Page 128 of The Scot Beds His Wife

Gavin wondered if it were possible to expire from astonishment. He stared down at his soiled, blackened hands and the once-white shirtsleeves he’d worn for too many days, before gathering the strength to look up at the brother who wore his hated father’s features.

“Why are ye here, Liam?”

“I already told ye—”

“And I informedyeon my wedding day that I’m no longer a Mackenzie. Ye’ll no longer be clan Laird of Inverthorne lands.”

The rumble in Liam’s chest truly was nothing less than demonic. “Do ye think papers in an English court decide yer blood, Gavin? Ye can have every trace of our clan erased from the annals of every record and history book from the beginning of recorded time if ye want. Ye’d still be my brother.”

It distressed Gavin, a man used to discarding emotioninstead of facing it, to suddenly lose control over the muscles of his throat. He cleared the offending tightness with a rough sound.

Liam’s dark eyes softened as they regarded him. “Ye know, for brothers with oddly comparable lives, ye’d think we’d understand each other better. That we’d have maintained a more… fraternal relationship over the years.”

Gavin snorted. “Just because we had the same father doesna mean our lives are anything alike.”

Instead of reacting as he would have once done, Liam merely quirked an eyebrow at him. “Just because ye’re not the Demon Highlander, doesna mean ye doona have the Mackenzie temper. Ye’ve just hidden it behind vice and indifference. For example, I ken how angry ye are right now at yer wife.”

“She’s not my wife.” Every muscle in Gavin’s body tensed, and he darkly wondered what she’d done for the Rook to convince him to turn himself in.

“She loves ye.”

“She lied,” he said through clenched teeth. “Unforgivably lied.”

“Yet another way our lives parallel one another. Or did ye forget that Mena also came to the Highlands under the guise of a spinster governess rather than the fugitive viscountess she was?”

“Samantha…” The name sounded foreign and bitter on his tongue. “She was married.”

Liam lifted a shoulder. “As was Mena. If ye remember, she wasstillmarried when I uncovered her deception. At least Samantha is already a widow.”

“Because shekilledher own husband.”

“She just gets more and more fascinating.” The Rook’s smile only widened when the two brothers lanced him with their warning glares. “Oh come, I think we can allagree that not all deaths are the tragedies other people think they should be.”

Gavin ignored him. “Let’s not forget the child.”

“Aye.” Liam raised a hand to squeeze at the back of his neck. A gesture Gavin found himself doing often out of habit. “Under any other circumstance, her lie would be untenable. And maybe, to ye, it is. But consider this, Thorne. She was a lady who didna want her child to be a Masters. There is another lady I know who didna want her son to be a Mackenzie. If ye ask me… they both had good reason.”

Again, Gavin struggled to swallow. The condition worsened when Liam laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Maybe… we doona have to be our father’s sons anymore. Perhaps we could just be brothers. Mackenzie brothers.”

Gavin had to blink away a strange and foreign blur when he met the dark eyes he’d so often laughed into as a boy. “Ye think there’s redemption, Liam? After that night… After everything we’ve done to each other?”

“I thought ye were safe at Inverthorne all those years ago. I didna ken he’d make ye pay for yer mother’s freedom with yer own flesh.”

“Because ye left, Liam. Ye always left.”

“I didna just leave, I ran. And ken that each time I did, I took something away from ye. Yer brother. Yer name. The woman ye loved.” Reaching into his sporran, he removed several papers with official wax seals. “This time, brother… let me give something back.”

“What’s this?” Gavin ran his thumb over the seal of the Queen’s Records Office.

“She was planning on telling ye the truth the whole time.”

“How do ye know?”

“Because once she gave ye this, all secrets would be revealed.”

Breaking the seal, Gavin opened the document with trembling hands, pertinent words spilling forth in a whisper as his eyes devoured what they could barely process. “Bill of Sale… from Alison Ross to… Samantha Masters… all land and structures of Erradale Estate in perpetuity… in the amount of…” His jaw dropped at the same time his eyes lifted to meet those of his brother. “This is how much we settled on for her annuity, give or take twenty pounds.” And a great deal less than he’d offered Alison Ross for Erradale only months prior.