Return of the Scot
Page 1
Return of the Scot
The Scots of Honor Series
Eliza Knight
Contents
About the Book
More Books by Eliza Knight
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
About the Author
About the Book
Scarred by the brutal ravages of war, Lorne Gordon, Duke of Sutherland, returns to the Highlands to discover that his clan thought him long dead. His greedy half-brother has assumed his title, sold his family seat and disappeared with the fortune. Once he engineers the return of his title, he must convince the new estate owner to reverse the wholly legal sale with the promise that his half-brother, and the funds, will be found. However, that goal seems impossible when Lorne discovers the buyer is none other than his ex-betrothed’s sister.
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After several humiliating attempts at securing a husband, Jaime Andrewson gives up on marriage and throws herself into her father’s business. She burns with vengeance towards the entire Sutherland family after their chieftain caused her sister’s fall from grace. Although she’d thought the man who betrayed her sister was dead, acquiring his property had been her main goal since taking over her father’s company. But with Lorne Gordon alive, vengeance is all the sweeter, for she desires only to watch him suffer.
* * *
Despite Lorne’s fury, he has to find a way to convince her to return what is rightfully his—even if he has to go so far as to marry her. Though out of practice with the arts of flirtation, there is one thing he does not lack—determination. With his pockets empty and a snarl on his lips, Lorne is determined to win her trust and her hand. When unexpected family secrets on both sides are exposed, Lorne realizes that wooing Jaime will be a bigger challenge than any of the other battles he’s ever fought, but it is one he refuses to lose.
More Books by Eliza Knight
Scots of Honor
Return of the Scot
The Scot is Hers
Taming the Scot
* * *
Prince Charlie’s Rebels
The Highlander Who Stole Christmas
Pretty in Plaid
* * *
Prince Charlie’s Angels
The Rebel Wears Plaid
Truly Madly Plaid
You’ve Got Plaid
* * *
The Sutherland Legacy
The Highlander’s Gift
The Highlander’s Quest
The Highlander’s Stolen Bride
The Highlander’s Hellion
The Highlander’s Secret Vow
The Highlander’s Enchantment
* * *
The Stolen Bride Series
The Highlander’s Temptation
The Highlander’s Reward
The Highlander’s Conquest
The Highlander’s Lady
The Highlander’s Warrior Bride
The Highlander’s Triumph
The Highlander’s Sin
Wild Highland Mistletoe (a Stolen Bride winter novella)
The Highlander’s Charm (a Stolen Bride novella)
A Kilted Christmas Wish – a contemporary Holiday spin-off
The Highlander’s Surrender
The Highlander’s Dare
* * *
The Conquered Bride Series
Conquered by the Highlander
Seduced by the Laird
Taken by the Highlander (a Conquered bride novella)
Claimed by the Warrior
Stolen by the Laird
Protected by the Laird (a Conquered bride novella)
Guarded by the Warrior
* * *
The MacDougall Legacy Series
Laird of Shadows
Laird of Twilight
Laird of Darkness
* * *
Pirates of Britannia: Devils of the Deep
Savage of the Sea
The Sea Devil
A Pirate’s Bounty
The Thistles and Roses Series
Promise of a Knight
Eternally Bound
Breath from the Sea
* * *
The Highland Bound Series (Erotic time-travel)
Behind the Plaid
Bared to the Laird
Dark Side of the Laird
Highlander’s Touch
Highlander Undone
Highlander Unraveled
* * *
Touchstone Series
Highland Steam
Highland Brawn
Highland Tryst
Highland Heat
* * *
Wicked Women
Her Desperate Gamble
Seducing the Sheriff
Kiss Me, Cowboy
Historical Fiction
Releasing Early 2022
The Mayfair Bookshop
* * *
Releasing 2023
The Other Astaire
* * *
Tales From the Tudor Court
My Lady Viper
Prisoner of the Queen
* * *
Ancient Historical Fiction
A Day of Fire: a novel of Pompeii
A Year of Ravens: a novel of Boudica’s Rebellion
* * *
French Revolution
Ribbons of Scarlet: a novel of the French Revolution
June 2021
COPYRIGHT © 2021 ELIZA KNIGHT
RETURN OF THE SCOT © 2021 Eliza Knight. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part or the whole of this book may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted or utilized (other than for reading by the intended reader) in ANY form (now known or hereafter invented) without prior written permission by the author. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal, and punishable by law.
* * *
RETURN OF THE SCOT is a work of fiction. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional and or are used fictitiously and solely the product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, places, businesses, events or locales is purely coincidental.
