Page 99 of The Scot Beds His Wife

Samantha nodded, understanding that he presented to her the different paths that Liam and Gavin walked.

“What happened after that night? After Gavin and Eleanor came to Inverthorne?”

“Hamish never came after Eleanor, though I know that Gavin had to pay for her freedom with blood. He planned on going after his father once he was old enough. Hated the bastard with single-minded vehemence. We all did.”

“But Liam got to him first.”

“Aye.”

Now Eleanor’s absence from the wedding made much more sense. She’d wondered if it could have been more than just a headache. And it was… so, so much more.

“How does it happen?” Samantha wondered aloud, lost in her own past as much as her husband’s. “How do some men become such monsters?”

“There’s no simple answer to that. Some are made so by circumstance. Others, like Hamish Mackenzie, are born to it. He was the type that tortured wee beasties as a lad. That took pleasure in both power and pain.”

“I hope his death was slow,” she said through clenched teeth.

“I wasn’t part of that, unfortunately.” Eammon looked at her as though she pleased him. “But I only regret that parts of him lingered with his sons, even after his death.”

“Scars,” she murmured.

“More like… open wounds. Ones that still fester, I think.”

Like the shards of Gavin’s heart that Eleanor had warned her about. Broken one too many times to ever give away.

Suddenly Eammon’s gaze became penetrating, as though he could see her secrets and her deception. “You’ve granted him what he’s always wanted, what he’s always been denied. Independence from Inverthorne’s reliance onthe Ravencroft Distillery income. A family. A future. To him, Erradale represents salvation. And maybe ye do, too.”

“I—I hope I can—”

“Sam.” He said her name with absolute gravity and none of his usual respect. “I’d not see him wounded again.”

This time it was Samantha’s turn to look straight ahead as her heart began to pound. Guilt twisted and rotted in her gut, and she pressed her fist there.

“Neither would I,” she whispered.

***

Samantha had a long cart ride to prepare herself for her husband’s ire. So she resented that the sight of him bearing down on her at full gallop once she descended the gentle slope of Gresham Peak affected her nearly as much as the sight of Erradale in ashes.

Those pleasant white cottages were nothing but bits of char, and only the grand stone fireplace and chimney still stood in the rubble of the so-called manor house.

This place might not have meant much to Alison Ross, but for a short time, it had been everything toher. A sanctuary. A new beginning.

A home.

She surreptitiously surveyed the ruins for the bodies of the men who’d come for her, and found no one. Gavin had already taken care of them. Did he toss them in the sea, she wondered, as he’d threatened to do?

Had he found anything on their corpses? A new and frightening prospect lanced her with terror. What if they’d had documentation of some kind regarding her real identity? If they were hired by Boyd and Bradley.

That was certainly likely.

Perhaps it was her uncovered secret causing the furious set of her husband’s perfect jaw as he pulled Demetrius upshort and took five full seconds to unclench his teeth in order to speak to her.

Samantha didn’t breathe the entire time.

“Ye. Hired.Mackenziemen.” He gestured to the several or so riders inexpertly driving a handful of shaggy beasts toward the only pasture with part of a fence left. Another half-dozen Highlanders labored to rebuild the gate in order to keep them in place.

Oh, whew.She puffed her cheeks out with a storm of relieved breath.Thisshe could handle. “Actually,Ididn’t hire them, Lady Ravencroft did. Though I bade her to.”