Page 25 of The Scottish Duke
Instead of leaving, he pulled a letter from inside his jacket.
“Who wrote this?” he asked.
She saw no reason to involve Nan simply to answer the duke’s question.
“It doesn’t matter, Your Grace. Please leave. There’s no need for you to be here.”
“Is the child mine?” he asked.
She pressed her hand against the base of her throat, the better to slow her pulse a little.
How did she answer that? If she told him the truth, what would be the ramifications?
“Well?”
“What does it matter? I don’t want anything from you.”
“How will you support yourself?”
“I don’t think that’s any of your business. Why do you care?”
“Is the child mine?” he repeated.
“You’re as annoying as a magpie,” she said. “The same call over and over again. Very well, I can be the same. Go away. Go away. Go away. Go away.” She added one more for good measure. “Go away.”
Perhaps she should have been more cautious in her speech. After all, he was the Duke of Kinross, capable of changing a person’s fortunes on a whim. Yet she’d never heard of him behaving capriciously.
His sister-in-law still lived at Blackhall even years after her sister died. Mary Taylor was an exceedingly annoying woman yet the duke had opened his home to her. Surely that showed a generous nature. There were other tales of his kindness, some of which might simply be rumors. He was supposed to be rebuilding the roof of the Wittan Village church and making other changes there as well. She knew, for a fact—having been delegated to arrange the donations—that Blackhall was generous to the poor. Plus, the duke always gave the staff an annual Christmas present. She’d saved that money, the amount making up most of her savings.
Perhaps the duke only acted in an autocratic manner when it came to women who annoyed him or who didn’t bow and scrape enough. She was too big to curtsy at this point. She might fall down if she tried.
“My mother says you make potions.”
“I sincerely doubt that Her Grace called them potions,” she said.
“Unguents,” he said, waving his hand in the air. “Lotions. Something for the stiffness in her hands.”
She stood, walked to the end of the bed to the small trunk sitting there. She opened it, pulled out a jar, walked back and handed it to him.
“This is what she used in the past,” she said.
“How much do you charge for it?”
“The price for it is your absence,” she said. “If you leave now, take it with my blessing.”
“And if I don’t? How much do you charge?”
How had she ever been attracted to this man? How had she thought he was the most handsome creature she’d ever seen? Why had her heart beat so rapidly when she saw him in his kilt? How did the sound of his voice make her skin tighten?
Evidently, her body was not connected to her mind, because even now she couldn’t help but recall how he’d kissed her senseless.
She was the stupidest woman alive.
“For the love of all that’s holy, Your Grace, will you leave?”
She could just imagine what tales Mrs.MacDonald would tell. The woman was probably listening now.
“I don’t want anything from you. I’m sorry someone left the duchess a note. All I want is to be left alone. Please.”
