“Of course it does!” Her hand went to her mouth in a girlish gesture. “Really, Locryn? You’ll give me away?”
“Only if ye keep hold on yer tears, lass,” Locryn allowed gruffly, stabbing a commanding finger at her. “I’ll not have ye blubbering all over me like some simpering waif. Ye keep yer chin up and haud yer wheesht, ye ken?”
“I promise.”
“Well, then.” Locryn adjusted his tam-o’-shanter cap and patted the little fluffy ball above it before taking her arm. “Let’s get this done before Calybrid gives up the ghost and ruins the whole day.”
“I’d not give ye the satisfaction of life without me, ye nanny goat,” Calybrid wheezed, and then clutched his side for an alarming moment before finding a more comfortable position. “Ye’re dying first and that’s the end of it.”
“We’ll just see about that.” Despite his blustery disposition, Locryn was surprisingly patient, allowing Alison to lean heavily upon him as he conducted her the few painstaking paces to the desk, whereupon he offered her to the Demon Highlander. “Well, Laird, here she be,” he said by way of presentation. “I give her to this ne’er-do-well under protest.”
“Canna say I blame ye,” answered Liam from where he reluctantly towered over the bizarre congregation.
Gavin watched Alison intently as she noticed Laird Liam Mackenzie for the first time. His elder brother had always stood just a bit taller than him. A bit wider. His features more barbaric and blunt than the sharp blades of Gavin’s own construction. His build bulkier and less elegant. His muscles larger, but less defined. His hair and eyes a midnight black.
Just like their father’s.
Gavin hated to look at him, and was glad his mother didn’t have to for she’d have lost what little composure she’d scraped together.
He wondered what his bride thought as she studied the Laird with unanticipated stoicism. This was the heir to the man who’d killed her father, after all, and she stood assessing him as though she felt nothing more than mild curiosity.
“’Tis a pleasure to finally be acquainted with ye, Miss Ross,” the Demon Highlander said.
“And you,” she replied shortly, inclining her head as Mena joined her husband. She darted a nervous glance at Gavin, though her gaze bounced away the moment she found him.
“Are ye … of sound mind and body, lass?” the Laird queried.
At this her head snapped up. “Are you?”
An audible gasp permeated the room, uttered by more than one person.
The Demon Highlander’s lip merely twitched upward. “No offense intended, Miss Ross, but we were half afraid Thorne coerced ye into this against yer will. I’m here to rescue ye if need be.”
“Ye’re here to marry her to me, and that’s the end of it,” Gavin snarled.
Liam remained silent, his midnight eyes never leaving those of Gavin’s intended’s. “I’ll have yer answer, lass.”
Whatever breath left in Gavin deserted him as the one woman he’d never been able to tempt, and the one man he’d never been able to forgive stared at each other in silent congress.
In what dim light filtered through the storm, Gavin saw in Alison what he’d not noted before.
Not just defiance. Strength.
Smudges of exhaustion bruised her lapis eyes. A pinch of strain about her strawberry lips. The load of a thousand worries lifted by thin, rebellious shoulders. Yet here she stood against a man who’d withered legions with only a look.
And she never blinked.
Suddenly he wanted everyone to go away, most especially his brother. He wanted to take her in his arms and tell her everything. He wanted her to know him, to understand him, because no one did.
No one tried.
Every woman looked at him—stared at him—but none of them saw a fucking thing.
He wanted to promise her that he’d let her rest until those dark smudges beneath her eyes disappeared. To offer to shoulder the weight of her burdens. He would vow that he’d never make her afraid. Or hurt. Or betrayed. That she’d never go without. That he could not give her his love but, hunter that he was, he’d bring the corpse of anyone who dared threaten her and toss it beneath her feet. That he’d rid her of the shadows that haunted her eyes like tormented ghosts.
She didn’t look at him. Not once.
Gavin’s heart kicked behind his chest as she met the eyes of the man they called the Demon Highlander with as steady a gaze as he’d ever seen and said, “My will has always been my own, and I aim to be married today.”
