl of Thorne took his legions of lovers to this very bed. It was different than she’d suspected it would be. No silks or velvets or draperies done in lascivious colors.
His chamber was a testament to a restless, masculine hunter. Furs stretched beneath the chair by the fire in place of a carpet. Various landscape tapestries insulated what would have been cold stone walls. Strange and foreign figurines, sculptures, and sketches littered the surfaces of very simple but finely crafted furniture. From Africa, she wondered, or India, perhaps?
She couldn’t believe Gavin St. James slept here. She’d expected something fit for Casanova or King Louis XIV or some other famous libertine.
Inverthorne was very different than she’d been led to believe.
Much like its lord.
Sure, he was a selfish opportunist. A charming schemer. An enterprising rake. A beautiful fallen angel. But he was also just a man. A man with a family who loved him.
A man with a broken heart.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Samantha should have known the moment she’d woken the next morning to the rain, that her wedding would be a disaster. Wasn’t it supposed to be a bad omen to have rain on one’s wedding day?
Of course, it had been relentlessly sunny when she’d signed papers and spoken vows with Bennett, so there went the omen theory. Maybe the curse belonged to her, and had nothing at all to do with the weather.
Certainly seemed more likely.
Upon waking, she was again examined by Eammon, who announced her on the mend and had left her a cane should she attempt to walk. Immediately, she had left to seek out a washroom and toss the contents of her stomach into that, like proper folk.
She found that the cane worked passably well. In fact, she’d been able to hobble back to her breakfast tray and keep down a slice of toast spread with Devonshire cream and preserves, drink an entire pot of scalding tea, and clean her teeth before collapsing into a chair with exhaustion.
God, but she was glad there was no long walk up the aisle; she probably wouldn’t make it.
She’d seen neither hide nor hair of her husband-to-be since he’d returned the previous afternoon to inform her that his brother, the Marquess of Ravencroft, would arrive this evening to officiate their marriage.
She attempted to read near the fire for a while, and then tried to nap, as she seemed to tire more easily than usual. After a couple of hours, a lonely restlessness drove her to her feet.
Using a throw blanket as a shawl, she limped to the door, pulled it open on hinges that had probably needed oiling since the Jacobite rebellion, and peeked her head around the corner. Finding the hall empty, she ventured forth, teeth gritted against the pain in her leg, as well as the cold of the stones on her bare feet.
Luckily, she was a woman used to discomfort.
Inverthorne’s west tower only sported three doors, and then a short hall that led to stairs that spiraled below. Using the wall to help support her descent, she marveled at the feel of the ancient stone abrading her fingertips. She wondered if any of the chinks and groves had been made by implements of war.
Sweat slicked her palms and upper lip by the time she’d descended three stories. Her leg felt like a few scorpions were taking their wrath out on it, but the sight she found when she reached the ground floor of Inverthorne rooted her like a hundred-year-old tree.
Gavin stood in profile, framed by the arch of the great entry. He was dressed in the most dapper, expensive-looking suit she’d ever clapped her eyes on, staring intently at whatever was in front of him, which was blocked from her vantage on the stairs by a half-wall.
Breath escaped her in a swift whoosh that left her jaw gaping open.
The rain made more sense now, as his beauty was such to make the angels weep. In a dark suit and trousers, his neck swathed in white-tie finery, his magnificence was impossibly elevated from untried and untamed to no less than diabolical.
His lambent hair had been trimmed and shaped with just the right amount of pomade. The ever-present stubble removed from his sharp jaw revealed his dimpled chin with even more stark, cruel precision.
Had she not been leaning heavily on the stones, she would have fallen.
Falling for Gavin St. James. Just like legions of women had before her, and many women would hereafter.
She’d do well to remember
that. To remember it was not her right to ask him where he’d slept last night, because that wasn’t part of the bargain. If he promised to be only somewhat faithful after they were married, then what did that mean the night before?
And why would she care?
She didn’t, of course.
She cared about nothing but safety for her and for the child that grew inside her.
A few immaculately dressed footmen bustled about. The butler, too, approached from the west hall and nodded to his lord before disappearing behind the half-wall.
Samantha studied him for an unguarded moment, a motionless mountain amid a sea of vibrant energy, as still as the suit of armor that stood to attention behind him. He looked more serious than she’d ever seen him. More sinister. Cruel even, a dark sort of anticipation—or apprehension? Dread?—holding dangerous tension in the broad shoulders that bunched high enough, his neck all but disappeared.
The muscles of his jaw flexed ever so slightly, and a vein pulsed at his temple. His mouth, that sinful mouth so often curled in a lazy, sensual smirk, twitched as though holding back words that battled to be free of him.
A strange, feminine part of her ached to call out to him, to go to him and shape her hand to his jaw, to coax it to relax.
To tell him that whatever furrowed his perfect brow would be all right.
What a fool she was, not because of the impulse, but because she almost did it, but what stopped her, surprisingly, was his name.
What did she call him now? Certainly not Lord Thorne, she’d die before calling him lord again. But Gavin? Were they on those terms? They’d have to be after tonight, she supposed.
After they consummated their marriage.
The sound of a heavy, antique bolt-lock being thrown aside interrupted an impending collapse at the thought of sharing a bed with him.
Samantha watched in astounded fascination as the brooding, savage Highlander she’d been spying on transformed in front of her eyes. His smile appeared first, and then he remembered to unclench his jaw and peel his shoulders away from his ears. He rolled them a few times and shook out his white-gloved hands that she just realized had been clenched into fists at his sides.
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