The Scottish Duke Read online

  “I could make up a poultice for you,” Lorna said.

  “You would?”

  “I just need to gather up my supplies.”

  “You needn’t bother,” Abby said. “You’re a duchess now.” She frowned at Lorna. “Are you sure you’re a duchess?”

  “I am. I don’t feel like a duchess, although I’m not altogether sure how a duchess is supposed to feel.”

  “Special,” Abby said, surprising her. “Especially if you’re married to the Duke of Kinross.”

  She’d forgotten. Abby was one of those maids who was forever sighing after the duke. Since she’d been in that group, she couldn’t be critical. What would Abby say if she heard that the man was far more than his appearance?

  “I need to see Nan. Would you take word to her?”

  Abby surprised her again by shaking her head. “It’s Mrs. McDermott you need to see, Lorna. Your Grace.” Abby frowned again. “She’s the one with the authority to pull a maid from her tasks.”

  There was more to this duchess thing than she’d considered. She needed to study everything from a different point of view.

  When Abby left, she put Robbie down in his cradle and sat on the edge of the bed. She wasn’t tired. Giving birth hadn’t exhausted her as much as enlivened her. She wanted to do something, but what did a new duchess do?

  She slid from the bed and walked to the dressing room and opened the armoire. There, beside Alex’s starched shirts, were her two dresses. How Matthews must dislike their juxtaposition in such a ducal place. She was surprised he hadn’t used her garments as polishing rags for the silver buttons on Alex’s suit jackets.

  They married for one reason: to protect their son. Why didn’t everyone realize that? Alex felt nothing for her. If she was feeling anything, it was gratitude. That’s all.

  She would have to make arrangements to gather up all her herbs, bottles, and equipment. Some of them were dangerous and couldn’t be left out for anyone to find. In a few days she would take a carriage—or should it be a wagon?—back to the cottage. Perhaps Peter could go with her. Or maybe it would be better to keep everything at the cottage.

  Her figure was still not what it had been. Louise said it would take a few weeks until it was. What should she wear for her meeting with the housekeeper? In the end there was no choice. She changed her nightgown for another one her mother-in-law had furnished her with a matching wrapper. It was a lovely yellow with pretty flowers embroidered on it.

  How strange to dread meeting with Mrs. McDermott. Was it because the housekeeper had lectured them all about proper decorum around the Russells? Remember you are being paid a fair wage to treat their belongings with care. Don’t, above all, behave above your place. You are on staff at Blackhall Castle. Remember that and be proud. A great many people would like your position.

  Or did her dread have anything to do with how the housekeeper treated her at the cottage? The woman’s disapproval had been palpable. Surely the housekeeper would approve now that Reverend McGill had married them.

  Robbie fussed at that moment, as if to correct her assessment of the situation. She’d done one thing right. This perfect child was proof of that. She went to the cradle and gazed down at him. He didn’t open his eyes, just made a face and fell back asleep.

  How like Alex he appeared. Would he grow up to be as devastatingly handsome? Pray God life would be kinder to her son than it had been to his father. The duchess’s words came back to her.

  He’s brooding and a loner. He has a sorrowful past and he’s handsome. What better target for their gossip?

  How many times had she seen him from the conservatory and wanted to put her arms around him in comfort? Or make him sit down so she could massage his shoulders? Or bring him a cup of tea? Or urge him to quit his office to go and rest?

  She wanted to care for him, talk to him, share his thoughts and fears, and reassure him. She wanted to be the person to whom he came to argue a point, test his reasoning, and reveal his discoveries.

  In the night, he’d turn to her and love her until they both lay gasping and blissful. In the daytime, he’d think of her and remember those moments. Or perhaps he would even seek her out in order to test his memory and hold her for a time.

  Perhaps what she felt for Alex, Duke of Kinross, was a bit more than gratitude. She had a choice, though, didn’t she? To let those emotions live and flourish or quash them as soon as possible.

  She’d never been promised a lifetime of happiness, but she’d had one night with Alex. Memories of that night would have to last a long time, maybe even a lifetime.