* * *
Samantha stared at her signature as the dark giant they called the Demon Highlander took the pen and scrawled his name on the marriage document. He was what Robert Smith, her foster father, would have called a “corn-fed side of beef.” If Samantha thought he was handsome, it was because he resembled Gavin, but only like a shadow resembled the real thing. Sort of bigger, darker, and more unwieldy.
Lord love Mena for taking him on. She supposed someone had to.
Alison Ross, the signature said. It wasn’t her name, and it wasn’t her writing, either. Her hand had trembled so terribly, it looked like an illiterate child had signed for her. Which they probably suspected she was.
She might be brave, but she certainly wasn’t fearless.
She could feel Gavin’s intense regard, and for some reason couldn’t bring herself to look at him, lest she lose her nerve. He was too beautiful to marry, wasn’t he? Too selfish. Too experienced. Too damaged. Too old, probably.
How old was he?
Lord, that was almost certainly something one ought to know about her husband, as she was fairly certain he had at least a decade on her twenty and four years.
She had the sense she was making some terrible mistake, but every time the thunder roared above the stones of the keep, it was him she wanted to reach for.
Maybe she wasn’t of sound mind, after all.
“Very well,” Liam Mackenzie said. “This document means naught unless consent is exchanged.”
“There’s plenty of witnesses to be found here, who’d all appreciate it if ye’d refrain from stalling,” Gavin snapped.
“All right, join hands if ye must,” Liam commanded. To call his tone unamused would have been kind.
Only then did Samantha look over to her right, where her fiancé of little more than a day extended his hand toward her. Though his features remained stoic, his big frame vibrated with something Samantha couldn’t begin to understand. It might have been rage, but it somehow went beyond that. There was desperation in the verdant lightning flashing from his eyes, and Samantha looked to everyone else, wondering if she was the only one who sensed it.
Did they not notice his smirk was just a little too grim? That beneath his placid perfection brewed a storm to match the one outside?
Right now Gavin St. James was the thunder, and it would take nothing to make him bring this castle down around their ears.
Impulsively, Samantha reached out, and pressed her palm to his.
His hand was rougher than hers, engulfing hers in a masculine grip so absolute, his fingers could have been shackles.
She’d never been clung to like that, and without thinking, she squeezed in a gesture of encouragement.
Their eyes locked and held, and suddenly Samantha breathed a little easier. She had the sense she pleased him, and that was never not a good feeling.
The Laird Mackenzie’s expression revealed that he’d rather officiate over his own funeral than this wedding, but he took up an old book and began to read. “Alison Ross, have ye come here to enter into marriage without coercion freely and wholeheartedly?”
“Asked and answered,” Gavin spat. “Inappropriately, might I add?”
“Ye have to say it as part of the ceremony, it’s in the book.” Liam pointed to the passage.
“I have,” she said clearly.
“And ye?” the Laird asked his brother with obvious lack of aforementioned ceremony.
“I have.” Gavin’s lips didn’t mo
ve, but the words escaped him all the same.
“Are ye prepared to accept children lovingly from God and bring them up according to his law?”
“Of course I am,” Gavin stated with abject resolution.
Samantha glanced sharply up at him once more, if only to check for a mocking sneer or some evidence of a joke. So vehement was his reply, she thought he surely must be in jest. She could hardly believe it, but she’d never seen a look so serious before in her life.
“Ye have to answer, too,” Liam prompted her.
A hand flew to her belted waist, her resolve renewed. “I—I am, yes.”
“All right now.” Liam turned to his brother and speared him with a disdainful glare. “Gavin St. James, do ye take this woman to be yer lawful wife? Do ye—”
“I do,” Gavin cut in.
“Oh, lad … let me finish before ye say aye, there’s a lot to carefully consider here, especially for ye.” The Laird held the book up, advertising a certain kind of relish for the upcoming passage.
“There’s really no need to—”
Liam raised his booming voice above Gavin’s protests. “Do ye promise to be faithful to her in good times, and in bad, in sickness and in health, to love her and honor her and cherish her until yer inevitable untimely death?” His every emphasis was like a dagger that hit a bull’s-eye, and by the time Liam had finished, Gavin was gripping her hand so hard she flinched.
