by Eliza Knight
“I do no’ want to give up half my fortune or be rid of my properties.” He’d only just returned. Lorne wanted everything back to the way it was before. “I want my sapskull brother to return what he stole.”
“Then ye need to find Gille.”
Bloody hell. Lorne nodded curtly, unable to speak for fear of the vulgar words that might escape.
“In the meantime, I can start the paperwork. Perhaps approach Miss Andrewson about a reversal on your behalf.”
Lorne shook his head. “Do no’ say anything to her as yet.” He was fairly certain that it would take a miracle to convince Jaime to return what was rightfully his. Not when she’d been so damn eager to seize it. The more he thought about it, the more he wondered if it had been Gille’s idea to sell in the first place. What if she’d approached him with an offer his greedy mind couldn’t refuse?
Knowing that Lorne would likely be unable to convince the chit to return what was his and that if he did find his brother, the idiot could more than likely have gambled away the funds, there was only one other option—Alec’s idea. Even if the last thing he wanted to do was marry the lass, it was something he should at least consider.
She was so prickly that she’d never go for it. Especially given he was out of practice with the arts of flirtation, though he doubted even Robert Burns could crack the ice around Jaime Andrewson’s heart. But there was one thing Lorne didn’t lack—determination. Without the deed to Dunrobin Castle and with a grimace on his lips, Lorne was resolute in his decision to win her trust, and if necessary, her hand. Wooing Jaime would be a bigger challenge than any of the other battles he’d ever fought—but one which he refused to lose.
Lorne would work both angles: locating his brother and getting the money back and convincing Jaime to wed him. One or the other had to work.
“Is there anything else I can help ye with, sir?”
“Aye. I want ye to hire men to find Gille. I’ll be working my damndest to discover him myself, but I’ve been gone a long time and lost touch with my brother years ago. I’ve no idea what he’s been up to, and I have to find out. I want my money back, or what’s left of it.”
“Already on it, Your Grace. I made inquiries last night.”
“Excellent.”
“We’ll get everything straightened away. And ye just say the word when ye’re ready for me to contact Miss Andrewson.”
Lorne stood. “And any information ye have on the Andrewson family and shipping company, I’d like that as well.”
“I also thought ye might.” Lindsey handed him a file. “This is a copy for ye.”
Lorne took the thick file, glancing inside for a brief moment, seeing Shanna’s name blaring on the first record, and he slammed it shut. “Thank ye.”
“I’ll be in touch, Your Grace.”
Lorne returned to Sutherland Gate and marched straight into his study. The room was clean and looked the same as it had the last time he’d been in town. Gille might not have even touched this room, though he knew his half-brother must have. How could he have run the estates and satisfied his duties as duke and a member of Parliament if he’d not?
Throwing the file onto the desk, Lorne opened the drawers, finding the pack of cigars where he’d left it. That was a clue as much as anything else that Gille had not been in the study; else, he would have pilfered every last one of them.
Lifting one of the cigars, he twirled it around in his fingers, feeling the smooth paper, smelling the pungent tobacco. It had been over eight years since he’d had a cigar, having declined one offered in the club last night. These were not a luxury afforded a soldier fighting in the Peninsular War, nor a prisoner. And after the whisky he’d had, he knew a puff would have tossed him right over the edge.
Still holding the cigar, Lorne walked to the window that faced the street, taking in the sights of women walking arm in arm and servants scurrying about their duties, shopping or running other various errands. A stray dog darted in and out of the crowd, slinking behind a house down the lane. He leaned against the frame, watching as everyone went past, none of them the wiser for what it was like to sit in the bleak darkness with only the company of other miserable souls. To not be free to walk the street. To smoke a bloody cigar.
Lorne didn’t want to think about those dark moments. He wanted to put it past him. To move on. Lord knew he had enough to worry about, dealing with his brother right now. The last thing he needed was to sit there and commiserate about the suffering he’d been through. He had problems to solve. Big problems.