  Suddenly, one of the double doors of the sitting room swung inward so hard the handle hit the wall.

  She glanced up to see that it wasn’t Mrs. McDermott but Mary striding toward her, dressed in a dark maroon riding habit with a crop in her hands. She was slapping the whip against the floor as she walked, the black plume in her hat bouncing almost like a warning.

  Lorna glanced back toward the cradle, grateful that the sounds hadn’t disturbed the baby. She walked out of the bedroom, leaving Mary to follow her.

  Mary’s cheeks were mottled with large pink splotches. Her eyes narrowed as she stopped only feet from Lorna.

  “You can’t be the Duchess of Kinross. You’re a maid.”

  She didn’t respond, having learned that silence was the quickest way to avoid an argument. Besides, what could she say? To Mary, she’d always be a maid and nothing more.

  “He couldn’t have married you,” Mary said, her voice dripping with contempt. “You’ll bring the mighty Russell family down. The whole of the empire will ridicule him and the entirety of the family.”

  She really should have remained silent, but she couldn’t help herself.

  “But he did. What galls you, Mary? That he married me? Or that it wasn’t you? Or do you think your sighing after Alex hasn’t been noticed by the staff?”

  The spots on Mary’s cheeks became a darker pink and traveled down her neck. Lorna wondered if the woman was going to have a fit.

  A movement out of the corner of her eye had her glancing toward the door to the corridor. The duchess stood there, taking in the two of them.

  “Have you come to offer congratulations to Lorna?” Louise asked, moving into the room. Her face was unsmiling, the expression in her eyes one that Lorna fervently hoped was not directed at her.

  “No, I’ve come to tell her that Alex has left Blackhall. She drove him away, Louise.”

  Lorna kept her face still. Hopefully, Mary couldn’t read the anger she was feeling. How dare she say such a thing? At that moment Robbie fussed. She turned and silently went to tend to her child, grateful for the excuse to leave.

  “How could you have let something like this happen, Louise? Alex has gone. He only married her to keep her brat from being called a bastard. I’ll bet it’s not even Alex’s child. And now she’s driven him away.”

  Was there no way to silence this woman?

  “Have you any idea what the countryside will say? Alex will be a laughingstock. Society will shun us.”

  She really should walk away now before she said things she’d regret. The problem was, she’d imagined saying them so many times since Mary had first come to live at Blackhall that the words were straining to be said. She could envision them jumping to her lips, each one of them coated in glee.

  “She’s nothing but a maid!”

  Mary had never been particularly observant on the best of days. She was blithely continuing her diatribe, leveling insult after insult on Alex, on her, and on Lorna, whom she’d verbally assaulted only minutes earlier.

  “Alex could never marry you,” Louise said when she could get a word in edgewise. “So there’s no sense in yearning after him. There are laws that forbid it. You’re Ruth’s sister.”

  Mary’s color was high, almost the match of her riding habit.

  “He didn’t have to marry her,” she said. “She’s a trumped-up whore. We’ll be laughingstocks, Louise.”
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  “Then perhaps you should contemplate leaving Blackhall.”

  Mary’s sudden look of surprise was only mildly gratifying.

  “You can go and live in Edinburgh, perhaps. Or if you’re better suited to London, I’ll give orders to make the house there ready for you. You’re family, Mary, and you’ll always have a home with us, but maybe not at Blackhall.”

  “This is my home,” Mary said, clenching her hands on the crop.

  Louise’s smile felt odd, as if her facial muscles didn’t want to obey her will.

  “If you remain here, you’ll have to accept Lorna as Alex’s wife. She is the new Duchess of Kinross. As such, she has my full support as well as my affection. ”

  Mary didn’t say another word, but turned and stormed out of the sitting room and down the corridor. Louise half expected her to stop and deliver another insult, but the woman blessedly disappeared from view.

