by Alyssa Cole
Portia had never given much weight to her drunken escapades—that had kind of been the point. The alcohol had been its own kind of armor, protecting her from caring too much about anything. Most of the notches in her bedpost were slightly out of focus, but the memory of Tav’s kiss was sharp as the blade they had forged and could cut her just as deeply if she let it.
She cleared her throat, and the librarian at the information desk raised her head from the pile of books she was sorting. For a moment, Portia was sure the dark-haired young woman knew she was having lascivious thoughts in the reference section.
“Need help with the microfiche, love?” the librarian asked. “Or a Ricola?”
“I’m fine, thank you,” Portia responded guiltily, and turned back to the machine. She was totally fine. That kiss was an isolated incident, and since it would never happen again, there was no need to think about it again. She could throw all this excess energy into her research. Totally the same thing.
She was more accustomed to searching digital archives, but after a morning spent going through old newspapers, she’d gotten the hang of things. There were products to be packed and shipped—she was proud of the modest increase in sales that was resulting from her work—but Jamie had signed off on her research trip, knowing how much she wanted to get the site finished. She hadn’t asked Tav; he’d been up in his office, and the risk of being alone with him had frightened her. No, that wasn’t right—it had thrilled her.
She concentrated on the screen, scrolling through old copies of the Bodotrian, a local newspaper long since lost to the annals of time—outside of the Bodotria Library microfiche.
She was an old hand at research, but years spent on social media had prepared her for this tedious task. She scrolled by picture after picture, headlines that talked of boys going off to war and coming back, of new boats being unveiled that used increasingly complex methods of steering, of trade deals and shipping courses, and then of boys going off to war again.
She fell into a rhythm, gaze sliding over photos and words.
Giant ship with sails. Giant ship without sails. Bunch of white dudes. White dudes in front of a ship. Tavish and some fancy people. Another gia—
The hairs on the back of Portia’s neck raised as she scrolled back and the picture came into view. It was grainy and black and white, but that was definitely Tavish. Or a very Tavish-like person. Talking to a woman, while holding the hand of a young boy. Their backdrop? The armory.
“Holy shit,” she yelped.
“Do you need help, love?” There was menace in the librarian’s voice now.
“No! I’m sorry. I just . . . get really excited about history, you know?”
“Ah. Well, that’s fine then.” The librarian smiled indulgently and nodded before returning to her work.
Portia turned and stared at the photo, then pulled out her phone and snapped a pic.
[International Friend Emporium]
Portia:
Ledi: Um, is that photoshopped? Do you need me to FedEx some holy water? Holy pepper spray?
Portia: Wut is happening. I can’t
Nya: Wait. WAIT.
Nya: “THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!”
Ledi: . . .
Nya: It all makes sense! Remember the film we watched to gain knowledge of Scottish culture before Portia left? There were Scotsmen with large swords, and beheadings, and immortals!
Ledi: You think #swordbae is . . . a Highlander?
Nya: Do you have a better explanation?
Ledi: I love you. Truly.
Portia: I’m apprenticed to The Highlander. Fuck.
She put the phone down, ignoring the texts flying by on the screen, and examined the article more closely.
ROYAL VISIT
While spending her yearly week at Holyrood, the Queen graced the waterways of Bodotria with a visit. While here, she consecrated a new ship named in her honor. In this photo, Edinburgh’s Royal Duke, Douglas Dudgeon, shows her the hospital for addled soldiers he recently opened at his property, Dudgeon House. He is continuing the work of his great aunt, who opened Firth Hospital for the poor many years ago.
Portia’s heart was racing as everything coalesced in her head. It could be a coincidence that the father he’d never known had bequeathed him the property. It could be a coincidence that this man who was old enough to be his grandfather looked exactly like him. It could not be a coincidence that the man looked like Tavish, owned the same property, and had a son young enough to be Tavish’s father. She didn’t even need to ask Ledi to crunch the numbers on the probability of that, because it was clear as fuck: the chances of them being related was significant.
Portia: OMG It’s worse.
Portia: He’s not a Highlander.
Nya: Is he a vampire? Maybe I’ll find my Rognath sooner than I imagined.
Portia: I think he might be the lovechild of a Duke?
Nya: EatingPopcorn.gif
Ledi: *chinhands* *like, chin is firmly nestled into my hands*
Portia: So, any advice on how to break it to someone that they’re probably a member of the aristocracy?
Ledi: Welllllllllll, I have some experience with this.
Nya: Bit of an understatement, cous.
Ledi: I know sometimes your judgment in how to present distressing news to someone can be lacking, so I’ll say just gather your information, sit him down, and tell him. No contrived situations to spring the truth on him, like orchestrating an elaborate and humiliating reveal in front of a crowd of strangers.
Portia: Sorry.
Ledi: Just remember he’s a human. This is his life. Unless he’s completely sedated, he will have a reaction to this, and when presented with an unknown reaction in a test subject all you can do is watch and wait. And since he’s not a lab rat, be there to help him through it.
Portia: I doubt he needs me for that.
Ledi: He’ll need someone. You can be his someone, if you’re up for it.
