Page 126 of The Scot Beds His Wife

The moment carried that expectant silence between lightning and thunder.

Gavin exploded forward, meaning to drive his fists into the man who’d been his closest friend for decades.

His shackles brought him up short, and still he surged against them, violence pouring through him like a biblical flood.

“And ye saidnothing? All this fucking time!” Were there no true souls left on this earth? No one to trust? “Ye let me marry her? Ye let me fall in—” He couldn’t say the word.“Why?”

“Because I was hoping the wedding would bring Alison back!” Callum’s snarl was just as vehement, stunning Gavin into stillness.

“What?” he breathed.

“Ye remember Alison was born not long after ye took up residence at Inverthorne. Mrs. Ross was never well after the birth, and Alison spent most of her childhood chasing me about the moors like a wild puppy.”

“I remember,” Gavin said warily. “Ye used to take refuge from her at Inverthorne, complaining of her being a pest.”

“Aye. I did…”

“But?”

“She was still but a girl of thirteen by the time she left, and I was not only hiding from her at that point, but from tender feelings a lad should not have for a girl nine years his junior.”

“Callum.” Gavin reclaimed his seat, their past coming into sharp focus.

“I went to seek my fortune, and years later, when I thought I’d enough to win her, I went to America to find her.” A bleakness crept into the hermit’s voice.

“I presume ye succeeded.”

“Aye.”

“And?”

“And I’ve been living in a cave ever since,” the man said darkly. “Trying to forget…”

“To forget what?

“Never you mind what.”

It had been a mystery to Gavin, why a man as famous and well traveled an explorer as Callum Monahan had retreated from the world. He’d asked his friend a few times, but had always received the same answer.

Never you mind.

He’d not in a million lifetimes imagined it had anything to do with a woman.

“I am sorry that I kept Sam’s secret from you,” Callum continued drolly. “But when I read Alison’s letter to Sam… I—”

Gavin leaned forward again. “Letter? What letter?”

“I’d know her writing anywhere… and I couldn’t stop from steaming the letter open, if only to see the words written by her hand.”

A commotion from out toward the sergeant’s desk drew his attention. The authorities had probably come for them. They were running out of time.

“What did shesay,Callum?” he demanded tersely.

“Alison sent documents from America along with a letter admonishing Sam to take up Erradale’s claim against yours on her behalf. She thanked Sam for saving her life,and told her that she could take sanctuary on Erradale indefinitely, so long as she kept it out of Mackenzie hands.”

The exhale Gavin expelled contained all the regret his body could summon.

She’d told the truth… about that, at least. “And when she broke her word to Alison and married me… ye still didna say anything?”