The Scot Beds His Wife Page 4

  She’d never in her life seen his like.

  “Thank you,” she breathed, then cleared the detested note of feminine awe from her throat.

  “American?” An expression of equal parts scorn and seduction lurked beneath a haughty brow, and she had the sense he’d known that even before she’d articulated a word.

  She nodded in confirmation. “You can set me down now.”

  To her chagrin, his hold tightened, the gleam in those unnatural eyes both appreciative and roguish. “I’d rather not. Ye’re light as a wee baby bird, and about as stable on yer feet, it would seem. Perhaps it’s safer I hold ye a while.”

  Samantha became instantly certain that every second in his brawny arms was more dangerous than the last. Had to be that damned accent. An unsightly cretin could seduce a woman sounding like he did.

  Shit, she realized. Her pistols were in her handbag, too.

  Struck by the sudden intuition that she might have to shoot at this man someday, she decided she’d do her best to miss his attractive face.

  “Put. Me. Down,” she commanded. “Or I swear to Christ, I’ll scream so loud, they’ll hear it in London.”

  “That wouldna help ye in these parts, lass.”

  To avoid the equal shares of titillation and trepidation his words evoked, Samantha glanced around, noting that they’d already garnered rapt attention from the several evening travelers at the station, but none of them seemed inclined to offer her aid.

  Hell, no one even batted an eye at his rank, inappropriate behavior. Though she took comfort in the fact that neither did they seem alarmed on her behalf.

  Summoning her best glare, she directed it at him, opening her mouth to deliver a censure every bit as scathing as the unwanted heat prickling beneath the skin of her chest and throat and spreading south.

  He interrupted her by bending to gently place her feet on the platform. “I’ve been the cause of many female screams, I’ll admit, but never because of distress.”

  Any retort she could summon was lost to a gasp at the sudden clench below her belly button.

  His reluctance to release her certainly seemed less practiced than his wicked humor, but he eventually did. Not before he took an unnecessarily long moment to steady her.

  Samantha did her best to ignore the way his big hands left imprints of sensation on her corseted waist as she narrowly avoided tripping over the train of her skirts in her haste to put space between them.

  The distance created an alarming new problem. It had been impossible to grasp the full magnitude of his beauty from so close.

  It was enough to render her speechless.

  Samantha slammed her eyes shut, grasping for an excuse for this inexcusable attraction. She was exhausted, hungry, and unutterably soul-weary.

  And ultimately alone.

  After an arduous rail journey across the entire United States, she’d embarked from the port of Philadelphia on a ship a great deal less crowded than it had been when it arrived. She’d filled the Atlantic with tears of grief and pain, along with the upheaval of nearly every delicious meal afforded to her as the first-class passenger and apparent Scottish heiress Alison Ross.

  She had all the right papers and identification, along with a new trousseau, complete with a burgundy silk handbag in which to keep what few documents she had.

  In her old life, she’d have found such an accessory quite silly.

  Now it was the most precious thing in her possession.

  So, of course, it had been taken …

  She wanted to ask the gray skies what else could possibly go wrong, but knew better than to tempt the fates with such a question.

  Now, not only were her identification papers missing, but she hadn’t the relevant information with which to prove she was who she claimed to be.

  Alison had promised to write all pertinent details in a letter, and assured her that other documents should be arriving by mail as soon as possible. During the frantic conversation on a very different train—through most of which Samantha had been in complete shock—she’d gleaned only what Alison had the time to impart to her.

  Gavin St. James, the Earl of Thorne, was after the Ross family estate, Erradale.

  Alison had ignored his numerous requests, until he filed papers with the British government to have Erradale deemed abandoned, as neither Mackenzie nor Ross had inhabited it for several years. In order not to forfeit her legacy, Alison was required to physically take custody of the land for a period of time and put it into proper working order. She’d had to postpone wedding plans to her wealthy fiancé in San Francisco to set it to rights.

