The Scottish Duke Read online

  “He shouldn’t be allowed to be . . .” Her words trailed off because she realized his knuckles were gently stroking the edge of her breast where Robbie’s fist was resting.

  He glanced up at her. “He shouldn’t be allowed to be what?”

  She patted his hand, then gently removed it from her breast. He didn’t say a word, but his smile vanished.

  “Rude to you,” she said. “Mrs. McDermott would never allow it. She certainly doesn’t with the maids.”

  He rested against one of the mounds of coverlet and pillows, looking indolent and too attractive. Didn’t he have some work to do this morning?

  “Do the maids wish to be rude to me?” he asked, once again smiling.

  He really was devastatingly handsome and too aware of it, too. At the moment he reminded her of Thomas, which was not a compliment. At least he hadn’t tried to seduce every single maid at Blackhall. If he had, the girl would have run back to the servants’ quarters and let slip the secret in a matter of minutes.

  “All the maids are madly in love with you and you know it.”

  The eyebrow rose again. “Are they?”

  Robbie was nearly asleep, his mouth slack on her nipple.

  “You know quite well they are.”

  “I don’t,” he said, watching his son. “Nan could be your lady’s maid. If she’d want the position. It pays much better, plus the two of you are friends.”

  Surprised, she studied him. “You would allow that?”

  His eyes met hers.

  “I don’t want to make you miserable, Lorna. I want you to be happy. You need someone to help you. Why not Nan?”

  She could have kissed him. In that next instant, she actually thought of doing it, of bending over Robbie and touching her lips to his.

  She waited too long because he abruptly stood.

  “I have to go to Inverness,” he said. “I’ll be gone a few days. Is there anything I can get for you there? Or anything you need now?”

  She shook her head, raised Robbie to her shoulder and occupied herself with her son’s care.

  She wasn’t upset that he was leaving her. Of course she wasn’t.

  “I’m going to put the notice of our marriage in the newspapers,” he said.

  “Is that why you’re going?”

  “No. I have business with the Scottish Society.”

  She recognized the name, the same group he’d hosted the night of the fancy dress ball. Curiosity wasn’t an admirable trait, at least that’s what Mrs. McDermott always said at her morning lectures. What balderdash. How could they not be curious about the Russell family?

  How was she supposed to quell her curiosity now?

  Before he turned and left, she stretched out her hand as if to touch him, but he was too far away.

  Oh, how did she say it? How could she possibly form the words? Tell me what business. Talk to me about your day, what you’ve planned, who you’ll meet. Do you like to travel? Will you take the same carriage I rode in yesterday? Are you a sound sleeper? Did you not hear Robbie last night?

  What came out was a silly question, but she didn’t call it back once it was uttered.

  “What is your earliest memory?” she asked him.

  He glanced at her then turned. “Why?”

  She smiled. “Must there be a why all the time? Could I not simply wish to know?”

  “I was five, I think. I was given a pony for my birthday.”

  Her smile broadened. “I was given a quizzing glass. I spent hours staring at the magnified world.”

  “I’m surprised you weren’t given drawing materials.”

  “That was my sixth birthday,” she said. “A box of watercolor paints and brushes. It had three drawers and a lock and key with the most wonderful colors.”

  “Do you still have it?” he asked, coming to sit on the edge of the bed again.

  She shook her head.

  “So your box of paints was lost in your travels?”

  She nodded. “I think I left it behind at our lodgings in Perth. I like to think that someone found it and was able to use it.”

  “Why did you want to know my earliest memories?”

  “I’m curious about you,” she said, giving him the truth. “What’s your favorite color? Do you have a favorite song? Poem? Play? Food? Book?”

  “The last treatise by Sir David Burton,” he said. “A fascinating study of the polarization of biaxial crystals and double refraction. And you?”

  “The poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning,” she said. “A very romantic volume.”

  “I like roast beef, but I’m also partial to chocolate biscuits.”

  “Spice scones for me, please,” she said, smiling.

  “No favorite song. At least I don’t think so. I shall have to think on it. What about you?”

  “Something my mother sang to me when I was a child,” she said. “I don’t know the name of it, but it was about a little boy who wanders down a path into a flower garden, gets lost and then found.”

  “Blue.”

  “Yellow,” she said. “Although, I do like blue and yellow together.”

  “They make green,” he said.

  “If they’re combined,” she said, “one into the other. But if they’re aligned next to each other, they’re quite pleasant.”

  “You’re the artist,” he said.

  She was startled by the comment. “I haven’t worked in days and days.”

  “You’re a new mother,” he said. “You’re supposed to be that and nothing else for a few days, I think.”

  “Ah, ducal wisdom.”

  “Of course,” he said, and grinned at her.

  In that instant she saw a hint of the boy he’d been and one that Robbie might emulate. Her heart swelled as tears came to her eyes.

  “Thank you,” she said, determined not to cry even though she was suddenly feeling weepy. “You’ve been so kind. Thank you for taking such good care of me, and for Nan, and for being so tender with Robbie. Thank you for letting me name him Robbie and for giving me your bed.”

  He looked as if he would like to say something, but didn’t.

