by Eliza Knight
“I can no’ show them all to ye, lass. It would no’ be proper, and I did promise Alison.” He reached for his cravat and paused, realizing that by removing this particular piece, Alison would think he’d removed them all. “If I undo this, I’ll never be able to get it back in place, and your maid will slit my throat for certain.”
Jaime laughed. “I can help.”
“Then I’ll show ye the scars on my chest, but nothing more.” He tugged at his cravat in earnest this time, irritated by the damnable garment anyway, always feeling a little bit as if he were being choked.
When at last he was free, Lorne discarded the fabric on the chair he’d vacated and then started with the buttons of his shirt. Three buttons total revealed half his chest, where the skin near his left collarbone puckered and twisted, a continuation of the wound from his arm. That was as much as he was willing to remove. It was only that side of him that had been ruined; the other remained untouched as if to mock him for the rest of his life. It was only the warmth of the whisky that kept him from shuddering.
Jaime reached forward, the light stroke of her fingertips tracing the scars from his shoulder over his collarbone to the dip in his neck. He sucked in a breath at her touch, how gentle it was, how much it lit his skin aflame. The expression on her face was not of disgust at all. Nothing like what he imagined when she gazed at his broken body.
“Does it still hurt?” she asked, flicking her gaze up toward his.
He started to shake his head and then decided to be honest. “Every once in a while, there’s a twinge of something unpleasant, but then it is quickly gone, or else whisky helps.”
She smiled up at him softly as her hand flattened right over the place where his heart battered his ribcage. He was captivated by her brown eyes, the delicate fringe of black lashes, and the deep emotion that seemed to emanate from her. Lorne placed his hand over hers where she touched him.
“The scars do no’ bother ye?”
“Bother me?” She wrinkled her nose, appearing truly confused. “Ye were fighting for your country. Wounded by the enemy. How could I ever think that your scars were anything other than marks of valor? A visible, palpable sign of your bravery and your victory. They tried to kill ye, but ye survived. If anything…” She licked her lower lip as she glanced down at their joined hands. “If anything, I think they make ye more of a man, Lorne.”
More of a man…
Good God. He wanted to kiss her. Her servants, and his promises, be damned.
Lorne bent forward and captured her mouth with his. She gasped, staggering a little at his sudden embrace, but then she wrapped her other arm around his shoulders, her fingers curling against the back of his neck. Tasting of whisky and desire, Jaime kissed him back. Hard, passionate. Her tongue dueled with his as if neither of them could control themselves any longer. Two lost souls who’d been dying of thirst and finally found an oasis in which to quench their tireless craving.
Where one part of him had been aflame, now all of him was. Desire thrummed in his veins and pooled in his groin. The need for this woman to be his. To claim her utterly and forever.
He enfolded his arm around her waist and tugged her flush against him. Heated breath fanned across his face. And then there was a jolt, and they stumbled as the ship rocked from one side to the other—the only thing that kept him from lifting her and carrying her to the captain’s bed that was through the double doors at their rear. Their kiss broke as they both staggered, tumbling backward. Lorne lost his balance, falling with Jaime on top of him. Splayed fully over him, her soft breasts pressed to his chest, her hips on his hardened arousal…
She stared down at him, eyes full of passion, her lips a rosy red. She felt good, delicious and ripe. It was entirely too tempting to have her like this. So close, and yet not be able to claim her.
Her breasts pushed against the confines of her gown and tested the limits of his control. Supple, creamy globes. Only inches from his mouth and he wanted so badly to taste her.
Again, why hadn’t he slaked his need with some willing widow or courtesan? But he knew the answer to that, and it was because the only woman he truly wanted was currently lying on top of him. Tormenting him.
Jaime stared down where their hands were still joined on his chest, and then she bent and kissed his scarred collarbone, the heat of her lips pressing to his skin almost too much. Lorne groaned, and then…he felt something in his eyes as foreign to him as weakness—tears.