With a groan, he turned away and went to his desk, replacing the cigar and sitting down in the creaking, old leather chair that had belonged to his father, and if he remembered correctly, his grandfather as well.
The Andrewson folder that Lindsey had given him was the only thing on his desk. He should look through it because if he were going to convince Jaime to either give him back his castle or marry him, he’d best know everything there was to know about her and her family.
Which meant he’d be finding out what happened to Shanna since he’d been gone. Lorne grimaced. He didn’t give a shite what had happened to that conniving wench. But he did feel sorry for the child she’d ended up bringing into the world. Poor whelp. And for the backlash that must have come down heavily on Jaime. Was Shanna’s indiscretion the reason she’d yet to marry at the age of four-and-twenty?
Instead of flipping through the folder then, Lorne opened his study door and summoned his housekeeper. “Coffee, please, and keep it coming.”
If he was about to fall into the past, then he needed to stay awake for the journey.
Jaime pinched the cuff of her sleeve, the only sign that she was extremely vexed. Over an hour she’d spent in Mr. MacDonald’s office, and no matter how many minutes ticked by and solutions hashed, she was still not hearing the answer she wanted.
“My sister can no’ be expected to vacate the home I gave her.” It was probably the eighth time she’d said it.
Mr. MacDonald let out a long-suffering sigh that made her irritated with herself as much as he was losing his patience. “I understand your position, Miss Andrewson, but the fact remains, the Duke of Sutherland is alive, and his property was sold without his consent and is therefore not a legal sale.”
That truth smarted. If he’d handed her a sack full of banknotes yesterday, she would have had to give him the deed and somehow tell her sister that she’d failed. Poor Gordie’s birthright stolen from him all over again. As if it wasn’t bad enough that the lad was the duke’s unclaimed child, and Shanna should have been married to him.
That castle was Shanna’s home, but even saying that to Mr. MacDonald had not helped the situation. And only served to deepen the pitying look he gave her. A regard she’d seen all too often in society.
“There are plenty of other castles for sale, Miss Andrewson. I would be happy to look into drawing up a legal deed of sale for any others that ye might desire.”
“I wanted that one.” God, she hated how she was starting to sound like a petulant child.
“I understand.” And his expression said as much, but what he understood and what she implied seemed to be two different things.
“So what do I do now? Wait for the duke to grace my threshold once more?”
Mr. MacDonald nodded. “Or ye could seek him out yourself with the deed. He must, of course, return the money ye paid for it.”
That would be an easy enough task. The Gordons were filthy rich.
Jaime resisted the urge to let out the frustrated screech tickling the back of her throat. The past few weeks, Shanna and Gordie had finally been able to live the life they deserved. Now she was going to have to take it away. Of course, she’d buy them another residence, but the gossips would love this debacle. As it was, this morning’s society papers had been all about the duke’s return, and the miracle it was, and how wonderful, blah-blah-blah.
Was she the only one who’d burned the sheets in her hearth?
His r
eturn was the worst news.
There was no way about it.
“Miss…” Mr. MacDonald hedged. “While I’d love to continue conversing with ye, I do have another client waiting.”
Jaime snapped her attention away from the papers floating through her mind and back to her solicitor. “Of course. I’ll be in touch as soon as the duke asks for the deed to Dunrobin back. I do no’ plan to seek him out.”
“I will be at your service when the time comes.”
Jaime stalked from the offices of MacDonald & Sons and stepped outside into a day that was decidedly too cheery for the season and her mood.
A child ran up to her then, waving one of the society papers in his hand. “Buy the Lady Edinburgh, miss, the Duke of Sutherland’s back.”
She wanted to turn away, to snub the duke in any way she could, but the poor lad only made money when he sold his papers, and she didn’t want to be the cause of him missing a meal. So she reached into her reticule and handed him a coin, taking the dreadful paper.
