The Scottish Duke Read online

  “You weren’t supposed to know,” she said. “If you had, I would no doubt have been lectured by Mrs. McDermott, or even let go.”

  “Is that why you came to the ball that night, because I was someone that interested you?”

  Her smile deepened. “I wasn’t just interested in you, Alex. I was fascinated with you. I wanted to stare at your face for hours at a time. I wished that I’d taken up portraits because I ached to paint you. It was more than interest. Perhaps it was obsession. The day you took my fingerprints was the happiest day of my life.”

  She smiled at him, such a lovely expression that it froze the moment. He would always remember her smile, the day, the place, and the hard thumping beat of his heart.

  Mist rose up behind her, framing her face. She was even more beautiful now than she’d been a year ago. More enchanting because he’d been shown her mind, her heart, all those qualities that made her Lorna and therefore special.

  “And then you turned into a prig,” she said, startling him.

  “You called me a prancing mouse that night.”

  “I was dreadfully hurt by your words. You’re lucky I didn’t think of something else revolting to say. A prancing mouse isn’t that bad, actually.”

  “It was a unique insult.”

  “What are you going to do about Mary?”

  “Send her away,” he said. “She’s been offered the use of the London house as well as the other properties and always turned them down. I’m afraid the time has come for me to choose where she’s going to live. Anywhere but Blackhall.”

  Her silence concerned him.

  He stood and held out his hand. Instead of giving it she handed Robbie to him. He wasn’t as adept holding his son as she was, but they managed well enough.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked as they began to walk.

  He genuinely wanted to know, a fact that would have startled him before he’d come to appreciate Lorna’s mind, her way of thinking, and her streak of pragmatism.

  “I think it’s unfair that someone should be rewarded for being evil,” she said.

  He stopped in the middle of the path and regarded her.

  “If she goes off to live in a village somewhere, no one will condemn her,” she began. “They’ll probably think they have someone of stature living there. After all, her father was an earl and her sister married a duke. I doubt the local minister will charge her with being a slattern and befouling the air of the village simply by living there.”

  It was his turn to remain silent.

  “Yet she tried to kill someone. At the very least, she tried to hurt someone. Even Matthews had to pay the price for destroying . . . what did you call it, my apothecary?”

  “It seemed an apt term.”

  “I like it,” she said. “Matthews lost his position. What price does she have to pay for her monstrous actions?”

  “I never gave her cause to feel anything but sisterly affection for me.”

  “You don’t have to give a woman cause,” she said, smiling up at him. “All you have to do is glance at them.”

  Her expression had his heart thumping in his chest.

  Something had happened to him. Did she have an herbal remedy for him? Was there something he could ingest or rub on his chest? Some medicament that would cure what he had?

  Did he want to be cured?

  He wasn’t going to name it. He didn’t want to slap a label over it. He knew, all too well, what he was feeling, and he couldn’t banish it or manage it.

  He’d never been at the mercy of his emotions before, but now he was.

  Need could be regulated. Cravings could be mastered. Except this one.

  He craved seeing Lorna like he sometimes wanted a few of cook’s raisin scones or the peat smokiness of a good whiskey. No, more than that. She was a lungful of fresh air, a glass of sparkling water. She was sunshine and growing flowers, laughter and hope. She was all those things necessary to his life and important in it.

  When had that happened?

  The force of what he felt was petrifying.

  He might as well surrender now. Fighting it any longer was futile.

  He wanted her, the whole of her, her laughter and her thoughts. He wanted her to share herself with him and wanted to do the same with her, the first time he’d ever felt that way about a woman. But, then, Lorna was unlike any woman he’d ever known.

  Her hair was touched with sunlight until it glinted like gold. She didn’t mind getting dirty and thought that mud was just another of nature’s miracles. She carried Robbie around like one of those marsupials he’d seen on his visit to Australia, perfectly natural in motherhood. She’d transformed his mother into someone who laughed more often than she looked sad, who expressed joy in a quick smile and in whose eyes he saw a radiant happiness he’d never expected to see again.

  And him? What had she done to him?

  She reminded him that he was a man first, then a man of science, duke, property holder, and all the other attendant roles of his position. She taught him that being a father was not passing on lessons as much as accepting and giving love.

  He was always going to worry about her and be afraid for her. She was going to make him question his own thoughts. He knew, without a doubt, that there would be times when she’d annoy him. They would probably get into rousing arguments because she’d never back down. She had the unique capacity to hurt him.

  Yet with her, he’d experience everything life had to offer.

  He’d never be able to hide again.

  How could he rearrange his world to best please her?

  He wanted his wife, and not simply in his bed. He wanted to hear her laugh, see her smile, and notice that her eyes were sparkling with humor.

  Had he ever been affected by someone the way he was Lorna? Had his emotions ever been wrapped up in another person’s happiness? He didn’t think so. Had he ever been a fool the way he was around her? That was an easy question to answer. No.

  Lorna had opened up his heart and he’d never known it was closed.