  “I’d rather eat my own hat than ever return to Scotland,” the heiress had vowed. “I’ve not been there since I was a girl. After my father died, my mother married her American lover, a railroad man named Mr. Delmont, and I’ve lived happily here with them since childhood. We’ve always had so much money that my mother never gave a fig for Erradale. Like me, she didn’t want to face the memories there. Unfortunately, she passed a couple of years ago, and all the responsibility falls to me, now.”

  “Why not just take the money, if you don’t want the ranch?” Samantha had queried, breathless at the staggering amount this Earl of Thorne had offered.

  “I would, if anyone else wanted it. But I made a vow to my father that, so long as an Erradale Ross still drew breath, no kin of Laird Mackenzie of Wester Ross would own our land. Laird Hamish Mackenzie killed my father, you see.”

  “I do see.” It was a vow Samantha could understand. And so, before the train had reached the platform in Cheyenne—from which every available law enforcement agency would be called to investigate what would be later known as “the Masters Massacre”—Alison had shoved her identification papers and cash into Samantha’s hands, and bade her to take a stagecoach from Cheyenne to Denver, to continue east on a different railway.

  “No one in Wester Ross knows me from any other American girl,” Alison had promised. “In the unlikely event anyone should still remain at Erradale who would remember me from a decade ago, they’d only recall a quiet thirteen-year-old child with darkish hair and blue eyes. We’re like enough in age and coloring that it shouldn’t present a problem in the least.”

  Samantha hadn’t been as skeptical as she’d been desperate. As a known member of the Masters Gang, she’d be hunted in America by not only the federal marshals, but also Bradley and Boyd, should the latter survive his wound.

  The remaining Masters brothers had their enormous take from the last five robberies.

  It would be enough money to hunt her to the ends of the earth.

  Samantha had had no money, no prospects, no family, and nowhere to go.

  And that’s why she now found herself on a chilly, mist-covered evening in the Scottish Highlands, staring dumbly up into the twinkling green eyes of the aforementioned magnificent male.

  She’d first spied him on the platform through the frosty glass as the train pulled into the station. A head taller than any other, he ate up ground with loose, long-limbed strides, flanked by two other well-dressed men. One very thin with a garishly orange plaid cravat, and the other rather rotund with kind eyes beneath endearing round spectacles perched on his red nose.

  A red-faced young footman jogged up to the tall, broad Highlander and placed her handbag into his hand. “Recovered it just in time, sir.”

  “Thank ye, Kevin.” The Highlander gave the footman a conspiratorial wink.

  “That doesn’t belong to you,” she snapped, reaching for it.

  “Not exactly my color, is it, lass?” He pulled it just out of her reach under the guise of holding it up to his face for assessment.

  Christ, but she’d had quite enough of charming, unspeakably handsome men who assumed they were hilarious. If she wasn’t so damned tired, she’d be spitting mad. At the moment, all she could summon was rank irritation.

  “Give it here,” she demanded.

  “Give it here…?” He drew out the last syllable.
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br />   “Please,” she muttered, galled to the core that she was even having such a ridiculous interaction.

  “Gladly.” The beauty of his smile stunned her blind, which must have been how he was able to cup the back of her hand with his, in order to set her handbag in her open palm.

  The tiny striations of her lace gloves became her only feeble defense against the feel of his coarse flesh against hers. The weight of her returned handbag drove her knuckles deeper against his palm.

  A rough exhalation drew her notice. Nothing about his haughty, nonchalant expression had changed.

  And yet … everything had.

  The rim of his nostrils flared with quickening breath. His lids became heavier, drawing to half-mast. His sinfully full lower lip drew tight against his teeth before he consciously seemed to relax it.

  Quickly, she pulled her hand from his, half expecting him not to allow it.

  Half astonished when he did.

  “I couldna help but notice ye’re traveling alone, lass.”

  She clutched her bag to her body, trying to summon similar indifference in the wake of his troubling observation.

  “I surely am.” Exhausted beyond reason by what seemed like endless days of travel, Samantha daintily covered a feigned yawn with the back of her gloved hand.

  The thin man gasped, reminding her that she and the haughty Highlander were, in fact, not alone. “Ye mean to say, ye voyaged all this way … unaccompanied?”

