Page 125 of The Scot Beds His Wife

Hellish, twisted things they were.

Hell. Surely his next destination. This place was a purgatory of sorts, a consign of reckoning before the swift and retributive justice of the crown was meted out.

Before another one of Hamish Mackenzie’s sons swung from a rope for treason.

A bitter smile crooked across his lips. Even this distinction wasn’t unprecedented. He didn’t own it. He wasn’t the most treasonous of the Mackenzie lads. That had been Hamish the Younger, who’d been hanged some years ago for war crimes against the Duke of Trenwyth and high treason against the crown.

Gavin wasn’t the most monstrous Mackenzie son, either,he realized. As Liam, the Demon Highlander, himself, laid claim to that title with twenty years of unparalleled bloodshed in service to Her Majesty.

In fact, he wasn’t even the most criminal, as Dorian Blackwell, the Black Heart of Ben More, his father’s youngest bastard, had ruled the London Underworld for the better part of fifteen years.

So where did that leave him? Nay, what did that make him?

He’d thought himself the clever one. The resilient one. And, aye, the handsome one.

What a fool he’d been. He was nothing more than a second-rate smuggler cursed by the fates with appalling taste in women.

Well, if he was going to die alone, at least it would be sooner than later.

His mother had Eammon, and Liam’s son, Andrew, would inherit Inverthorne. He was a good lad, at least.

His hand pressed above his breastbone, at the place that seemed to seize with a very knifelike pain every time he thought of progeny. Of an heir.

Alison Ross, the real Alison Ross, had won the day after all. Erradale would remain her birthright. Empty. Unclaimed. Forever soiled by her father’s death.

The world would go on. Perhaps it was best that he didn’t…

The scrape of his door and a shaft of light brought him to his feet, the chains at his wrists—rather more redundant than necessary, in his opinion—dragging across the stones as Callum was shoved into the cell with him.

The Mac Tíre looked a bit worse for wear, even for him. His beard had grown out of control, his shrewd eyes wild, and his teeth bared as it took three gaolers to chain him to the wooden bed across from Gavin.

“Now stay still,” the guard ordered them both. “We’ll deal with ye soon enough.”

He left the steel door ajar, confident the chains would keep the men in place, and Gavin was grateful for what little fresh air circulated into the dank cell.

“Are ye hurt?” Gavin asked his friend, unable to see the particulars of Callum’s swarthy features now that he was no longer illuminated in the doorway.

“Nay,” Callum answered shortly.

“Are ye… well?”

“Nay.” The question seemed superfluous, but they both knew it was not. Callum wasn’t able to abide small spaces for long, and judging by the growth of his beard, it had been closer to five days than two.

With a tight sigh, Gavin rested his head against the cold stones. “I suppose I should have seen this coming.”

“You mean the sudden disappearance and abandonment of the world’s most elusive and notorious pirate once the military showed up to seize the shipload of goods and weapons we smuggled for him?” Callum’s voice could have turned the bogs into a desert. “Aye, we should have seen it coming.”

“I mean all of it,” Gavin ruminated. “For a moment there, everything was perfect… I should have known it wasna real.”

“If they’re coming to take us in front of the judge, Thorne, this might be the last time we see each other.” A measured note returned to Callum’s voice. “An Irish ex-patriot like me isn’t like to be sent to the same place as an earl.”

Sitting forward, Gavin swallowed a million regrets. “I’m sorry, brother. I’ll do what I can for ye.”

“Nay.” Callum said the word so low, Gavin had to strain to hear it. “It is I who am sorry.”

“Ye’ve done nothing. I asked ye if ye knew of black market work that would bring us a quick fortune. The Rook has never been caught out before and—”

“I knew Sam was not Alison Ross when you married her.”