The Scot Beds His Wife by Kerrigan Byrne

Author:Kerrigan Byrne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Samantha should have known the moment she’d woken the next morning to the rain, that her wedding would be a disaster. Wasn’t it supposed to be a bad omen to have rain on one’s wedding day?

Of course, it had been relentlessly sunny when she’d signed papers and spoken vows with Bennett, so there went the omen theory. Maybe the curse belonged to her, and had nothing at all to do with the weather.

Certainly seemed more likely.

Upon waking, she was again examined by Eammon, who announced her on the mend and had left her a cane should she attempt to walk. Immediately, she had left to seek out a washroom and toss the contents of her stomach into that, like proper folk.

She found that the cane worked passably well. In fact, she’d been able to hobble back to her breakfast tray and keep down a slice of toast spread with Devonshire cream and preserves, drink an entire pot of scalding tea, and clean her teeth before collapsing into a chair with exhaustion.

God, but she was glad there was no long walk up the aisle; she probably wouldn’t make it.

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

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