Ledi: I can only speak for myself, but I think I would have gone crazy after this princess shit if you weren’t there to tell me how to talk to rich people and what was expected of me. You’re pretty great at being a friend, Portia Hobbs. *finger guns*
Portia:
Portia swiped at the real tears that had gathered in her eyes. She’d almost lost Ledi’s friendship with insecurities and boundary issues. She really had lost Reggie, until just recently, by avoiding her family and their judgment. She hadn’t been there for either of them when they’d needed her the most. And though both relationships seemed better and stronger now, she sometimes wondered if they weren’t just pretending. Indulging the poor, misguided loser until she messed up again and lost them completely.
No.
Ledi didn’t lie, and she didn’t bother with emotional stuff unless she was really moved to. So Portia was left with either thinking her best friend was a sociopath drawing out some protracted mindfuck, or she had to accept that maybe, just maybe, Ledi had meant what she’d written. She allowed herself a few seconds of doubt-free joy. Sometimes it was a simple text sent from a friend thousands of miles away, a thing lots of people would call insubstantial, that felt like the most solid thing in her world.
Portia stood from her seat.
“Excuse me?”
The librarian looked up again.
“I need help now. I need to print this article and . . . do you have any books about dukes?”
The librarian’s eyes went wide and she rubbed her hands together with glee. “We have a fantastic romance section,” she said. “Do you need recommendations? How do you like your dukes? Grumpy? Tortured? Alpha, beta, or alpha in the streets, beta in the sheets?”
“Actually, I meant nonfiction,” Portia said glumly.
The librarian sighed. “Aye. Just a warning, love—the non-fic dukes are not nearly as fun.”
Portia sighed.
The librarian had no idea.
Chapter 13
Tavish wasn�
�t a man prone to anxiety, but he’d spent the two hours after Portia’s awkward phone call asking if they could have a meeting in a state of extreme agitation. He’d suggested they meet at Cheryl’s for lunch and she’d insisted they meet in his office. He’d tried to puzzle out what could have had her in such a state, and what could be so important that she’d call a meeting, but he could only think of one thing.
She’s leaving.
Though they’d cleaned together after their kiss, and agreed to act like it hadn’t happened, Portia had clearly been avoiding him. She’d been quiet at dinners, though he’d caught her glancing at him. Her body had been stiff with tension, and now that he knew what she felt like in his arms, he’d wanted nothing more than to help relieve it.
Tav clomped up the steps to his office, annoyed by the way his skin felt too tight and anxiety pooled in his stomach. He’d forgotten what it felt like, being this concerned when it came to a woman.
This is exactly the feeling you wanted to avoid, you git.
After Greer—Greer who he’d loved and who had loved him, but it had all gone to hell anyway—he’d been too busy with other things to deal with feelings and all that shite. And if he hadn’t been too busy, he’d been too clever, because only a fool set himself up for disappointment on a grand scale twice. He’d get an itch and he’d scratch it. He told himself that’s what this was about—Portia was like a mosquito bite that he’d scratched just enough to make the itch abundantly and painfully clear. That’s why his breath kicked a bit when he turned at the top of the stairs and saw her sitting pensively in the chair outside his office door in a delicate dress that had no place in his armory. That’s why he was already preparing a script to convince her not to leave: If you leave, we’ll have to start the apprentice search all over again. If you stay, I’ll never touch you again.
It was then that he realized he was in deep shite. He remembered something his mum had asked him when things were falling apart with Greer.
“What are you willing to do to keep her at your side? I won’t see a son of mine crawl on his knees, but if you think she’s worth it, I’ll be here to clean the scrapes, no matter what she decides.”
Tav hadn’t gone down on his knees, all those years ago. He’d politely asked Greer to stay and she’d politely declined and that had been that. He felt nothing polite in him at the thought of Portia leaving, which probably meant that she should.
“Hi,” she said, standing. Her smile was friendly, but there was strain around those big brown eyes of hers.
He flung open the office door and ushered her inside, gestured toward the seat she’d sat in that first morning after nearly burning his eyes out. He sat down, laced his fingers together over the papers on his desk. He’d known how to be professional once, to sit in meetings with a bland expression, and he called on that training to keep him from thinking about how she had gasped into his mouth when he’d tugged at her hair.
“You wanted to meet?” he asked. Professional. Not remembering the slide of her stomach over his cock as she’d pressed closer to him.
“Yes.” She looked worried, and Tav once again felt that strange and unprofessional need to hold her.
He leaned forward. “Is everything all right? If this is about the other day . . .”
“No. This is something important and I’m not quite sure how to tell you.”
If Tavish hadn’t been well-versed in the birds and the bees, he would’ve started to worry that one could get pregnant from kissing. He’d nearly come in his pants from that kiss, so it wasn’t the most unrealistic thing that might have happened.
“Okay.” She took a fortifying breath.
“Christ, out with it then,” he said. There was being professional and there was being tortured.
“So you know I’ve been researching the history of the building as something fun for any history buffs who might happen across the site. And I found something.” She sucked in a breath and then stood, coming to stand beside him as she tapped at her tablet. She handed it over to him.
“Please don’t hate me,” she said. “But I would be remiss as an apprentice, and as a friend, if I didn’t show you this.”