He blinked rapidly to dispel the emotion, the potent reaction. And then he closed his eyes, his head leaning back against the floor, his breaths heavy. Because the alternative was to roll her over and lift her skirts.
“Why did ye do that?” he asked, his voice tight, his throat closing.
“I may own this ship, but I’ll have ye know I do no’ own the ocean, and I can no’ make it rock us onto our arses simply by wishing it so.”
Lorne opened his eyes to stare at her, face full of teasing mirth. He chuckled. “Ye’re a hoyden.”
“Perhaps. But I would no’ change who I am.”
“And neither would I.”
“I used to be scared of who I was. Scared of being alone. Of relinquishing control if I did ever…” The column of her throat bobbed. “If I ever found someone.”
“I would never take away your control, lass. Well, perhaps only when I had ye naked and pinned beneath me.”
“Ye’re a rogue.”
“Aye, but I’m a rogue who wants ye, lass. A rogue who would never expect ye to give up the things ye love, what ye’ve worked for. I would give ye anything ye asked.”
“Even the thing ye prized the most,” she mused, referring back to his statement in the carriage that he would give her Dunrobin.
“Even that. I’ll ask ye once more if ye’d be my wife, Jaime.” Lorne was certain he could no longer live without her. She fascinated him absolutely. She was grounded, determined, independent. Someone he could lean on and confide in without judgment. Having grown up in an undependable world lasting into adulthood, she was what he needed most. No secrets. No games.
Exactly what he needed.
Jaime’s lips parted. However, nothing came out but a sigh. He thought she would pull away. Stand up and cross the room to put as much distance between them as she possibly could, as she had done every other time. But she didn’t. It felt as though she might have been sinking closer to him.
“Aye,” she whispered.
Lorne’s breath left him in a whoosh, and he hadn’t the power to suck it back in. Had he heard her correctly? Aye.
“I know ’tis wrong,” Jaime was saying. “To have wanted ye and loved ye for as long as I have, but I can no’ fight it any longer. Society be damned.”
Loved…
Lorne couldn’t breathe. Perhaps he’d fallen and hit his head when the ship jerked. That was it. He was hearing things all wrong.
“Say something,” Jaime said, her brow furrowing in that way he liked.
“I love ye, too.” Those were not the words he’d expected to come out of his mouth. Not by a long shot. He’d been thinking more along the lines of “What? What did ye say?”
But there they were. Devotional words that captured the depth of his feelings, the truth of his heart.
Jaime grinned. “How?”
“How could I no’?”
“I’m a hoyden. I stole your castle, and I wished ye dead.”
“And ye loved me, lass.”
Lorne rolled with her until she was pinned under him. Her lush body felt so right, and his hard places sank against all her softer ones. Leaning upon his elbow, he stared down into her gorgeous face. Creamy cheeks flushed. Her eyes searched his for answers he’d happily give her for the rest of their days. He settled his pelvis against hers, a lithe leg bent at the knee pressed to his hip.
“How could it be wrong?” he asked. “It should have been ye from the beginning.”
“My father would have never allowed it, nor my mother.”
“Neither would ye,” he said with a smile, kissing her briefly. “No’ if it meant taking something from your sister.”
“Even when she did no’ want it.”
“Ye’re too generous.”
“And yet I took your castle.”
He chuckled softly. “Maybe ye acquired it because ye wanted a piece of me.”
“But I gifted it to my sister.”
“No’ really. If ye’d truly given it to her, ye would have had the deed put in her name and not kept it for yourself.”
He could see the surprised look on her face, almost as if she’d realized at that moment what she’d done.
“Ye’re right. I wanted it for myself.” She stroked the side of his face. “I wanted a piece of ye.”
“And I freely give it to ye, my love. All of the pieces of me.” Lorne kissed her again, and she wrapped her arms around him, deepening their kiss with a slide of her tongue over his.