The headline made her nauseous. “Return of the Scot! A Duke Back from the Dead—Heads Will Roll.”
Oh, how she wished it were his head that was going to roll, not his poor brother. Jaime didn’t read further but walked briskly to her carriage, climbing the step laid out by her groom and sliding onto the plush, purple velvet seat.
“My office, please,” she said before shutting the door and staring down at the society paper.
The Duke of Sutherland has returned to Scottish shores after nearly a decade absent and two years thought dead. If he is standing here in the flesh, who is buried in the family plot? A better question might be, how could anyone have confused the strapping Duke of Sutherland with the poor sap six feet under?
“Och,” Jaime groaned. Whoever had written this wasn’t informed by Gille as she’d been of the conditions of the duke’s remains.
Except they weren’t his, were they?
She’d not known Gille well as he was much younger than Lorne, but when they’d discussed arrangements for the sale of Dunrobin, he’d been pleasant and kind. Sorrowful, even.
That was the one reason she’d been able to overlook his choice of solicitor. A little tickle started at the back of her head, and she pushed it away. She refused to believe that their transaction had been anything other than legitimate. Gille believed his brother dead, as did everyone else.
“Oh!” Jaime gripped the seat as the carriage made a hasty stop.
“Sorry, miss! Just a tramp who jumped in the road without paying attention.” Her groom shouted at whoever it was and then continued.
The men in his regiment had seen Lorne die. They’d taken on heavy cannon fire that obliterated much of their battlefield and their men. A body was recovered, Lorne’s ornamented coat slung over his chest. With his face unrecognizable, the men believed it to be their colonel, and he was pronounced dead.
Without a body, it could have taken years, a decade or more, for the title and all that went with it to be granted to Gille, but there had been a body…
Did Gille know that his brother had returned, and if he did, why had he not come to make amends right now? Obviously, Lorne had not seen his brother, or he wouldn’t have visited her demanding the deed.
Jaime’s head was spinning as she made her way through Edinburgh’s streets and pounding by the time she arrived at her office in Leith.
Inside the small office attached to her warehouse, Jaime’s clerk, Emilia, was busy with her head over the desk, scratching endless numbers into the columns of their books and pushing her spectacles back up the bridge of her nose from where they kept sliding.
“Good morning, Miss Andrewson,” Emilia said, insisting after all this time to address her formally. Jaime had made certain to hire a female to work with her daily for a number of reasons. One, she didn’t want to hear anyone balk about the impropriety of a woman sequestered alone in a room with a man all day, even if their primary job was running numbers while she oversaw the rest of the company. Most importantly, however, was that Jaime felt that women needed to be empowered by other women, and so she made a point to do so.
Women on the ships, however, was not a task she’d met yet. The dockhands and sailors were all too wary of a woman on board, and she needed them to stick around, or else her empire would crumble. As it was, she was certain there were plenty of them who had to cross themselves whenever she did an inspection.
“Emilia, I trust all has been smooth this morning.”
“Smooth for the books and docks, aye. Not so smooth for…” Her eyes lifted from the ledger she was writing in to study Jaime. “Perhaps the Andrewsons.”
“I do no’ know what ye’re talking about.”
Emilia smiled and went back to work. Normally, Jaime would engage her in conversation over a sentence so cryptic. Force out of her whatever it was she was thinking. But not this morning, for Jaime knew exactly what her clerk was implying, and she had no interest in talking about the duke any more than she already had today.
Instead, she sat at her desk and began going through her morning correspondence. While her company was vast, she’d always made it a part of her day to directly reply to all queries. It gave their business a more personal touch and made their clients feel as if they were each cherished and important, which, in turn, kept them loyal. It was one of the ways she’d been able to grow the company, and she was proud of it. Since she’d taken over, Andrewson Shipping had become the principal shipping company for luxury imports from other European countries and Asia.