* * *
Cover Design by Dar Albert
Edited by Erica Monroe
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1
August 1816
Scottish Highlands
* * *
Despite exhaustion racking his body in aching shudders, Lorne Gordon, Duke of Sutherland and Chief of the Sutherlands, forced his spine to straighten as he sat in the saddle. A bone-deep weariness left him in desperate need of a respite he was certain not to receive. But he could not miss a single familiar tree or boulder as his mind sifted through years of growth to uncover what he’d once known.
Dawn had come and gone over three thousand times since Lorne had stepped foot in his own country. Nearly a third of those days, he’d wondered if he’d ever see home again. While the road from London had been long, the journey from France felt like a lifetime.
Thick layers of dust coated his skin and clothes. No doubt anyone that saw him would mistake him for a lowly beggar, rather than the powerful man he’d once been.
To say the last two years had been a living hell would be an understatement. Every day had been torment, and if Lorne never had to think of those harrowing moments again, he’d be a happy man. Unfortunately, every time he
shut his eyes, night terrors consumed him, disallowing him the freedom to forget.
And neither would the War Office, who sought to press charges against someone, anyone, for Lorne’s unlawful imprisonment abroad after the Peninsular War. The War Office had kept him for days, questioning him until he was hoarse, more concerned with their enemies than with his welfare, which he understood. This was the way of things with war, but he’d wanted to get the hell out of there.
Lorne crested another hill, drawing in a deep lungful of crisp Highland air and letting it out in a long whoosh, driving some of his angst away with it. Beneath him, his mount shuddered, as tired as him. They’d ridden hard the last few days once they’d reached the Highlands.
His journey home had been a little longer because of his refusal to trade out his mount, but he couldn’t imagine parting with the animal. The horse had been given to him by the War Office a scant week ago, but…it had been so long since he’d had any sort of connection with anyone—human or beast alike—that he couldn’t let the animal go. The steed was the first personal possession he’d had in nigh unto two years.
If they weren’t so close to home, if he weren’t so desperate for familiar walls and people, he would have set up camp and resumed again in the morning. But the turrets of his magnificent Dunrobin Castle came into view, beckoning him to make the last couple of miles home.
Home.
Finally.
Lorne dismounted, coming to his knees upon the grass he’d tramped as a child. He pressed his palms flat to the ground. Softer, warmer than he remembered. The sweet scents of heather and grass. He touched the soft strands of the meadow, threading his fingers through it, and bent to kiss the earth with grasses tickling his lips, breathing in the clean scent of the Highlands. As his eyes closed against the sting, emotions welled in his chest.
No gunpowder residue or the stench of blood. No dank, stale air. No death. This was his place. His heaven.
He could have stretched out flat, sunk into this earth and thanked every deity known to man for being here again. For he’d not thought it possible. Not when he was chained to a wall…or strapped to a chair while they…Lorne shuddered. For as long as he lived, France would be synonymous with the devil.
He cleared his throat and pushed back onto his aching feet. The boots he wore were much too tight. Lorne was not a small man, and none of the extra boots at the War Office had come close to his size.
As much as he wanted to continue to enjoy this moment, it was time to finish his journey. Time to close the gap of time that had passed since he’d left nearly eight years before.
Giving his horse a break from carrying his weight, Lorne walked the rest of the way, until he came to the gate at the head of the long road leading toward the castle. He touched the cool wrought iron metal with his gilded crest in the middle, still disbelieving that he’d made it. The castle turrets rose high in the sky, and even from here, he could make out the fleur-de-lis and carved knights in the stone.
“Lo, there!” the gatekeeper called.
Lorne jerked his gaze up, forcing himself not to cower at the sharp surprise of the man’s shout. A head poked out from the top of the tower gate.
Then a curse escaped the man’s lips as he tossed off his feathered woolen cap, revealing ginger hair and thrust himself over the parapet so hard Lorne feared he’d dive right off. “Your Grace! Is it ye? Do my eyes deceive me?” The guard made the sign of the cross.
Lorne could have cried at hearing the familiar voice of his childhood friend, to have recognized a much beloved face. “Mungo, ’tis I. Open the gate for me.”
Mungo let out a lengthy tirade of mumbled Gaelic Lorne couldn’t discern, but the gate did open, and kilt-clad clansmen rushed through beside Mungo, their swords clinking against their boot spurs, each of them muttering prayers and crossing themselves.
“How is this possible?” Mungo said, reaching out to touch him and then yanking back as though he might be burned. “We were told ye were dead.”
