Page 22 of The Scottish Duke
He stayed where he was.
“Do you have someone living here who’s expecting a child?”
The woman’s grin took him aback. “Aye, but why would you be wanting to know, Duke?”
“I need to speak with her.”
“Then come in. I can’t heat the whole of the outdoors, even for the likes of you.”
He entered the house reluctantly, finding himself in a dim, narrow hallway. The air smelled of onions and fish. The floor was dusty, the walls bare of any decoration other than stains. The ceiling sagged in places, making him wonder if the house was going to tumble down around his head.
“Where is she?” he asked, standing as far from the woman as he could.
She glanced at him almost flirtatiously.
“I run a good house here,” she said. “I don’t hold with male visitors to my female tenants.”
“I can assure you, madam, that I have not come here for nefarious purposes. I need to speak with her about a matter of some urgency. Where is she?”
His greatcoat was sodden and his mood was as cold as the foyer. Pulling a few coins from his pocket, he extended his hand to her.
“I need to ask the woman a few questions, that’s all,” he said.
Evidently, her values were flexible as long as money was involved, because she took the coins, nodding to the second door.
Grateful to be quit of her, he strode down the hall and knocked once.
“Go ahead in, Duke. There’s no lock on the door.”
He didn’t glance back at the woman, just pushed down on the latch. When the door swung open, he entered the room.
The light from the tiny window revealed a narrow bed, a chest of drawers, and a series of pegs holding the occupant’s clothing. The walls were stained but covered with drawings of flowers, their colors taking his eyes from the sparseness of the furnishings.
He didn’t see her at first. She stood to his right, her back pressed up against the wall, staring at him as if she expected him to rob her or do her grievous bodily harm.
“You,” he said.
He’d been right. Lorna Gordon was Marie.
He was instantly assaulted by memory. Marie, draping herself around him, her leg at his waist. Marie, kissing him mad. Marie, a virgin, the realization punctuating the whiskey and passion-induced fog.
For weeks, whenever he met anyone new on his trips to Inverness and farther, to Edinburgh, he expected to be given some carefully worded demand. He imagined being confronted by a stranger, someone who would identify himself as Marie’s “friend” who only wanted to protect her. He never doubted that the protection would take the form of money, some absurd payment he was expected to produce in order to prevent a smear to his reputation.
To his surprise, no one had ever come forward.
Evidently she’d been waiting for this moment.
Her ginger-colored hair was wind-whipped and damp. Her large brown eyes, curiously tilted at the corners, gave her an almost exotic appearance. If nothing else, they encouraged a study of her face. She possessed something less common than beauty and more arresting. Her cheeks were red, her lips pink. Had she been biting them?
She had mud on her chin and it was also dripping from the hem of her dress. A cloak she held bunched in front of her was in a similar condition.
“Lorna Gordon, I presume,” he said.
She moved to sit on the only chair in the small room, clutching her cloak in front of her.
Conscious of the landlady, he closed the door behind him and entered the room.
“The very rude Duke of Kinross.”
