Page 45 of The Scottish Duke
Once she was alone, she laboriously made her way out of the chair and explored the cottage.
Her new home could easily accommodate a family, with its five rooms. In the bedroom the late afternoon sunlight poured in through the white curtained windows, bathing the white and blue counterpane on the bed. A bureau with a white china washstand atop it, plus a wide armoire of the same walnut wood, sat adjacent to each other on the far wall. The third wall was occupied by a desk and a narrow bookcase, currently empty.
Instead of a baby’s nursery, she would put her herbs in the smaller bedroom.
There was even a bathing room, and although it didn’t possess all the fixtures found in the duke’s quarters, it was remarkably modern. The kitchen had a pump for water and an oak table with four chairs. The large parlor possessed two chairs in front of a spacious fireplace—one of the maids had built up the duke’s fire—two bookcases, and a small settee upholstered in a rust-colored fabric.
The parlor window boasted a view of one wing of Blackhall through the trees. He was so close.
May I call on you?He might forget she was here or he might come every day. Either would be disconcerting.
She hadn’t felt this emotional since that stormy night, but now she could easily return to the overstuffed armchair and cry for an hour or two.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” Nan said, entering the cottage followed by a gust of frosty air. Her cheeks were bright pink, but so was her nose. She held a valise with one hand and her coat closed with the other. “I knew it would work out. I did.”
Who was seeing things that weren’t there now?
Nan dropped her valise on the floor, coming to her side. She took Lorna’s hand and led her back to the chair.
“You make yourself comfortable here and I’ll unpack.”
“I don’t want you to do everything,” she said, a weak protest she recognized even as she sank back down into the comfortable chair.
“Nonsense,” Nan said. “You can talk to me while I work. I can hear you fine.”
She disappeared into the bedroom and proved that by barraging Lorna with questions.
“What did the duke say to convince you to leave Wittan?” she asked. “Did he meet that terrible landlady of yours? You won’t ever have to go back, will you?”
“I doubt I’ll be welcome,” she said, and told Nan about Reverend McGill.
Nan emerged from the room wide-eyed.
“Oh, Lorna, I am sorry. How awful for you. I’m so glad we don’t have to go to his church, aren’t you?”
As a member of the staff, she’d been expected to attend services at Blackhall’s chapel. They’d always had a visiting member of the clergy, and on the rare occasions when no one could make it through, because of inclement weather or a scheduling conflict, either the duke or the dowager duchess read the lesson.
If Reverend McGill had ever officiated, she’d missed that service.
“Well, that’s done and it’s over. You’re home now and that’s all there is to it.”
Home? She supposed, in an odd way, Blackhall was her home. After her mother’s death, when she was ten, she’d followed her father all over Scotland on his quest to learn everything there was to know about Scottish herbs. They’d never stayed longer than six months in one place. She’d lived at Blackhall for two years.
Emotion overwhelmed her. She was grateful to Nan for many things, but mostly her friend’s loyalty. Nan had helped her do her work when early pregnancy had made her sick, helped her pad her dresses so she looked like she was gaining weight, hiding her pregnancy. Even leaving the note for the duchess might be considered an act of friendship.
When she began to cry, it was a relief.
“It’s going to be all right, Lorna,” Nan said, coming to her side. “It truly will. Plus, we’ll be together. We’ll have a grand time of it, the two of us.”
“He bowed to me,” she said, wiping her tears away. “The duke bowed to me.”
“He did?”
She nodded. “Why did he bow to me?”
“Don’t dukes do that?”
“I have no idea what dukes do,” she said.