  “I mean to say.” She tried to keep her growing uncertainty out of her amiable smile. Who were these men to approach her like this? “Thank you for your help recovering my handbag, gentlemen. But I really must be on my way.”

  Feeling more unsteady on her heels than ever, she made to totter around them, only to be foiled by their synchronized move to block her.

  Anxiety flared. “Can I … help you?”

  With a nervous gesture, the thin man passed a briefcase from one hand to the other. “Could you not have retained a suitable chaperone—er—companion for yer journey?”

  This couldn’t seriously be the reason they were detaining her, could it? Who were they, the constabulary of conduct? “Why bother? I keep my own company well enough.” She scrutinized the three men blocking her path, especially Mr. Magnificent, with a growing sense of alarm.

  He watched her alertly with that strange, vibrant gaze. She had the sense she’d pleased him.

  A prickle of awareness washed over her, lifting each fine hair on her body. Tuning to something primal. A warning. Something like she imagined a deer in the woods felt when it seemed to sense the very breath of a nearby predator. “While I am alone, I am not, however, unarmed.” She patted her silly handbag, in which her beloved Colts resided. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve a ride to hitch.”

  “Well, arena ye bonny?” His brogue deepened immeasurably.

  “No,” she said warily. “I’m Alison. Alison Ross.”

  A chuckle she didn’t understand rose from the men before her would-be savior said, “Then there’s no need to … hitch a ride, as ye say, bonny. I’ve come to save ye the trouble.”

  “Oh! Are you my driver?” she asked hopefully, abashed at her unnecessary suspicion. And here she’d thought nothing could improve the breathtaking view of the Highlands.

  Apparently, she’d been wrong, as he most certainly could. Though she’d never seen a coachman so expensively attired before. Perhaps things weren’t as desolate at Erradale Estate as the real Alison Ross had assumed.

  Samantha fished in her frilly purse for some coins she still barely recognized. What was considered generous gratuity in the Scottish Highlands? She hadn’t the first idea. “I packed rather quickly, so I only brought the two trunks—”

  She froze when he reached out and cupped her elbow. Shit. He was touching her again. He really needed to stop doing that.

  Was it really necessary to wield a hand so incredibly large? An arm so thick and solid? Samantha fought the ridiculous urge to lean all her weight into the strength she sensed there.

  “I occurs to me, Miss Ross, that we havena been properly introduced.”

  “Oh, right.” Introductions were of some significance hereabouts, she’d noted. Annoyed with herself, she wondered how many times she’d break custom. Generally it would mean nothing to her. But this brawny stranger with features the perfect paradox of barbarian and aristocrat seemed to have her thoughts tumbling over each other like a litter of exuberant puppies.

  And with her husband only weeks dead by her own fucking hand.

  Lord, she really was going straight to hell.

  “Alison Ross.” She stuck out her hand for a shake, though the gesture just seemed superfluous now. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr.…”

  His hand engulfed hers, once again, and he pulled it toward him, looking like a man amused with a joke she was not a part of.

  He was someone aware of his effect on women. On her, in particular.

  Infuriating quality, that.

  “When I offered to save ye trouble, I meant the trouble of an arduous ride out to Erradale on such a frigid evening. Ye see, Miss Ross, I am quite sure ye’ve traveled all the way here on account of the documents of notice I sent ye, as I am Gavin St. James, the Earl of Thorne, and I’m here to take Erradale off yer lovely hands.”

  She snatched said hand away before he could press those full lips to her glove as he was about to do.

  This was Gavin St. James? Alison’s adversary. No, her enemy?

  She couldn’t think of a thing to say. She was so incredibly travel-weary, heartsick, seasick, and—if she were honest—more than a bit dazzled by the Earl of Thorne. Alison Ross hadn’t exactly given her a physical account of the man. She hadn’t expected someone so … so …

  Words failed her, yet again. As did her body, which seemed to be calling for her to surrender her hand back into his so he could place the kiss on her knuckles she’d denied them both.