  Chapter 30

  Back in their room, Lorna watched as Alex placed Robbie in his cradle. The baby gurgled up at him, fists and feet punching the air.

  The two of them, father and son, regarded each other for a moment before Alex glanced at her.

  “I can’t get over how much he’s grown.”

  “Your mother said he’ll be walking early if he’s anything like you.”

  He only shook his head, turned back to the cradle, and tucked the blanket over Robbie’s feet. The baby promptly kicked it off.

  “He’ll probably be stubborn, too,” she said, smiling.

  Alex startled her by reaching out, hooking his hand behind her neck and gently stroking the skin there with his fingers.

  “Do you still feel the same?” he asked. “Are you still fascinated?”

  “I was madly in love with you,” she said. “I think now that it was just lust.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with lust,” he said.

  “Not if it’s coupled with something else. Otherwise, it’s just like a plate of chocolate biscuits. You can’t live on chocolate biscuits. You’ll get sick from them and of them. You have to have meat and potatoes and greens.”

  She studied him.

  “I admired you like you were a prince. I thought you the most handsome man I knew. Then I thought you the ugliest.”

  He would have walked away had she not extended her hand to him.

  “Now I know the truth,” she said.

  “And what is that?”

  “Oh, don’t sound so ducal, Alex.”

  “I cannot help the way I sound.”

  “Of course you can. You get all stuffy and pompous if someone barely bumps against your consequence. You’re the Duke of Kinross and they, by God, better know it.”

  “That’s the truth?”

  “No. The truth is that you’re flawed and human. You make mistakes and you’re not perfect. But that’s all rig
ht.”

  What would he say to know that she loved him even more with his flaws?

  “You aren’t perfect either, Lorna Gordon Russell. Nearly so, but not completely.”

  She smiled at him. “No, I’m not. I’m certain I could prepare a list of faults if you’d like.”

  “No need,” he said, smiling back at her.

  When his lips touched hers, she closed her eyes, feeling the liquid sensation she always experienced when he kissed her. Her fingertips tingled and her knees weakened.

  He tilted his head to deepen the kiss and she sighed into his mouth. Words might separate them occasionally, but this—this magic that happened when they kissed—was blessedly always the same.

  When he pulled back, she blinked up at him.

  “I suppose there’s a lot to be said for meat, potatoes, and greens,” he said. “But chocolate biscuits are still good as well.”

  He kissed her again and the world fell away. It was just the two of them on an island they’d created, a small slice of the world made intimate and private.

  When he drew back they were both breathing fast. She would have led him to their bed if he hadn’t spoken.

  “I have to talk to Mary. Will you promise to stay inside the castle until she’s left?”

  With his words, he brought her back to the world as it was, not as she wished it could be.

  She nodded.

  “It might take a day or two to arrange everything, but I’d feel better if I had your promise.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I promise.”

  He nodded, grazing his knuckles over her heated cheek.

  “Thank you,” he said softly, and bent to kiss her again.

  When he left her, she had the thought that she should go with him, an extra layer of protection against Mary. The sooner the woman was gone from Blackhall, the better.

  Alex waited for Mary to arrive, having summoned her to the library. This room was at the heart of the main building, part of the original castle that had been renovated all those years ago.

  Two curving iron staircases led from either side of the room to the second floor. In the middle, framed by a series of windows overlooking the grounds of Blackhall, was a large octagon-shaped well.

  He’d entertained the Scottish Society for Scientific Achievement here a year ago, filling the space with twenty-four chairs and a podium that had been erected where his desk now stood. The speakers had taken turns describing the inventions and discoveries that marked the previous year. At the end of the meeting, the winner of the annual award had been presented and then the members attended the fancy dress ball.

  He hadn’t won when he’d anticipated being feted for his work. Yet the night ended in a way he hadn’t expected, beginning a chain of events leading to this moment.

  Sitting at his desk, he watched the door, wondering if Mary would confess to what she’d done. He doubted it. Mary blamed others for her mistakes. She refused to admit she was ever wrong. Yet for all her annoying faults, she was devoted to the proper treatment of animals. She was also generous to those she cared about, limited though the number might be.

  She was, like most people, a mixture of good and bad traits. Unfortunately, her bad traits were tipping the scales.

  “You wished to see me, Alex?”

  He glanced up to find Mary standing in the doorway.

  “Come in,” he said. “Close the door.”

  She smiled, the expression annoying him down to his toes. She looked like a cat who’d just killed a bird and left it behind to impress the other cats as to her hunting skills.

  He motioned for her to sit in front of his desk, but didn’t rise, as would have been proper or polite. She frowned in response, but moved her skirts to sit, her eyes on his face.

  “Matthews said you’ve fired him, Alex,” she said before he could speak. “I do hope that’s not true. He’s a good valet. I hope you reconsider. You shall, won’t you? As a favor for me?”

  “Matthews is no longer welcome at Blackhall,” he said, breaking in before she could embark on a soliloquy of the valet’s virtues. “Nor are you,” he added when she fell silent.

  Her eyes widened but she didn’t speak. A blessing, and one he hadn’t expected.