To his credit, he relaxed.
Christ, Samantha thought. Her husband-to-be had been the infamous lover of the officiator’s—his own brother’s—late wife. Samantha would have found the melodrama a bit funny if both men weren’t glaring at each other like leviathans about to meet in battle, which made her the likely collateral damage.
“I do,” Gavin growled.
“What about ye, lass? Knowing what ye do about the Lord Thorne’s infamous value—or lack thereof—for wedding vows, do ye, Alison Ross, take this … man … to be yer lawful husband? To have and to hold from this day until his interest wanes, for better, or likely worse, for richer or until he squanders yer fortune, in syphilis—pardon me—sickness and in health, until his death blessedly parts ye?”
Gavin stepped forward. “You son of a—”
“I do.” Samantha had to raise her voice above Gavin’s enraged curses, Locryn and Calybrid’s ill-concealed chortles, and Mena’s sound of distress.
Only the Monahans remained silent, their identical golden eyes round with astonishment and not a little foreboding consternation.
“Think on this carefully, lass,” the Laird admonished dramatically. “Are ye certain?”
“She said aye,” Gavin hissed, his bronze skin becoming mottled with barely leashed fury.
“If anyone can think of one or a multitude of reasons why this man doesna deserve a wife, speak now or forever hold yer—”
“If I didna need ye to pronounce us man and wife, I’d kill ye myself,” Gavin snarled.
“Where’s yer plaid and her sash?” the Demon Highlander remonstrated, apparently unconcerned with the threat of fratricide. “Did ye not plan to handfast her today?
“Ye mean, where is yer plaid?” Gavin made a rude gesture to the Laird’s kilt.
“Our plaid.” All traces of mocking levity vanished from the Laird’s features. “The Mackenzie plaid.”
“We’re wearing what we’re wearing, Liam, so do yer duty and then get out of my keep.”
“I’m not pronouncing ye married without the Mackenzie colors, Thorne, now where. Are. They?”
“Up yer own arse, ye sanctimonious fuck.”
“Thorne!” Mena admonished. “Really!”
Samantha immediately realized why they called Liam Mackenzie the Demon Highlander. An unholy maelstrom of rage swirled in his black eyes and propelled him a step forward, blood his undeniable intent.
Samantha would not have thought Gavin a lesser man for stepping back in retreat, but he didn’t. He stepped forward, as well, placing himself between her and the approaching mountain of wrath.
“In a few months’ time, I’ll not be a Mackenzie,” he said with relish. “And ye’ll hold no dominion over Inverthorne or Erradale.”
The furious Highlanders stood face-to-face, nose to aristocratic nose, and Samantha noted dimly that their height wasn’t all that dissimilar. Dear God, what if she was to become a widow again before she even became a wife?
“What. Did. Ye. Say?” The Demon Highlander’s features were so hard, a well-placed thwack with a chisel might have shattered them.
“It’s as good as done, Liam. I’m emancipating myself from the Mackenzie clan. I no longer want to be stained by the name.”
“Not possible.”
“Entirely possible. All I had to do was declare war on paper in a council of clans. I had to state crimes, cruelties, and indignities, against my person and others by Mackenzie Lairds past and present, which I did. And trust me, brother, I had plenty of witnesses to speak to it.”
Samantha had seen a look of cruel arrogance on Gavin’s face before, but now an unholy rage burned with a dark flame.
For the first time, he truly frightened her.
“But not against Liam, surely.” A concerned Mena stepped forward. “Consider what you are doing, Thorne. You’ll be without a clan.”
“Maybe I’ll become a Ross.”
Samantha swallowed heavily. That would certainly mean the end of her charade. Lord, but this was getting problematical. Someone should stop this, stop them, before they ended up killing each other.
“I told ye before, Gavin, ye’d be a fool to go to war with me.” The Laird’s eyes flashed with obsidian fire.