It was then the door to their cabin banged open, and a shocked Alison gasped loudly enough to crack the spell.
“Ye promised, Your Grace,” Alison said, her matronly eyes boring into him. It was only Mungo holding the maidservant back that kept her from charging forward.
Lorne smiled widely. “She has agreed to be my wife.”
Alison waved away that statement. “Then ye’ll have to wait until after the wedding to take such liberties.”
Jaime pressed her lips together, clearly trying not to laugh as Lorne stood and pulled her to her feet.
“Miss Andrewson asked me to chaperone her, and I made a promise to MacInnes. He’ll have my head if he finds out…” She paused a minute. “Is it true? Have ye agreed to marry?”
“Aye, Alison. I have.”
“Well, ’tis a good thing then. Perhaps we can do so when we arrive at Dunrobin. Indeed, I’ll arrange it with your housekeeper as soon as we arrive. And then ye can…” She waved her hand in their general vicinity. “Until then, Your Grace, Mungo will help ye redress, and Miss Andrewson, let us go back into the captain’s bedchamber to fix ye up. No sense in anyone else guessing what might have happened when I left the two of ye alone for a second.”
“I assure ye, Alison, nothing untoward has occurred, other than a little kiss,” Jaime was saying.
Alison rolled her eyes and muttered, “Every little kiss like that is why the world is populated.”
Mungo snorted at that and then quickly schooled his face in all seriousness.
Lorne laughed hard, though, finding the woman’s humor too much to admonish her for speaking so out of turn to a duke.
“I can see why my fiancée has kept ye on, Alison. Ye’re most loyal.”
Alison gave him one last glower before shutting the door and taking his view of Jaime with her.
“Had your hands full, Mungo?”
“No’ as full as ye, Your Grace.”
Lorne narrowed his gaze. “I think ye’re being impertinent, but I’ll let it slide on account of my happiness.”
Mungo grinned. “Glad to have ye back, Your Grace.”
16
With their two stubborn heads put together, Mungo and Alison were able to keep Jaime and Lorne from any further physical contact for the rest of the day’s journey. Of course, this only made Jaime want to be nearer to Lorne, especially now that she’d agreed to marry him. Now that he’d trusted her enough to open up about what had happened to him in captivity.
Besides, hadn’t the curmudgeons ever heard about the lure of the forbidden? Still, they made excellent gatekeepers. Though, she suspected it was more likely Mungo was holding Alison back from tossing Lorne overboard.
At last, they reached the shores of Dunrobin, with the castle looming toward the sky as if some merry fortress out of a fairytale. “It’s lovely.” Jaime stood beside Lorne at the ship’s helm, the closest they’d been in hours, now that Alison and Mungo saw they were ending their journey.
“There’s nothing quite like the feeling of coming home.” There was a great depth of emotion in his words.
That feeling he spoke of—a sensation she was certain he must sense more acutely after having been gone from it for so long. She slipped her hand in his, entwining their fingers.
“I have to apologize,” she said. “Before we get off this ship.” Jaime turned to face him.
“For what?” He looked puzzled.
“For the first thing ye realized when ye got home to Dunrobin was that ye’d been robbed—and I the thief.”
He smiled down at her, affectionately squeezed her hand and tucked an errant hair behind her ear. “That was no’ the first thing I realized, lass,” he teased.
“The second, then.”
“Something like that.” He winked.
“I know ye jest, but I am serious. It is inexcusable, and I am sorry from the bottom of my heart that I placed such hurt on ye. I…”
He stroked her cheek, ignoring the clearing throat of her maid a few feet away. “If ye had no’, would we be where we are today?”
“I’m no’ certain.”
“Me either. Why would I have had a reason to ride to Edinburgh, to burst in on ye at your flat or your place of business? I would no’. So I’d no’ change it. No more feeling guilty, soon-to-be Duchess of Sutherland. I will no’ allow it.”