  “I’ve decided to set aside an amount for your use each year, to be paid by my solicitors. In addition, I will purchase a residence for you in the village of your choice, as long as it’s a substantial distance from Blackhall.”

  He wasn’t going to allow her to stay at any of the Russell properties in Inverness, Edinburgh, or London. Nor was he going to support her lifestyle there. Yet he wasn’t going to do to her what society had done to Lorna, isolating and ostracizing her.

  “You can take your maid with you if she’s willing to go. I’ll pay her salary as well.”

  “You’re sending me away?”

  “Yes.”

  He expected the next question, but he hadn’t anticipated the vitriol with which it would be asked.

  “That whore you married did this, didn’t she? She convinced you to send me away. Is she that jealous? Does she know the special bond we share?”

  “We share the bond of my marriage to Ruth, Mary, that’s all.”

  “No,” she said. “You love me. I know you do. All those meals we’ve shared. All those times we’ve talked. You can’t marry me. I understand that. But you could come to my room.”

  She sat back, smiling at him in what was probably her version of a come hither expression but was more like a simper. She reminded him, curiously, of Ruth in the last year of their marriage, before she’d become pregnant with a baby of dubious heritage.

  “You could divorce her now. The child wouldn’t be a bastard. He’d still be your heir.”

  He stood, rounded the desk and kept walking. If he stopped, he might be tempted to haul her up from the chair and throw her out of the library.

  At the door, he turned to her. “You’ve misinterpreted kindness for affection, Mary. At the moment, I have no feelings for you except disgust.”

  “You can’t do this to me,” she said, tears making her voice quaver. “This is my home.”

  “On the contrary,” he said. “This is my home. You’ve been a guest here, but the day you tried to harm my wife, Mary, you outstayed your welcome.”

  She stood and faced him, her hands gripping the fabric of her skirt.

  He opened the door and stood there, hoping she left before saying anything else. His self-control was hanging by a thread.

  “Why are you doing this to me, Alex?”

  He stared at her, wondering how he’d tolerated Mary at Blackhall for the last three years. Her emotions were on a continuum ranging from arrogant confidence to self-pity.

  “Do you deny you put monkwood in Lorna’s tea? That you tried to poison her?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m not going to debate the issue with you, Mary. I just want you gone.”

  Her face changed. The smile vanished and an expression entered her eyes that almost made him take a step back. In that moment he realized that Mary wasn’t simply deluded, she might possibly be evil.

  “I only did what she did, Alex. That whore has poisoned your mind.”

  He stood silent as she sailed out of the room, a thin smile on her face.

  Chapter 31

  Lorna put Robbie down for his afternoon nap and crept out of the bedroom, closing the door softly behind her.

  Grabbing the book she’d taken from the library earlier, she tucked herself into one of the wing chairs in front of the fireplace and savored the quiet. It wouldn’t last long. Robbie seemed to know when she was gone. But for the time she had, she was going to enjoy every second.

  Instead of reading, however, her mind replayed the scenes in the past few days. Not only the frenetic activity to save Nan, but also the times with Alex. She hadn’t expected him to be so protective, not just of Robbie, but of her.

  How was his meeting going with Mar
y? Would the woman finally leave Blackhall?

  How could someone try to deliberately harm another person? She remembered asking her father that question after one difficult afternoon. He’d been sitting with an old woman outside her cottage, taking down notes as she expounded on various formulas she’d devised through the years. Lorna noticed that he was watching the woman with a curious look, one she’d rarely seen. Only then did she pay attention to what the woman was saying. She used her knowledge for ill as well as good. If someone slighted her, she gave them a stomachache that lasted for days. If they cheated her at market, she sold them a salve that made their skin break into a pustulelike rash.

  Later, when they made their way back to their lodgings, she asked her father why he hadn’t spoken honestly to the woman, telling her that what she was doing was wrong.

  He’d answered her in a subdued voice. “She would never have seen the truth, Lorna. Some people don’t. They think they’re not harming others as much as helping themselves. They never see their actions as aggression as much as protection, but the result is the same.”

  Had Mary seen her actions as protection? Had she thought that by eliminating her she’d win Alex?

  Mary wouldn’t have been pleased to know that she understood. For two years she’d yearned after Alex, knowing that nothing would ever happen between them. She could almost feel sorry for the woman except that Mary had almost killed Nan and wanted to harm her.

  But as far as her fascination with Alex, yes she could well understand that.

  Whenever he kissed her, she lost all her thoughts, all her abilities to tell the day, the time, the place. She was simply Lorna and he was Alex and nothing else mattered.

  Really, he had to stop doing that.

  Please, no. Never stop.

  She was probably seeing something that wasn’t there again, just as she had earlier. But wouldn’t it be wonderful if she weren’t? If what she wanted so desperately was coming true after all?

  Alex would love her. She’d be free to tell him exactly how she felt about him now. Surely he could see how much she loved him?

  “I beg your pardon, Your Grace,” Peter said from the doorway. “There’s a letter for you.”