Page 129 of The Scot Beds His Wife

“Aye.” Liam nodded. “And she would have had to start this process at the time of your marriage, if not before.”

Christ. No.She’d tried to tell him, she’d begged him to listen. And he’d not allowed her to speak.

He’d told her she was nothing.

She was not the only liar.

“There’s a second paper,” Liam said.

Gavin flipped the page and had to put a hand out to prop himself against the wall, lest he drop to his knees in the barren stone hallway. “The deed and transfer of Erradale Estate to Gavin St. James, Earl of Thorne…”

“Of clan Mackenzie.” Liam finished what he could not. “She loves ye, Gavin. Despite anything else she may have said or not said, ye canna dispute the truth of that.”

Gavin seized Liam’s shirt, suddenly desperate to see her. “Is she at Ravencroft?”

Soberly, Liam shook his head. “She’s gone to the Continent. Mena and I tried to convince her to stay, but she is worried about the extradition laws to America. She’s still a woman wanted for murder, after all.”

Gavin’s mind raced faster than his heart, if that was possible. “Tell me, is Dorian at Ben More Castle?”

“Dorian?” An austere metal sound echoed down the hallway as both the Rook’s hands landed against the door. “Do you mean Dorian Blackwell?”

“Aye.”

“You have dealings with him?” This was the first bit of intensity Gavin had sensed from the Rook, and he had to admit he found it even more unsettling than the characteristic nonchalance. He shared a look with Liam. Neither of them had business dealings with the Blackheart of Ben More. They knew better.

He was, however, their bastard half brother.

“It doesna surprise me that ye’re acquaintances,” Gavin said carefully.

“On the contrary, we’re not at all acquainted.” The Rook seemed to have gathered some of his previous composure. “But Dorian Blackwell is a name that haunts me, and I’m taking this free ride to Newgate because that’s where I know my past with him began.”

Liam stepped forward. “I warn ye, Rook, he’s our kin. We’d not see him harmed.”

“Your kin?” The black gaze sharpened, and Gavin was struck not for the first time, at how much the Rook also resembled Dorian.

“Our brother.” He scrutinized the pirate with new suspicion.

“Well,” the villain marveled. “Say what you will about your father, he was rather indiscriminately prolific in creating notoriously dangerous men.”

“Aye,” Gavin said. “And Dorian will be looking for ye, Rook. We’ll warn him ye’re coming.”

“Warn him all you like.” The Rook’s eyes glinted like obsidian glass as he melted away from the port. “He’ll never seethiscoming.”

CHAPTERTWENTY-NINE

Samantha had decided the sea was her favorite place to grieve. To weep. What were a few more drops of salty moisture into incalculable measurements of it?

Nothing.

It was nothing.

Just like she had become nothing to the only man she’d ever loved.

For she realized now that she’d never truly loved Bennett. She’d needed him at the time. She’d loved the way he’d made her feel, at first. But the grief she’d experienced at his loss didn’t touch this hopeless sort of despair that threatened to drown her now.

It had proved impossible to properly nurse a broken heart while pitching the contents of her stomach over the side of yet another ship, as she crossed the choppy English Channel. She’d distracted herself from seasickness by studying maps and manuals of Europe to settle on where she would like to raise her child. She’d decided upon the Netherlands, and boarded a train toward Amsterdam the day after she’dlanded on the Continent. She’d needed the extra time to recover her land legs, even after such a short trip.

She tried to shove her pain aside. To focus on the child inside her, on the future ahead of her. She was a fool to allow a man so much control over her happiness. To let him dictate her feelings with such a deft and cruel hand.