Page 98 of The Scot Beds His Wife

“What do you mean?”

“You were raised American, for all intents and purposes, but you’ve the blood—the soul—of a Celt. You are one of the People, now. Perhaps you just needed to find your clan. To find your way home.”

Samantha suppressed a squirm, needled with remorse over her deception. This was not and never had been her home. Not that she really knew where her people came from.

“What about your clan?” she redirected. “Do you miss Ireland?”

Eammon looked to the west, where past the forest, the Hebrides, and the narrow sea, lay his emerald homeland. “Callum supposes that it’s him and Gavin that’s kept me at Inverthorne all these years, but it’s not. Not completely.”

“Eleanor?” Samantha guessed.

His Adam’s apple bobbed beneath his collar as he swallowed, staring straight ahead at the ruts in the road, and the skeletons of lesser trees interspersed with evergreens and pine. “I’ve loved that woman for the better part of twenty years. But… what Hamish did… That broke her. Beyond repair, I fear.”

She was almost too afraid to ask. “What did he do?”

“What a terrible night. A terrible night for almost everyone in Wester Ross.”

It was always a startling sight, to watch such a masculine man’s eyes redden with emotion. It affected Samantha so much, she had to look away.

“Hamish whipped Thorne within an inch of his life and threw him out the window, breaking his collarbone,” Eammon revealed.

Samantha’s hands turned to fists in her skirts. “The scars… his back?”

Eammon nodded woodenly, his eyes gazing into the past. “Poor lad had to listen to what his father did to Eleanor. She hit her temple on the edge of a trunk where hethrew her, and lay for who knows how many hours when Hamish left her for dead. He went to the town and caused no end of trouble that night. Poor Thorne was left out in the cold, locked away from his own keep. When Callum brought him home to me that morn, I hied myself to Ravencroft, tore the door down, and brought poor Eleanor to Inverthorne. The surgeon did what he could, but head wounds are tricky, and when she opened her lovely eyes… her sight, and some of her faculties, were totally lost.”

“My God.” A tear froze on her cheek, and Eammon gave a suspicious sniff.

“Aye, well, when the current Laird Ravencroft finally did old Hamish in years later, I happily helped rid him of the body.”

Samantha gaped. “You’re saying Laird Mackenzie…Liam Mackenzie… killed his father? Gavin’s father? Are you certain?”

“Poorly kept family secret, I’m afraid. Everyone suspects. And no one much minds.Bealtaine a anam dhói ifreann.”

Samantha wanted to duck the fervent words, as though they were an ancient curse, and she stared at the man in silent inquiry.

“May his soul burn in hell,” Eammon translated, spitting past his elbow onto the frostbitten dirt road.

Samantha added her spit to the ground, along with a curse. Seemed like the thing to do. If there was a hell, she’d give her own soul to see Hamish Mackenzie in it.

“So… Gavin knows what his brother did?”

“Aye. Thorne was barely older than a lad at the time, but already a lord. Inverthorne was not much more than a pile of rubble before Callum brought him limping home that morning, bleeding, broken, and flayed open. I was groundskeeper and stable master, which was master ofnothing, all told. Hamish paid me a pittance out of the lad’s own income to look after the place, and I took it, God save me, as I was battling the darkness caused by my own wife’s death.”

“Did folks know what Hamish did to his family? Did you know?”

“Aye.” His heavy shoulders caught on a tired sigh. “He was scarce better to his clan than he was to his kin. Thorne used to romp about the forests with Callum as a wee lad, and I knew it was to escape his father’s cruelty. Stitched the boy up more times than I should have allowed, to my everlasting shame. But Hamish Mackenzie was a mountain of a man, just like Liam, and a marquess besides. So many of us relied on him for a living. The distillery, the fields, and the forests. None of us knew what to do. That is to say, none of us were man enough to do what needed doing.”

“We’ve all of us deeds that we’re ashamed of.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “And sometimes it’s not what we made happen that haunts us, but what we allowed to happen.”

“You’re kind.” He looked toward Gresham Peak, beyond which lay Erradale. “The Mackenzie lads, they’ve more demons than most.”

“I’m starting to understand that.”

“’Tis why they’ve always been at each other’s throats, I think. More’s the pity. They’re left a legacy that’s more pain and indignity than pride or joy. It takes a rare and patient lass to walk alongside their demons.”

“It’s strange. Gavin’s all smiles and charm.” Except when he wasn’t. “I never would have guessed…”

“Some men hide their pain behind anger and bloodshed, others behind vice and levity.”