  “If ye’d like, lass, I could conduct ye to Inverthorne Keep, my castle, where we could conclude our business in comfort for a few days…” His gaze traveled the length of her burgundy traveling gown. “And a few nights.”

  “I see,” she clipped, crossing her arms over the heart pounding against her ribs. She’d been right when she’d sensed danger. “Well, while your offer is appreciated, it’s pointless. If residence at Erradale is necessary to retain the land, as was mentioned in the documents, then Erradale is where I’ll be spending my days … and also my nights.”

  She turned toward the porter’s station, praying to keep her balance on the blasted boots, when his wide shoulders blocked her. Yet again.

  “Perhaps ye’ve not received my generous offer?” His alluring smile became strained, showing too many even, white teeth. “It’s nearly twice what the land is worth.”

  “I received it, all right,” she said mildly.

  He took a full breath, waiting for her to elucidate.

  When she didn’t, he was forced to ask the implied question.

  “Ye’re not saying that ye’re refusing the offer, are ye?”

  “Well, I wasn’t gonna put it like that, but I certainly didn’t plan to accept.”

  “Yer family’s had no interest in Erradale for several years. Why now?”

  “Why not now?” She shrugged, then picked up her cumbersome skirts and set off for the porter’s station, focusing extra hard on avoiding a stumble on the uneven planks of the platform.

  She had a feeling he’d not catch her again should she fall.

  He waited five entire astonished seconds before easily blocking her path once more, the two rather unobtrusive men taking up their respective posts behind him.

  “Did you bring these fellows to intimidate me into compliance?” she quipped, forcing irritation above the unease in her voice. “Because you’ve obviously never been to Reno.”

  His haughty brow wrinkled. “I ken nothing about this Reno.”

  “Well, I do, which is why I’m not impressed.�
�� As unimpressed as she was, she still slid her hand into the bag, comforting herself with the feel of her pistol.

  The earl stepped forward, and Samantha forgot what she’d been taught over the years. Never yield ground to the aggressor.

  She yielded to him, stepping back to maintain their distance, to avoid his touch. His proximity. His earthy, intoxicating scent. Something that reminded her of a loamy forest and cedar soap.

  “I brought these men to pay ye, lass.” He gestured behind him with measured movements. “This is my solicitor, Mr. Roy Mackenzie.” He pointed at the kind-faced, rotund man, who nodded and blushed. “And my banker, John Douglass.”

  The thin man sniffed his disdain.

  She sniffed hers right back. “I apologize for your wasted trip, gentlemen.”

  She would have taken her leave had the Earl of Thorne not gripped her elbow once again. “If my aim was to frighten ye, bonny, ye’d be terrified.” He sneered, and then gentled his grip, as though his behavior had shocked himself more than it had her. “I’ll do whatever it takes to convince ye to yield. Ye’ll be pleased to find, Miss Ross, that I do nothing by half measures.” The gleam in his eyes was now decidedly more sensual than sinister.

  “How nice for you.” She flashed him a taut smile. He might be handsome as the devil, but she’d be damned before she’d let him charm her.

  She knew better.

  And that knowledge was hard-won.

  “Coincidentally, you’ll find, Mr. St. James that—”

  “Lord Thorne is the correct way to address me.”

  Thorne, she thought wryly. How apropos. “If you say so. You’ll find that—”

  “The queen says so.”

  She snorted. “Not my queen.”

  Both men behind him gasped in audible distress, and even Lord Thorne dropped her elbow in dismay.

  “My dear Miss Ross.” The solicitor—another Mackenzie, she hadn’t been remiss in noticing—gently stepped in front of the flummoxed lord and said in a careful, if nasal, voice, “I ken ye’ve lived a great deal of yer life in the American West, and that country is rather … infamous for its lack of … governance.” He cast furtive glances at the mildly interested passersby, and then lowered his voice further. “However, I’d beg ye to keep in mind that so long as ye’re a citizen of this empire, and yer feet are on this soil, ye’re indeed governed by our queen, Parliament, and her appointed agents. Even in these modern times, to declare otherwise is still considered treason by those subject to Her Majesty’s crown. Which ye are.”