Page 83 of The Scot Beds His Wife

Here, panic roused Samantha from her openmouthed stupefaction. “No! Wait!”

Mena, possibly the bravest woman alive, stepped forward and took her husband’s bulging arm, her jade eyes made brighter by a sheen of tears and regret. “Liam. If you don’t marry them, they’ll just find someone else… It’sAlison’swedding, too. Do what must be done, and we can leave. We’ll discuss all else later, when cooler heads prevail.”

“Fine,” the Laird barked. “Ye’re man and wife.” His inky glare found Samantha and she swallowed around an instant lump in her throat. “May God have mercy on your soul.”

“Isna that what they say when they’re about to condemn someone to death?” Calybrid remarked.

“A life with that bastard is the worst sort of sentence,” the Laird growled.

“Our brother Dorian would have a thing or two to say about that.” Gavin had regained some of his usual chill. “And once again,I’mthe only other git who’snota bastard. Why do I keep having to reiterate that?”

“Aye, ye’re legitimate. A legitimateMackenzie,and ye’ll leave my clan over my dead body.”

“If that’s what it takes,” Gavin snarled back.

For the second time in as many hours, Samantha foundherself swept up into Gavin St. James’s arms, and she clung to muscles cording and shaking with more fury than strain.

“Ye can see yerselves out,” her husband called over his shoulder.

Alison found Mena, and they passed a wordless communiquébefore Gavin kicked the study door closed with such force, Inverthorne shook with it.

Samantha only dimly heard Locryn’s bemused query as the furious Highlander once again conveyed her up the stairs to his bedroom.

“So does it still count if he doesna kiss the bride?”

CHAPTEREIGHTEEN

If Samantha had learned anything from her short previous marriage, it was the wisdom of keeping her own counsel when she could see the whites of a man’s eyes.

Her husband swept her into his chamber and bolted the door before striding over to the bed and plopping her onto it as gently as he was apparently capable.

Turning his back to her, he stalked to one of the windows and threw open the shutters with such strength, Samantha flinched at the splintering sound they made when they hit the wall. Thrusting the window open, he invited the storm into their bower, breathing it in with the gasp of a man who’d broken the surface after too long submerged underwater.

Lightning sheeted across the gray sky tinted with darker shades of evening, and Samantha caught one of the errant wispy bed curtains as the wind brought them to life.

After a few cavernous breaths he turned to face her, the glittering wrath in his eyes replaced by the customary languid calculation. The furious jut of his jaw relaxedenough for the sardonic smirk to return. Even the vein at his temple had disappeared.

But still the tempest raged, Samantha knew. He’d covered it with disingenuous sunshine and the imitation of calm.

They stood in the eye of the storm.

“I suppose ye’re owed an apology, wife. That wasna much of a wedding.”

Samantha shrugged and flashed him a counterfeit smirk to match his own. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I’d say it was one hell of a wedding.”

For an incredibly intense moment, he stared at her as if she were the queerest creature he’d ever seen. An unspoken cue rippled between them, and they both erupted into laughter, long and genuine and tinged with a bit of madness on both their parts.

“Ah, bonny.” He sighed once they’d quieted. “Any other lass would be inconsolable with tears after all that.”

“I’m not just any other lass.”

His green eyes, so vivid against the gold of his skin, softened upon her, even as the wind continued to feather his hair against its shape now that he’d turned from the window.

“Nay, I’ve never met yer like.”

Another vibration singed the air between them the moment before thunder crawled over the clouds, making its noisy way toward Inverthorne. What had started as a drizzle was fast becoming a gale to warn of winter.

Unable to stand his beauty, Samantha looked away, examining the fine stitching on the ripples of her skirts. There was only one thing left to do to make this little farce of a marriage complete.