Having been warned of this in London, Lorne was not surprised at the news. He gripped his old friend on the shoulder and squeezed, a smile stretching wide across his face. “I assure ye I’m verra much alive and in need of a bath, a bed and a hot meal.”
“Aye, Your Grace.” Mungo glanced at the other men, and a silent message passed between them. “Come, we’ll get ye settled.” He signaled for the gates to close and called up for another man to take watch as they led Lorne down the road.
One of them tried to take the reins from Lorne, but he held them tight, barely suppressing a growl. At the man’s startled expression, Lorne laughed it off and reluctantly let go. He was home. His men could be trusted.
Mungo let out a tirade of queries, which Lorne barely answered. Instead, he picked up his speed, questioning what the men would think if he tore off his boots and ran inside. But he didn’t want his homecoming to be any more awkward than it already would be, so he remained walking at a steady pace and ignored the increasing pinches in his toes.
As people came out to see who walked with Mungo, a whisper like the buzz of bees passed over the wind. Mungo waved away anyone who came near, thank goodness, and the men rushed ahead to open the wide, arched door. When they entered the castle, hurried footsteps sounded in the corridor from the left and then Mrs. Blair, not looking a day older than when he’d left, burst into the entryway. His housekeeper took one glance of him, blanched as white as a sheet and then dropped in a heavy faint to the floor.
“Blimey!” Lorne jerked forward to check on her. White wisps of hair framed her face, and on closer look, the lines beside her eyes and mouth had deepened.
“’Tis like she saw a ghost,” Mungo jested beside him.
Lorne gave him a wry glance and lifted his housekeeper into his arms. “Carry her to the drawing room,” he said to the two men who’d accompanied them.
“There is something ye should know, my laird.” Mungo avoided his gaze, watching the men take the woman from Lorne’s arms, having to share the weight, where he had strength enough yet to hold her himself.
“Aye?”
Mungo looked as though he’d eaten a pot of spoiled mutton. “As I mentioned afore, the clan, they thought ye were dead.”
Lorne ignored the painful prick in his heart. He removed his cap, sat down on the stairs and started to pluck at his boot laces—to hell with waiting for his chamber.
“Lord Gille, he assumed the role as duke and chief.”
“Naturally,” Lorne said tightly, tugging off one boot and biting his cheek to keep from moaning at the uncomfortable restriction being removed. He glanced around the grand entrance to the castle, searching out his half-brother Gille and not seeing him. ‘Haps he was visiting a crofter or working in the fields as Lorne had often done.
“Well, he…” But Mungo didn’t continue. He pinched his cap and twirled it round and round while his gaze landed anywhere but on Lorne.
Mungo’s gaze shifted warily to the place above Lorne’s head. Forgetting his other boot, Lorne followed Mungo’s line of vision to the place behind him. He gaped at the empty spot on the wall where the sword of his ancestor, who had fought beside William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, used to hang. The artifact had been there so long that there was still an outline of its placement, a faint shadow shouting of something being amiss. “Out with it, Mungo.” His voice shook.
“The castle…Gille…he took it, and—” Mungo sounded as if he were suffering an apoplectic fit.
Lorne suppressed the urge to smack the words out of Mungo’s mouth and instead tore off his second boot.
Finally, his old mate spoke, “He sold the castle. And the property surrounding it.”
Lorne snorted and plucked off his sock, wriggling his toes, reddened from the tightness of his boots. “That is a cruel jest, Mungo. If ye’re attempting to make me laugh, ye might want to try a little harder.”
Mungo stopped twirling the hat. “I assure ye, Your Grace, I am no’ jesting, and it is the ver
ra last thing I want to tell ye upon your homecoming, but it had to be done before ye settled in.”
Lorne felt his throat close up tight as the truth of what Mungo was saying sunk in. Gille had sold the castle? Sold his land? The very stairs he was sitting on right at that moment were not his own?
It was an effort to speak, and when he did, his voice came out sounding strangled, far-off. “Where is Gille?”
“We do no’ know.”
“How long has he been gone?” Lorne stood, tossing his hose aside and placing his hands on his hips, so he didn’t grab Mungo by his shirt.
“A few weeks now. Since the sale.”
“Has anyone attempted to locate him?”
Mungo shook his head. “Nay, Your Grace, as we thought he’d abandoned us…”
Lorne nodded, speechless. The castle, the lands—all of which had been in his family for generations dating back to Scotland’s first kings—were no longer his. No longer a Sutherland holding. He was the bloody Duke of Sutherland and didn’t have a castle?