  With any luck, Mary would choose to live in London, since that was the farthest distance from Blackhall. That would be the best solution, but she knew Mary. The woman hadn’t made it easy on anyone since the day she arrived. There was every chance all of them would be forced to endure her pouting and tantrums in the future. It might take another confrontation or two before Mary finally left.

  She sighed and headed for the ducal bedroom, determined to first apologize to Lorna and then to spend time with her grandson.

  Chapter 22

  “He’ll come back, you know,” Louise said.

  Lorna glanced at her mother-in-law. They were sitting in the family parlor, a pleasant room facing the expanse of lawn at the back of Blackhall. The castle was perched on a hill overlooking Loch Gerry, the piney woods between the two.

  The green curtains matched the outdoors, spring coming to the Highlands gradually but with triumphant bits of color on the landscape.

  The two settees facing the fireplace were each upholstered in a subdued green and gold pattern. Louise had moved the table between them and now Robbie’s cradle sat there. Not that her son was anywhere but in his grandmother’s arms when Louise got the chance to hold him.

  “Will he?”

  She’d become fond of Louise in the last weeks, enough to hide her real thoughts. She wasn’t the least bit certain Alex was going to return to Blackhall. Oh, he might come back for holidays or to see his mother. But for her? No. Or his son?

  The three interminable months had passed in a pleasant routine marked by moments of grief.

  After a while it was like there never had been a Duke of Kinross with blue-green eyes at Blackhall. There was only Robbie and Nan, the duchess, and caring for her child.

  “Yes, he’ll come back, and soon, I think,” Louise said, glancing down at Robbie.

  He always fell asleep quickly in her mother-in-law’s arms, as if he knew that it was a place of safety.

  “He’s been gone a long time, Louise.”

  The other woman nodded then glanced at her.

  “I know.” Louise sighed. “He did the same with Ruth after learning of her infidelity. If she was at Blackhall, he stayed in Edinburgh. When she went to Edinburgh, he returned to Blackhall. This is different, however.”

  “How?”

  Louise didn’t say anything for a time. Robbie lay on his tummy on her lap. His legs kicked out as he made sounds she’d come to think of as Robbie language. From time to time he would push his chest up and stare at Lorna as if checking to make sure she hadn’t gone anywhere.

  He had, blessedly, started sleeping six or seven hours at night, letting her sleep as well.

  When Louise wasn’t talking to her, she was engaged in conversation with Robbie. He, in turn, would answer her with oohs and aahs, grabbing for one of her necklaces or her sparkly earrings.

  He was a happy baby, one who smiled often. In the last weeks he’d grown so much, changes Alex hadn’t seen.

  Blackhall might be his home, but he had other properties in Inverness, Edinburgh, and London. He could live anywhere.

  “Should I move to Inverness? Or Edinburgh?”

  “You’re certainly welcome to live anywhere you wish, but know this. I’m following you. I am determined to be Robbie’s grandmother, and wherever you go, I go.”

  “I won’t go anywhere,” Lorna said. “I consider Blackhall my home, as much home as I’ve had in the last ten years.”

  The two women smiled at each other, the moment punctuated by Robbie speech.

  “I do wish Mary would choose somewhere else other than Blackhall to live,” Louise said. “I’m surprised she hasn’t followed him.”

  “She looks at me as if she hates me.”

  “She probably does,” Louise said, surprising her. “She knows she isn’t welcome in my private apartments anymore. I haven’t left any doubt in her mind that I disapprove of her behavior.”

  Lorna avoided Mary whenever possible, a technique her new mother-in-law openly facilitated.

  The two of them had taken to eating dinner together in Alex’s sitting room, one of the few rooms in the castle Mary couldn’t invade. To ensure that was the case, Peter stood guard at the outside door, a position that one of the footmen always maintained at night. In fact, a great many footmen were always abroad after sunset, which she hadn’t realized until after her conversations with Mrs. McDermott.

  She’d dreaded the initial meeting with the housekeeper, but she shouldn’t have. When she’d met with Mrs. McDermott a few weeks ago, the woman was as warm and personable to her as a new duchess as she had been to the scared girl applying for the position of maid years before.

