Page 63 of The Scot Beds His Wife

Not that she’d ever admit it to a soul. Especially to him.

“To keep Erradale, ye’ll have to stay on the land, lass,” he pointed out. “And it sounds to me like going back to America with these Masters brothers after ye is out of the question.”

“I’m not safe from them here, either, apparently,” she lamented.

“Ye’d be safe from them at Inverthorne.” His levity disappeared, and his jaw tightened with absolute solemnity. “As my wife, ye’d be a countess. The walls of Inverthorne withstood English sieges and battles. They can certainly keep out a few American train burglars.”

“Train burglars?” It could have been his earnest distaste for the word, or the ridiculousness of the phrase, but Samantha caught a gasp of a giggle, even as she groped for reasons to refuse him.

At least, ones she could repeat out loud.

She wasn’t really Alison Ross. Erradale was not actually hers to grant to anyone. She couldn’t betray Alison’s wishes after the woman had provided her sanctuary. She’d been Bennett Master’s wife little more than a month ago.

She was pregnant with a murderer’s child.

“Ican’tmarry a Mackenzie,” she said lamely. “I swore an oath.”

“Consider this, bonny, if ye married me, ye’d technically not be surrendering Erradale to a Mackenzie, as I technically willna be one for long. Or so I keep having to remind ye.”

She had to admit, that seemed a more salient point in this moment than it had before.

“Besides, this blood feud is a bit too Shakespearean, if ye want the truth. I’m no Montague, and ye’re no Capulet. We’re naught but the victims of the circumstances of our births. Think on it, lass, would not joining our families do more good than harm? Would it not put the matter of our parents to rest for generations that come after?”

“I’d fight to the death to protect what’s mine.”His proposal echoed through her addled mind clearer than the screech of an eagle over the stark plains of Wyoming.

Samantha’s hand drifted up to rest on her stomach, still flat and toned by arduous years of work.

Five weeks—nigh to six now—since she’d boarded that train. Since she’d last lain with her husband.

And almost three weeks late.

What if… what if she confessed? What if she told him shewasn’tAlison Ross, but Samantha Masters, and that she was likely carrying her deceased husband’s baby? Oh, and also that the fact that she’d shot said husband between the eyes was the reason for the vacancy of said position in her life at present?

Would he still want to protect her then?

Likely not.

Would the next hired guns Boyd and Bradley sent give a care that she might be pregnant with the Masterses’ niece or nephew and spare her?

Not a chance.

“Mutually beneficial marriages have been little better than land contracts for millennia,” the Earl of Thorne continued with infuriating rationality for someone so astoundingly nude. “Think on it, lass. I’ll not stop until I get what I want, so ye might as well give in and save us both a great deal of effort. I doona see what other choice ye have. What with yer estate burned to the ground, yer herd scattered, yer homeland crawling with yer enemies, and a pending appearance in front of the Magistrate’s Bench…”

He let his list trail off, and Samantha filled in a few points of her own. Any cash or paperwork with the claim to Erradale she’d had from Alison blew away with the ashes of Erradale. She’d a leg that would be useless for a month or longer, which left her little more than helpless.

And a child on the way with no father.

God, she wasn’t really allowing for his absolutely naked, utterly unromantic proposal, was she? How much of that tincture of opium had she been given?

“I’d be a very good, somewhat faithful husband to ye, lass,” he vowed, plying her with his most charming smile.

“Somewhat faithful?” she echoed.

“Well, as we established, I’m no saint, and neither, by yer own admission, are ye. I see no reason a marriage between us should be a prison sentence.”

“You’re saying… you don’t expect fidelity…?” she clarified carefully.

“I suppose not,” he said lightly, then he frowned. “But perhaps we should wait to take lovers until our familial duties are carried out. We’ll need a St. James heir, or both Inverthorne and Erradale would just go to my nephew, Andrew, upon my demise and, seeing as he’s Liam’s son, that would deliver Erradale right into the hands of a Mackenzie Laird, which supplants our purposes outright.”