Page 22 of The Scot Beds His Wife

“You’ll call me Miss Ross, or nothing at all,” she spat. “And make no mistake; I know all I need to know about you,LordThorne.” The scorn she injected into the word was unmistakable.

Gavin had to fight to keep from squirming. He did have a certain… reputation where women were concerned that certainly wouldn’t help ingratiate him to her. Though how she could have gleaned that information out here in the wilderness was beyond him. It wasn’t like Calybrid and Locryn kept up on gossip, and Callum would never repeat an ill word against him.

“Do ye?” he challenged.

“Sure do. You’re a famously unscrupulous man. A notorious womanizer. A rake who thinks nothing of seducing other men’s wives.”

Gavin surmised this woman was no fool, and to deny it would be folly. Instead, he chose to own his reputation, adopting a look of mischievous contrition. “Well, someone has to, do they not? I doona know many men who seduce theirownwives.”

A momentary bleakness crossed her features, a reaction he catalogued and stored for later analysis.

She continued as though he hadn’t spoken. “A jealous second son who’s forced to work at his elder brother’s distillery in order to keep his castle from crumbling around his ears.”

Gavin had to actually stop himself from flinching, as her barb hit a little too close to the mark. He remained studiously impassive. “Ye forgot to mention all the virgins I’ve debauched,” he supplied helpfully.

“Don’t think I don’t know exactly why you want my land,” she forged on, unamused. “But you’re not going to get it. So you can fuck away off any time.”

Her unflinching use of vulgarity struck a chord of endless hilarity in their audience. Gavin had to fight the tremor of amusement that toyed with his own mouth once he recovered from the initial shock.

“Why do ye believe that is, lass?”

“You’re a Mackenzie. They’ve wanted to take this land from the Ross family for generations.”

“What if I told ye I’m no Mackenzie.”

She snorted. “I know better.Everyoneknows better.”

“I mean, my father was one,” he admitted. “The Mackenzie Laird, as ye say, and so is my brother, Liam. But I’m in the process of officially emancipating myself from the Mackenzie clan, if that means anything to ye.”

She cast him a wary, bewildered look, her pistol finally wavering beneath the weight of her obvious curiosity. “Why would you do that?”

“The reasons are numerous, and they remain my own, but know that the death of yer father is among them.”

“Oh.” She concealed a flicker of doubt with a blink, but it was the sign of weakness Gavin had been waiting for. And he pounced.

“And so ye see, Miss Ross, selling me Erradale wouldna be giving it over to a foe, but to the enemy of yer enemy… and doesna that make us friends?”

He knew he’d made an error in judgment even before she pointed the pistol in his direction and pulled the trigger.

Calybrid, the old coot, lost control of his mare and she leaped away from them, bolting and bucking a little before he subdued her.

Again, the gunshot shocked everyone. Even Callum, who galloped toward them.

Gavin froze for an unerringly tense moment, searching his body for pain, for a trickle of blood. Remembering to breathe when he encountered neither.

The woman was daft. Mad. A trigger-happy harpy without a lick of sense.

“Thattime I missed.” She pulled back the hammer. “It won’t happen twice. Now get. The fuck. Off.My. Land.”

Gavin had never heard the voice of a woman carry such hard, caustic gravity. “Careful, lass,” he said over the sound of a pulse thundering with the fury that chased away the initial astonishment. “I’m not an enemy ye want to make.”

“I’ve had enemies before.” Her pistol remained locked level with his heart. “And you know what I’ve learned,LordThorne?”

He was beginning to hate the way she said his name.

“That it’s those closest to you that you have to beware of,” she continued. “Along with those looking to be your friend when they have no cause but their own.”

Gavin’s eyes met hers and they held. Never once did she look away. Her breath was steady and her gaze clear as Loch Lomond and just as cold.