  “I’m your husband,” he said. “I should do all those things.”

  She nodded, chagrined when she felt a few tears falling down her cheek.

  She was weeping and something twisted inside him. One tear, that’s all it took to make it feel as if a knife were thrusting into his belly. Suddenly he wanted to answer every question she asked and more, eager to share himself with another human being when he hadn’t done that in . . . Had he ever done that?

  She sat among the pillows looking luminous, like a painting he’d once seen in Italy. Madonna of the Milk, he thought it was called, by Verrocchio. Unlike the painting, there’d been no angels in the scene, but she hadn’t needed any.

  Bending, he brushed a kiss along her forehead, an avuncular gesture and one he intended to last only seconds.

  She raised her head. She reached up, leaned toward him, and suddenly his lips were on her mouth. He was kissing her, deeply, leaning down, one hand bracing himself on the headboard, the other thrusting into her hair. He heard Robbie from far away, felt himself harden, wanting her with a desperation he’d never felt for anything, anywhere, at any time.

  What the hell was he doing?

  Kissing her. Dear God, her lips were warm to hot, her tongue dueling with his.

  She was a day away from giving birth.

  He wanted her.

  She was a new mother.

  He was losing all control.

  He stepped back, staring at her, wanting to apologize, but words escaped him. He didn’t think he could talk at the moment. Was she going to notice that he’d not been unaffected by the kiss? How did he explain being a randy monster under these circumstances?

  He’d never lost his mind around a woman. The last time had been on that stormy night last year.

  He needed to leave, now, but he wanted to stay there for hours watching Lorna and his so
n. She held him so tenderly, but with such competence. Shouldn’t a new mother have fumbled a little, been uncertain? She hadn’t been. Each one of her movements was unhurried and patient. When Robbie fussed, she simply smiled and rubbed his back, crooning to him softly.

  The sight of the two of them made something open up in his chest, as if he were being carved from the inside out.

  He wanted to stay and that’s exactly why he left.

  Before descending the stairs, Alex made his way to his mother’s apartments. The door was open, as it often was.

  “How is Lorna? And the baby?” she asked, turning to smile at him. She put down the copper atomizer she’d been using to spray the ferns and walked toward him.

  “He was up all night,” he said, a little surprised that he hadn’t heard Robbie.

  “That’s to be expected. You were the same. Demanding from the very first.”

  “How do you do it?”

  “Do what?” she asked with a smile.

  “How did you ever get over my father’s death?” he asked. “Or Moira’s and Douglas? How do you wake up every morning, go about your day, and find something to interest you? How do you endure the pain of losing them?”

  “Oh, Alex,” she said, walking to him. She grabbed his arm and pulled him into her sitting room, leading him to the settee. “What’s brought this on? Robbie’s birth?”

  He didn’t know. He only knew that this morning, sitting on the edge of the bed and watching Lorna and Robbie, he’d been hit with a knowledge he’d never before had: pain was waiting for him. Pain of such magnitude that he wasn’t sure he could bear it.

  “What choice did I have, my dear Alex?” She sat beside him, holding his hand between hers. “I used to pray for death,” she confessed.

  At his frown, she smiled. “That only lasted for a week or so. Until I realized that you still needed me. I couldn’t go to my bed and stay there. But there were times in the next few months when it was too tempting to do exactly that.”

  He never wanted to cause her pain and shouldn’t have asked the question. He should have dealt with his feelings the best he could rather than bothering her.

  Nothing was the same. Up was down and left was right. His world had been turned inside out, but the worst of it was the hint of something terrible just beyond the horizon.

  “I once had a dream,” she said. “Your father was alive. He was sitting on that bench near the conservatory.”

  “I know the one,” he said.

  “He asked me what I was doing with my life. I didn’t get a chance to answer before he vanished. Or I woke up. I can’t remember which.” She smiled. “That dream made me think. I knew I was going to mourn him for the rest of my life, but what else was I going to do with the time?”

  She studied the windows and the bright sun streaming into the room. Ever since he was a little boy he’d equated sunlight with his mother. She liked sunny rooms. She loved taking walks on a bright summer day. She smiled and the room lit up.

  “I’ve often wondered if gloaming is similar to how ghosts view the world,” she said.

  Alex turned and studied the view through the mullioned windows of her sitting room. Night came late in the Highlands in the late spring and full summer. Even in the winter months the gloaming lingered, stretching out its gray fingers to encompass Blackhall and soften the world. Now, however, there was only bright sunlight, the morning still in its infancy.

  “Ghosts?” His mother’s words surprised him. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

  “We live in Blackhall Castle, my dear son. How can I not believe in ghosts? There’s the Green Lady in the west tower and the Sad Priest in the chapel, to mention only two.”

  “The result of hysterical servants,” he said. “I believe some of those stories were gleefully spread by previous occupants of the castle. If everyone who died at Blackhall became a ghost, we’d be overrun.”

  “Not everyone becomes a ghost,” she said, her tone perfectly reasonable, as if their conversation were based on a rational idea.

  “What’s the criterion for becoming a ghost?”

