Page 13 of The Scot Beds His Wife
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 fiancéin 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 agirl. 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, ifanyoneelse 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 placedherhandbag intohishand. “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.
“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.