Duchess… When he’d asked her to marry him over the last couple of weeks, and even when she’d agreed hours ago, never had it crossed her mind that she’d be a duchess. It had only been that she was going to be Lorne’s wife, his lover. The protector of his heart, and he hers. But duchess... The word was grand. The responsibility, grander.
“I can see your face is paling. What is it?” Lorne looked down at her, concern etched between his brows.
“Only that I had no’ thought much of being a duchess.”
“There’s nothing to it. I promise.” He raised her hand to his mouth, kissing her knuckles.
“Says a man born and bred to be a duke.”
He grinned. “To a woman who runs a thriving empire. Being a duchess is much the same, only ye have more servants.”
Jaime laughed. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“I would never steer ye wrong.”
She felt his promise all the way to her marrow. Oh, how she wanted to shoo away her maid and plant her lips on his. To kiss him hard as they weighed anchor at the single dock on his shores.
Soon, the crew was ready for them to debark.
“After ye, Miss Andrewson,” Lorne said.
“’Tis only fitting that ye should be first on the dock,” she said.
Lorne shrugged. “Why? It is your castle.”
“And I’m giving it back to ye.” She planted her leather boots right where they were and was not going to budge.
“And I’m giving it to ye. So ye see, ye first.” Lorne held out his arm, indicating she should go before him.
“Seems I’m not the only hardheaded person on the ship,” she muttered. “If ye insist.”
“If ye do no’ go quick, I’m liable to toss ye over my shoulder and take ye down myself. But I think doing that would scandalize Alison even more than we already have.”
Jaime laughed. “She’s going to need a strong cup of tea when we get inside.”
“I’ll make certain Mrs. Blair takes care of her.”
“Your housekeeper?”
“Aye, she’s like MacInnes to me.”
Jaime knew exactly what he meant by that. MacInnes was like a father or grandfather to her. There since she’d been a lass and with only her best interests at heart.
“I can no’ wait to meet her, then. She sounds divine.” With that, Jaime climbed the few steps to the rail and balanced herself on the gangplank all the way to the dock, with Lorne following behind her. They walked over the beach to the grand gate that led into a massive walled garden with so many different encompassing parts that Jaime thought for certain it would take her days to explore it all.
That was one thing she’d not done after purchasing Dun
robin—visit it. Some part of her simply couldn’t do it. The guilty part, she was sure. That little voice inside her said she’d done the wrong thing. Even if she’d thought Lorne dead, it had felt dishonest to steal his family seat.
Lorne took her hand as their boots crunched on the gravel toward stone stairs. She paused a moment at the base, staring up at the turrets and shining glass windows that bespoke of Sutherland wealth.
“My goodness,” she breathed out.
“Aye, it only gets better the closer ye get, does it no’?”
“Infinitely.”
“I can no’ wait for us to make it our home.”
Their home… She smiled at him, wistful. Why did it feel like everything was bound to go amiss at some point? She wanted this so badly, and it felt as if it would be snatched away before she could truly grasp it all as a reality. As though it were too good to be true.
They climbed the stairs, greeted at the top by a line of servants and guards.
“Your Grace,” an elderly woman said. “Welcome back.” She slid her glance toward Jaime, a brow winging in question.
“Miss Andrewson, might I introduce ye to Mrs. Blair?”
The housekeeper’s mouth dropped open at Jaime’s identification, and for a moment, she felt her face heat, and she sank into herself. All of these people knew what she had done. Hated her for it. Would they pick up the closest thing to a weapon and shoo her out?
“My fiancée,” Lorne added. “We’re to be married as soon as we can get to the kirk.”
“So soon?” Mrs. Blair blurted out and then pressed her hands over her mouth as if she wanted to keep the words that she’d already let out from being expressed.
Lorne only laughed. “A long enough time has passed since Dunrobin had a mistress.”
“What about the ownership of the castle?” Mrs. Blair asked, staring accusingly at Jaime. “J. Andrewson?”