  “Perhaps they were unhappy in life,” she finally said. “Or desperately wish to communicate with the living for some reason.”

  “Why? To say good-bye?”

  “Perhaps.”

  For a moment he wondered if she’d consulted one of those charlatans who promise to contact the dearly departed.

  “Do you think my father is a ghost?” he asked gently. “Or Moira or Douglas?”

  “No,” she said, “I don’t. Sometimes, though, I wish they were. Each one of them. Isn’t that selfish of me? I should wish them everlasting happiness in Heaven. The truth is, I’d welcome being haunted by my darling Craig and my children.” She turned and stared directly at him. “But I can’t live in the gloaming, Alex. Not like you have.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ever since you were sixteen, my darling son, you’ve been holding yourself aloof from everyone and everything. You’ve been trapped between the living and the dead. As if you were afraid to completely give yourself up to life. As if having feelings of any kind terrified you.”

  He started to say something but she raised her hand to silence him.

  “I’m not calling you a coward, Alex. Your reaction was understandable, but now I suspect you’re thawing. The sensation is not unlike when your toes go numb from cold. The first feeling is a burning pain.”

  “And if I don’t want to feel that much?”

  Her smile was tender. “That’s your decision, son. I would hope you choose not to live in the gloaming, but to choose the daylight. To love, fully, completely, and absolutely. You will be hurt. You will feel pain. But, oh, the rewards are worth it.”

  She left him without anything to say.

  He’d never thought his life to be lacking. He had work he enjoyed and that gave him purpose. He had a family he loved. He had responsibilities and acquaintances. He’d been happy. At least he thought he had. Until a few weeks ago he would have ridiculed anyone who said otherwise.

  “I’m going to Inverness,” he said, standing. “I have to submit my treatise.”

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “A few weeks, perhaps longer.”

  He’d half expected her to argue that now was not the time to leave Blackhall, that he had a new wife and a new child who needed his presence. All she did was sit and look up at him, her eyes soft and kind and seeing too much.

  He stood and left her before he could offer any excuses for his behavior.

  What the hell could he say? That his wife terrified him? That his reaction to Lorna was uncontrolled and wholly unlike him?

  All true and nothing that he could possibly explain.

  Chapter 21

  For the first time in her life Lorna used the bellpull to summon one of the staff. As she waited, she changed Robbie, then carried him into the dressing room, where she put him on the cot his father had slept on the night before. He fussed for a few minutes before settling down into sleep with his fist in his mouth.

  She made quick work of using the facilities in the bathing chamber, then washed her face and hands before picking Robbie up again and cradling him in her arms.

  Matthews was nowhere to be found. He must have slipped out the door located on the other side of the bathing chamber. Hopefully, the next time they met his demeanor would be more polite. If he wasn’t, she’d have to deal with him somehow. How she handled Matthews might well form the basis of her relationship with the rest of the staff.

  With one hand, she grabbed a few of Robbie’s sacques and nappies from the dresser and made her way back to the bedroom.

  She knew this room well from having dusted it every day. Every week she and another girl rolled the mattress from the top to the bottom of the bed, then turned it sideways twice to make sure the goose down was properly distributed.

  She’d gotten on her hands and knees and brushed the dark blue carpet with its pattern of whi
te crest and thistles with a boar bristle brush. She’d stood on a ladder to clean the two chandeliers. She knew every nook and cranny, every deep blue and gold curlicue of the valances, every fold of the blue bed curtains.

  Now it was her room and the realization terrified her.

  A knock made her leave the bed and go to the sitting room door, opening it to find Abby standing there, hand raised to knock again.

  Abby was one of the older maids who had been at Blackhall for a decade or more. She was quick to share what she knew about any task and her round face almost always bore a smile. She came from a tiny village not far from Inverness and she was forever telling tales of the inhabitants of the village, to the point that Lorna felt as if she knew those people she’d never met.

  She couldn’t help but wonder if Abby would tell stories about the people of Blackhall.

  Abby’s eyes widened at the sight of her. She took a few steps back, her gaze traveling from Lorna to sweep the room behind her, coming to rest on the baby in her arms.

  “You’ve had the child, then?”

  Lorna nodded. “Robbie,” she said, glancing down at her son. “And I’ve married.”

  Evidently, the footmen hadn’t told anyone of carrying her inside Blackhall. Nor had Peter or Nan said anything to anyone. Nor had Matthews had enough time to carry his stories the length and breadth of the castle.

  “I’ve married the duke,” Lorna added.

  Abby’s eyes widened even farther but she didn’t respond.

  Was that how it was going to be, then? She’d be faced with a silent staff? She would be just like Alex walking through Blackhall, averting her eyes for fearing of seeing something on the faces of the servants?

  No, that wouldn’t do.

  What did she say to put Abby at ease? She didn’t know. How had the duchess always made her feel comfortable? She asked about personal things, that was how. She remembered details about her life, things she’d told her on previous encounters.

  “How is your tooth?” she asked.

  Both Abby’s eyebrows winged upward, but she answered nonetheless. “Better. Mrs. McDermott said I should put some oil of cloves on it and it helped a little.”