Her mother had tried to warn her. “He’s no good, Gemma. His father was no good and his grandfather was no good. Leave him be or you’ll regret it.”
Had she listened? No. She stuck by him even when he stopped working on the docks. And she’d kept up the façade when he’s spent his days and most of his nights in the pub. It wasn’t until he’d left for the Highlands chasing a real life for them, or so he’d said, that she knew just how right her mother had been. Her silly, weak heart had still held out hope however. He sent a few letters but after a year, he disappeared entirely. It took another full year before she’d stopped waiting on some message from him and year after that before she could enter their cottage without staring down the lane to see if he might appear.
By the third year he was gone, she’d erased every last clue he had ever lived there. Ever shared her life. It was as though he didn’t exist.
That was until another letter had arrived.
Not from Sean but a magistrate. The carefully penned note explained that as Sean McClaren’s first and legal wife, upon his death, she was entitled to his inheritance and that she need report to the ma
gistrate’s office located at the village center of Aberdeen to collect. Failure to do so within one year’s time would result in the forfeit of said property to the next of kin, his eldest son.
Her stomach had near fallen to her feet. First and legal wife? Eldest son? Her and Sean, bless the lord, hadn’t had children, but the letter implied he had not one but multiple sons. In fairness, it had also implied that he had more than one wife.
She gripped the pants tighter. Men were scum. She didn’t know Will Sinclair but he’d likely deserved his swim in the loch.
And more than likely he deserved the little lesson she’d delivered about trying to take advantage of a lone woman. Of course, he probably wouldn’t see the theft of his horse and change purse as a lesson but that was his problem.
Besides. She really needed both. She was barely able to support herself as a seamstress and the trip up here to find out what had happened to Sean had taken every extra penny she had. Whatever the pants contained, would feed her as she tried to find out what her no good rotten husband had been doing before he up and died.