Gavin merely grinned, revealing entirely too many teeth. It was the smile of a wolf. “What will ye do, Liam? How will ye punish me for my defiance? Whip me? Cut me? Burn me? Lock me out of my own keep to face the Highland winter naked and alone? Do I look afraid, brother? Do you think that’s anything that hasna been done before?”
A fraught and potent silence blanketed the room. It screamed through the mere inches that separated brother from brother. They were two alpha wolves snarling in front of their pack, and any moment Samantha was certain one would go for the other’s jugular and rip it out.
The only question was which?
“They call ye a demon,” Gavin sneered. “But ye’re nothing but one of those damned bulls out there, charging with your head down, unable to see what’s stalking you from the bushes. Ye may be undefeated in open war, but life has many battlegrounds, brother, and I’m a man of patience, and strategy, and endless reserves of stamina. So if ye fight me on this, ye’ll find yerself sorely outmatched.”
“Ye’ll lose the distillery,” Ravencroft threatened. “What’ll become of Inverthorne without income?”
“That isna a problem anymore.” Gavin glanced down at her triumphantly.
“Ye selfish ingrate!” Ravencroft roared. “If ye think I’m pronouncing ye married now, ye can go straight to hell.”
Here, panic roused Samantha from her openmouthed stupefaction. “No! Wait!”
Mena, possibly the bravest woman alive, stepped forward and took her husband’s bulging arm, her jade eyes made brighter by a sheen of tears and regret. “Liam. If you don’t marry them, they’ll just find someone else … It’s Alison’s wedding, too. Do what must be done, and we can leave. We’ll discuss all else later, when cooler heads prevail.”
“Fine,” the Laird barked. “Ye’re man and wife.” His inky glare found Samantha and she swallowed around an instant lump in her throat. “May God have mercy on your soul.”
“Isna that what they say when they’re about to condemn someone to death?” Calybrid remarked.
“A life with that bastard is the worst sort of sentence,” the Laird growled.
“Our brother Dorian would have a thing or two to say about that.” Gavin had regained some of his usual chill. “And once again, I’m the only other git who’s not a bastard. Why do I keep having to reiterate that?”
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“Aye, ye’re legitimate. A legitimate Mackenzie, and ye’ll leave my clan over my dead body.”
“If that’s what it takes,” Gavin snarled back.
For the second time in as many hours, Samantha found herself swept up into Gavin St. James’s arms, and she clung to muscles cording and shaking with more fury than strain.
“Ye can see yerselves out,” her husband called over his shoulder.
Alison found Mena, and they passed a wordless communiqué before Gavin kicked the study door closed with such force, Inverthorne shook with it.
Samantha only dimly heard Locryn’s bemused query as the furious Highlander once again conveyed her up the stairs to his bedroom.
“So does it still count if he doesna kiss the bride?”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
If Samantha had learned anything from her short previous marriage, it was the wisdom of keeping her own counsel when she could see the whites of a man’s eyes.
Her husband swept her into his chamber and bolted the door before striding over to the bed and plopping her onto it as gently as he was apparently capable.
Turning his back to her, he stalked to one of the windows and threw open the shutters with such strength, Samantha flinched at the splintering sound they made when they hit the wall. Thrusting the window open, he invited the storm into their bower, breathing it in with the gasp of a man who’d broken the surface after too long submerged underwater.
Lightning sheeted across the gray sky tinted with darker shades of evening, and Samantha caught one of the errant wispy bed curtains as the wind brought them to life.
After a few cavernous breaths he turned to face her, the glittering wrath in his eyes replaced by the customary languid calculation. The furious jut of his jaw relaxed enough for the sardonic smirk to return. Even the vein at his temple had disappeared.
But still the tempest raged, Samantha knew. He’d covered it with disingenuous sunshine and the imitation of calm.
They stood in the eye of the storm.
“I suppose ye’re owed an apology, wife. That wasna much of a wedding.”
Samantha shrugged and flashed him a counterfeit smirk to match his own. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I’d say it was one hell of a wedding.”
The Scot Beds His Wife Page 21