Tav was caught on the fact that she’d called him a friend until his gaze tracked to the screen of the tablet, where he saw a picture of himself. No, not himself. His hair was thicker—would be wavier at that length, his nose a little less pronounced, and he had his mother’s mouth. He wasn’t keen on photos, but he looked in the mirror every damn day, and whoever was in this obviously old photo looked a hell of a lot like him. Tav’s brain tried to process that and stalled out.
“What is this?” he asked, trying not to sound annoyed. He really didn’t like situations like this, where someone already knew the endgame and he was still puzzling his way along.
She swiped the screen again and there was now the full picture, along with a newspaper clipping. There was his doppelganger, along with a little boy, and—was that the bloody Queen?? Outside of the armory?
Dread began to gather in his muscles, tensing them for some unwanted revelation.
“I found this photo at the library this morning. This is the Royal Duke of Edinburgh, Douglas Dudgeon, sometime in the late 1940s. That’s his son, another Douglas Dudgeon, who inherited the property upon his father’s passing.” She swiped again and another image popped up, of some kind of family tree, rife with titles Tav usually came across in the old treatises he pored over for information about weapons and martial arts.
She swiped again and there was another newspaper clipping, this one more recent—from the late 1970s. A man who didn’t look exactly like him, as in the other photo, but still resembled him a great deal.
Meet the New Duke! With the passing of Douglas McGuinness Dudgeon, his son Douglas Tavish McGuinness Dudgeon has inherited the title of Royal Duke of Edinburgh. He is known for his philanthropic works in the resettlement of refugees, in addition to being one of Edinburgh’s most sought-after bachelors. Now that he has inherited the dukedom, the confirmed bachelor will certainly be in search of a duchess!
“Interesting,” he said. “Yeah. That’s . . .” He mumbled something—even he wasn’t sure what. His brain was too busy spinning. “I mean, that’s a pretty big coincidence.”
She sucked in a deep breath. “I checked the deed again. And before it passed to you, it was registered to a non-profit organization, which upon further probing was under the umbrella of a larger corporation. Owned by Douglas Tavish McGuinness Dudgeon.”
Tavish had never thought much about his father, and what he had thought hadn’t been good. The man had clearly wanted nothing to do with him. Tav had been more than happy with the family he had, so there’d been no room for wishful thinking about some wanker he’d never even met.
How did he explain then, the sudden emotions whirling through him? He wanted to throw something. He wanted to stab something. He wanted to flip his desk. Not because he now had a face to put to his father, and a name, but because now he understood that his father had been a powerful man. A member of the peerage. His mother had been a scared young refugee. And this man had gotten her pregnant and abandoned her. The date on the paper didn’t lie—his mother would have been well along with him when this story broke.
“The fucking numpty lavvy-heided wank stain arsepiece,” Tav growled. “I’ll fucking throttle him.”
Portia’s hand came down on his clenched fist, which he hadn’t realized was shaking.
“Tav.” He heard it in her tone, knew before he swiped the screen and saw the obituary.
“Well, good riddance.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know this must be a lot for you to take in.”
Tav scoffed. “Yes and no. I always knew he was a right bloody bastard and now I have confirmation, that’s all.”
Her brow wrinkled and she shook her head. “I think you need to read to the end of the obituary.”
He snatched the tablet, trying to concentrate on the words through the haze o
f his rage.
. . . as he produced no heirs, the estate and the Dukedom have passed on to a distant relation . . .
. . . as he produced no heirs . . .
. . . no heirs.
“Fuck,” he said. “No. I appreciate you telling me but I want nothing to do with this scum.”
“Tav, I know you’re upset right now, but think about it.”
“Think about being a bloody duke? Having to chat with rich arseholes like the one who knocked up my mum and abandoned her? The ones who make their little charity visits to the poor and then go home to huge estates that could house every homeless person in Scotland?”
Portia took a deep breath. “The estate is valued at basically a shit ton of money. Think about what you could do with that. You could fix up the armory. Expand the community programs you’ve started. You’d be able to make an even bigger difference.”
She was clever, Portia was.
He exhaled, realized that his body was taut with restrained anger, and that Portia’s hand still rested on his. She was close beside him, how people hovered around brats taking their first steps. It should have annoyed him, but he couldn’t remember the last time someone had been there to catch him. His family was loyal and supportive, but he’d made his role very clear: he was the protector, even when no one needed protecting. Seeing Portia look at him the way she was added more confusion to his already sparking emotions, even as he was grateful for it.
“Thank you. For telling me,” he said. “I’ll be honest, my head’s kind of fucked right now.”
She smiled. “I think that’s the normal reaction to news like this, from what I’ve seen.”
“You have experience with this?” He gave an incredulous laugh, but she did that lip licking thing he’d learned was a tell that she was nervous about something.
“Actually, I can help.” She was looking at him with that pleading look again, which didn’t make sense. “I don’t want to be presumptuous, but I imagine you haven’t had a lot of interaction with rich assholes. I have. I am one, actually, a rich asshole with years of experience who can help you navi—”
“Stop,” he growled, and she flinched.