  Evidently, it was only when she was living at Blackhall in an unmarried, pregnant state that Mrs. McDermott disapproved of her.

  “You’ll be a fine addition to the Russell family,” the housekeeper said.

  Then she’d done something surprising and touching, a gesture that had brought tears to Lorna’s eyes. She’d bent forward and kissed her on the cheek.

  “You were always one of my favorites, Your Grace.”

  Unspoken were the words: as long as she didn’t allow the duke to keep her as his mistress. Just like that, the interlude when she’d lived at the cottage was to be forgotten and never mentioned again.

  Of course, there wasn’t a problem with Nan being released from her duties to be her lady’s maid. Mrs. McDermott had even offered to train Nan.

  Lorna had wanted to ask: who would train her to be a duchess? Evidently, she wasn’t to be a wife, because her husband had left the day after their marriage.

  “The only good thing about Alex being in Edinburgh,” she said, “is that Matthews isn’t here.”

  Louise smiled and nodded. “People who look at our lives from the outside think that it must be wonderful to have servants at our beck and call. What they don’t know is that we’re at the mercy of those same servants, and some of them can make life miserable.”

  “I hope I never did.”

  “Present company excluded, my dear. You were always a bright spot in my day. And still are.”

  Robbie took that opportunity to make a crowing sound, his legs and arms kicking out. They both laughed.

  “Alex doesn’t love easily. I think that’s a lesson life itself has taught him. Don’t trust, don’t reveal your emotions, because you’ll either lose those you love or they’ll disappoint you. He wears an armor around himself.”

  Looking up, she smiled at Lorna. “When people disappoint him, as they invariably do, he feels justified in his distrust. When they don’t, like you, I believe it makes him acutely uncomfortable.”

  “And you think that’s why he’s staying away, because I make him uncomfortable?”

  “Oh, yes, and he’s probably miserable.”

  Should Louise sound so amused?

  Robbie fussed and her mother-in-law crooned softly to him, putting him on her shoulder. Lorna noticed that she’d taken the precaution of removing her earrings. As Robbie batted at her hair, she glanced over at Lorna.

  “Alex tries to measu
re life, Lorna, and there’s no way it can be. If he hadn’t been so fascinated with fingerprints, he would have found some other similar avocation. He wants everything in order. Life is messy.”

  Robbie’s fists suddenly flailed in the air, summoning Louise’s smile. She patted his back with the skill of a longtime mother.

  “You’ve upset him from the beginning. You weren’t what he expected.”

  “I’ve just been myself,” she said in her own defense.

  “Of course you have, and I wouldn’t change you in any way.”

  Lorna didn’t know what to say to her mother-in-law. A good thing Louise didn’t appear to expect an answer. In the last year she’d bedded a duke, become pregnant, become a duchess, and given birth. Yes, life was messy.

  Would life get any easier when Alex returned?

  Alex had spent six weeks in Inverness, rationalizing that he needed the time to take more specimens. At the end of the six weeks, he moved on to Edinburgh, one of his favorite places in Scotland. The time was spent in laborious pursuits, cataloging all the prints they’d amassed in Inverness plus taking new prints in the markets and the stalls of Edinburgh.

  He was a bit of a celebrity, one of dubious fame. Word had spread of the duke wanting to coat your fingertips with soot. He didn’t have to pay anyone to let him do it after he explained his project. He wasn’t intent on taking all the fingerprints of every soul in Scotland, just a representative amount of people from various occupations.

  “My mother has sat for her prints,” he said. “As well as other members of my family. There’s a record of them now, and there will be one of you.”

  “And what would you be wanting them for?” one man asked.

  He didn’t tell the man that he hoped to turn over his collection to the authorities one day. That was for years down the road.

  “I study them,” he said. “So far I’ve never found a similarity between one individual and the next. I’d like to see if twins are identical. Or if people from the same area have features that are the same.”

  The man had wandered off after his prints were done. No doubt he’d headed for the nearest tavern to tell his tale about the odd duke.