Page 5 of The Scot Beds His Wife
“I shut her up.” The Laird’s slur intensified. “I didna notice the trunk until her head cracked on it.”
“I’ll kill ye,” Thorne vowed to the night, cursing the break in his adolescent voice. “I’ll kill ye, do ye hear me? If she’s dead, I swear to Christ and all the old gods, ye’re a dead man.”
The Laird laughed, and what was left of Thorne’s soul bled out of him. “Ye’re no killer.” The prospect seemed to cause the man no end of amusement. “In fact, ye’ll not be allowed back into this keep until ye are. Next time ye see me, little cunt, ye’d better be ready to challenge me.”
Not even an entire English regiment could have lain the siege Thorne had to Ravencroft Keep that night. He hurled himself like an animal at every barred door. He broke a window with a heavy rock, but merely succeeded in peeling off more skin in the thorny hedgerows beneath, only to find that he couldn’t climb the casement with one hand.
Thorne never knew what brought Callum to his side, or how many hours he spent screaming incoherent curses beneath his mother’s window before his small, wild friend pulled his frozen body from the ice-brittle ground. He was dimly aware that dawn had begun to outline the Kinross Mountains to the far east in silver.
Though the cold had stolen his ability to move, and his voice had been lost hours before, he still screamed.
His soul screamed.
And he vowed before he lost consciousness that he’d return a killer.
That wasn’t the last night Thorne saw his mother, but itwasthe last night she ever saw him.
CHAPTERONE
Gairloch, Wester Ross, Scotland, Autumn 1880 Twenty years later
“So, it’s true. The Earl of Thorne made a deal with the devil.” The unique Scots-Irish brogue slid through the night like a sharp dirk through supple skin.
Even on the Sannda Mhòr, the wide swath of beach leading down to Strath Bay, Gavin St. James recognized the deceptively light footfalls of the large man behind him before he’d spoken.
“Wouldna be the first time,” he retorted mildly as he clasped Callum Monahan’s sturdy forearm in welcome. “Willna be the last. The devil has been many men to me. Here is only one more.”
Even by the dim light of the fire, Callum’s swarthy, sun-weathered skin contrasted with eyes so golden, they shone with an otherworldly luminescence. They matched the irises of the falcon perched on his left forearm as they studied him from beneath a woolen cowl. “Despite everything we’ve been through, you’ve not the look of a man who’s dealt with many demons.”
“And yet…” Gavin summoned his signature rakishgrin, letting his insinuation drift into the shadows. Callum knew Gavin’s demons were darker than the black waters between Isle of Longa and the shores of the Sannda Mhòr. That Gavin’s immediate family—all half brothers—consisted of a hanged traitor, the king of the London Underworld, and a certain Mackenzie Laird all the empire had literally termed the Demon Highlander.
“Ravencroft mightactuallysee you hanged this time, if he discovers us.” The man the locals christened the Mac Tíre joined Gavin in scanning the moonless night for a sign of the incoming cargo. Mac Tíre in the old language meant Son of the Earth. Master of Beasts.
Gavin thought of his brother. Liam. Now the Laird Ravencroft. He’d not only inherited their father’s title, but his temper and proclivity for violence, as well. “One of us is like to kill the other before long. Seems to be the fate of the Mackenzie men.” Gavin made an ironic sound, and crouched to add another log to the fire. He idly wondered what it would do to the Demon Highlander to have to witness one more brother kicking at the end of a rope. “Ravencroft never ventures this far north. He gives Inverthorne Keep, the village of Gairloch, and all of Strath Bay a wide berth. He may be the Mackenzie Laird, but this ismyland. And well he knows it.”
“Which makes it a perfect cove for smuggling.” Callum’s raptorlike eyes shone with the gleam of a man looking forward to the sin he was about to commit.
“Aye,” Gavin agreed. “So it does.”
In the unnatural stillness of the night, the unmistakable sound of oars sluicing through water announced the arrival of a longboat.
“Speak of the very devil.” Callum strode to the edge of the tide, nearly beyond the glow of the fire. A gentle wind stirred his dark cloak and kilt like shadows around hisbody until he seemed more specter than man. “The Rook approaches.”
“How he can navigate this craggy cove in such darkness boggles the mind,” Gavin remarked. “Most use a lantern, at least.”
Callum slid him a mysterious look over his shoulder. “The land has its demons, and so does the sea.” The Mac Tíre whispered something to the falcon, and released it into the air with several powerful beats of its wings. “I trust that Sannda Mhòr is secure, but Manannan Mac Lir will alert us to an unwelcome presence all the same.”
Gavin nodded and drew up next to his oldest friend as the gentle surf stole some of the sand from beneath his boots. He lifted the lantern he’d been holding, and signaled a welcome in the direction of the approaching vessel. “What I canna ken, is why a hermit who lives in a cave and sleeps with sheep has a connection to the most notorious pirate since Sir Francis Drake.”
“It’s more ashielinghut than a cave,” Callum protested. “And I defy you to tell Angus and Fergus to sleep outside.” At Gavin’s droll glance, he continued. “I met the Rook some time ago in Tangier. I assisted him with the movement of some exotic animals for a wealthy local warlord, and in return he… helped me recover something I’d had taken from me.”
“’Tis a good thing ye’re not vague,” Gavin muttered.
“’Tis a good thing you’re not your brother.” Callum chucked him on the shoulder.
“Amen to that.”
Callum took a flask from his cloak and knocked it back before offering it to Gavin. “To Gavin St. James, Earl of Thorne. The profligate black sheep of the Mackenzie Clan.”
