Page 75 of The Scot Beds His Wife
She’d seen neither hide nor hair of her husband-to-be since he’d returned the previous afternoon to inform her that his brother, the Marquess of Ravencroft, would arrive this evening to officiate their marriage.
She attempted to read near the fire for a while, and then tried to nap, as she seemed to tire more easily than usual. After a couple of hours, a lonely restlessness drove her to her feet.
Using a throw blanket as a shawl, she limped to the door, pulled it open on hinges that had probably needed oiling since the Jacobite rebellion, and peeked her head around the corner. Finding the hall empty, she ventured forth, teeth gritted against the pain in her leg, as well as the cold of the stones on her bare feet.
Luckily, she was a woman used to discomfort.
Inverthorne’s west tower only sported three doors, and then a short hall that led to stairs that spiraled below. Using the wall to help support her descent, she marveled at the feel of the ancient stone abrading her fingertips. She wondered if any of the chinks and groves had been made by implements of war.
Sweat slicked her palms and upper lip by the time she’d descended three stories. Her leg felt like a few scorpions were taking their wrath out on it, but the sight she found when she reached the ground floor of Inverthorne rooted her like a hundred-year-old tree.
Gavin stood in profile, framed by the arch of the great entry. He was dressed in the most dapper, expensive-looking suit she’d ever clapped her eyes on, staring intently at whatever was in front of him, which was blocked from her vantage on the stairs by a half-wall.
Breath escaped her in a swift whoosh that left her jaw gaping open.
The rain made more sense now, as his beauty was such to make the angels weep. In a dark suit and trousers, his neck swathed in white-tie finery, his magnificence was impossibly elevated from untried and untamed to no less than diabolical.
His lambent hair had been trimmed and shaped with just the right amount of pomade. The ever-present stubble removed from his sharp jaw revealed his dimpled chin with even more stark, cruel precision.
Had she not been leaning heavily on the stones, she would have fallen.
Falling for Gavin St. James. Just like legions of women had before her, and many women would hereafter.
She’d do well to remember that. To remember it was not her right to ask him where he’d slept last night, because that wasn’t part of the bargain. If he promised to be only somewhat faithful after they were married, then what did that mean the night before?
And why would she care?
She didn’t, of course.
She cared about nothing but safety for her and for the child that grew inside her.
A few immaculately dressed footmen bustled about. The butler, too, approached from the west hall and nodded to his lord before disappearing behind the half-wall.
Samantha studied him for an unguarded moment, a motionless mountain amid a sea of vibrant energy, as still as the suit of armor that stood to attention behind him. He looked more serious than she’d ever seen him. More sinister. Cruel even, a dark sort of anticipation—or apprehension? Dread?—holding dangerous tension in the broad shoulders that bunched high enough, his neck all but disappeared.
The muscles of his jaw flexed ever so slightly, and a vein pulsed at his temple. His mouth, that sinful mouth so often curled in a lazy, sensual smirk, twitched as though holding back words that battled to be free of him.
A strange, feminine part of her ached to call out to him, to go to him and shape her hand to his jaw, to coax it to relax.
To tell him that whatever furrowed his perfect brow would be all right.
What a fool she was, not because of the impulse, but because she almost did it, but what stopped her, surprisingly, was his name.
What did she call him now? Certainly not Lord Thorne, she’d die before calling him lord again. But Gavin? Were they on those terms? They’d have to be after tonight, she supposed.
After they consummated their marriage.
The sound of a heavy, antique bolt-lock being thrown aside interrupted an impending collapse at the thought of sharing a bed with him.
Samantha watched in astounded fascination as the brooding, savage Highlander she’d been spying on transformed in front of her eyes. His smile appeared first, and then he remembered to unclench his jaw and peel his shoulders away from his ears. He rolled them a few times and shook out his white-gloved hands that she just realized had been clenched into fists at his sides.
His brow released last, drawing a smile from a scowl.
He was like an actor about to step on the stage. His every movement practiced and meaningful, his every line memorized for the greatest effect.
For a terrifying moment, Samantha wondered just whom she was marrying. The menacing man who’d seized her hand when she’d reached for his back? The one who’d just faced the door with all the readiness of a barbaric horde calling for blood.
Or the charming hedonist he pretended to be?