But hours later as she continued to mull over the manifestos and ledgers, for the first time since she’d taken over her father’s company, she was not fully engaged. Her attention was continuously pulled away by a certain very tall, very handsome, very aggravating duke.
How dare he be handsome to boot? That wasn’t fair at all.
“Are ye all right, Miss Andrewson?” Emilia said from her desk across the room. “If ye frown any more, the milk in my tea’s going to curdle.”
Jaime tried to smile but it felt so brittle, and the way Emilia winced, she was certain it looked as she felt—more like baring her teeth.
“Apologies.” Jaime stood and stretched. “I’m going to walk the docks a minute and hope that settles me.”
Emilia leaned back in her chair, setting her pencil down. “This is about the duke.”
Jaime stopped in her tracks and whipped her head toward her clerk. “What makes ye think so?” Was she so obvious?
Emilia shrugged. “Everyone is talking about him.”
“I’ve no’ said a word.”
Emilia’s gaze strayed toward her desk where the crumpled Lady Edinburgh edition sat in a ball, the victim of her irritation a few minutes ago. She raised an eyebrow in Jaime’s direction.
That was a direct challenge, and at some point, Jaime was going to have to deal with her clerk’s impertinence. For now, she pursed her lips and folded her arms over her chest. “I said I’m no’ talking about him.”
“Do ye want to?”
“No.” Jaime raised her chin.
“All right.” Emilia dropped the topic without argument, which was also very much like her. “Do ye want me to walk with ye?”
“I’ll be fine. I’m going to check on the repairs for the Shanna.”
“They should be coming right along. Our men did well on the high seas, escaping the pirates.”
Jaime frowned, recalling the Shanna captain’s rendition of the attack. They’d been lucky to have seen the ship coming and cautious not to engage. Though they’d taken some damage from cannons, they’d been able to use the wind in their sails to escape. “They are thieves, no’ pirates. Do no’ glorify them.”
Emilia grunted. “If ye say so.”
“I’m sorry, Emilia. I slept little last night, and if ye must know, and ye might already as it was in the papers, the duke did visit me yesterday, and I’m quite put out by it.”
Already mouths were flapping about what the duk
e might have been doing there. Looking for Shanna, coming to claim his child, perhaps seducing another of the Andrewson sisters. It was the latter that had got to Jaime the most. As if she would allow herself to be seduced by anyone, let alone the duke.
She scoffed once more, much to Emilia’s attempt at concealed glee.
“No’ a word,” Jaime warned.
Emilia pressed her lips together and winked. Jaime wrenched open the door to her office and walked straight into a brick wall. Nay, not a brick wall, but a man.
And not just any man. Her hands were splayed on the hard abdomen of the Duke of Sutherland.
5
Lorne had raised his hand to rap on the office door when it burst open, and a bundle of woman smacked into his frame. He stood rigid, peering down into the surprised face of Miss Jaime Andrewson.
His first instinct was to frown and advise her it was best to look where she was going, but he was fairly certain such a reaction would garner him the opposite of what he needed, which was her cooperation.
“Pardon me, Miss Andrewson.” He tried on a smile, surprised when pink tinted her cheeks, and she looked flustered.
Jaime leapt backward as though she’d stuck her hands in a vat of broken glass and shook her head up at him. “I did no’ know ye were there,” she muttered.
A pretty woman, tall with dark hair in a bun atop her head, rushed forward. “Your Grace, what a surprise.”
He cocked his head at her, not used to being addressed in such an informal manner, even with his title presented before .
“Your Grace, my clerk, Miss Emilia Baker.”
Emilia curtsied, then looked behind her as if searching the office for something.
“What do ye want?” Jaime asked, avoiding all pleasantries and skipping right to the matter.
Ordinarily, her brisk attitude might offend him, but he was starting to enjoy her sour nature, if only because it was part of the game—he was going to turn her sour lemons into sweet lemonade.
“I brought ye scones.”
