Page 59 of The Scottish Duke
Or she couldn’t afford to transport more than she could carry. He could almost see her, regretfully discarding something her father had treasured, tucking away the memories it evoked, but ridding herself of the physical object.
He thought of Blackhall and the possessions of generations of people still occupying the attic and spare rooms. Without trying he could find a snuffbox with his grandfather’s initials or a hand mirror his great-great-grandmother had used.
He disliked the twinge he felt at the paucity of Lorna’s belongings and found himself changing the subject yet again.
“Do you have a favorite city in Scotland?”
“I like Edinburgh,” she said. “And Inverness, although it’s completely different. Every city has a flavor to it, don’t you think?”
“Have you ever been to Paris?”
“No,” she said. “I’ve never been outside Scotland.”
“Cities in other countries have a certain flavor, too. I think it’s more pronounced in France. London seems to be the capital of the world. It’s frenetic with its activity, but it can drain you after a while. Paris has a certain calmness to it. Maybe it’s because I don’t speak French well and if you don’t understand the language you’re on an island.”
“I don’t speak French, either.”
“Well that’s a blessing,” he said. “I needn’t try to impress you with how fluent I am.” He glanced at her, smiling. “I’m not.”
“Oh, but I bet you know all of the best words in French. Men normally do, don’t they?”
One of his eyebrows rose. “And from whom have you gleaned this knowledge of masculine traits?”
“The footmen,” she said, smiling. “I believe it was Peter, as a matter of fact, who told me that they exchanged the best words in about five or six different languages, the better to impress their lady loves.”
“I think it was for another purpose entirely,” he said. “There’s a certain latitude of swearing in polite company when no one knows what you’re saying.”
“Have you ever done that?”
“I think I’ve done everything impolite, rude, foolish, and borderline stupid when I was a young man. I was aided in my debauchery by my uncle. My mother called it my yearning-to-be-free phase. I called it my growing-up phase. Either one is correct.”
They didn’t speak for a few moments as he carefully withdrew bunches of herbs from the bottom of the trunk.
“I didn’t realize you could dry so many different types of herbs,” he said.
She had wrapped them in burlap, and once she peeled back the fabric, he could see that they were additionally covered in newspaper.
“Some of them can only be used after they’ve been dried,” she said. “Others are more efficacious when they’re fresh.”
“How did you learn about working with herbs? Was it something your father always did?”
She shook her head. “Originally, he concentrated on wildflowers. His first book was on them.” She recited the title and he made a mental note to procure it for his library.
“My mother fell ill,” she said. “She was in a great deal of pain toward the end. Father was furious with the doctor because he couldn’t help her. The only thing was laudanum, and that kept my mother asleep except for nightmares when she’d wake screaming. Father sought out treatments everywhere and met a woman who gave him a tea that helped with the pain. After Mother died, he began his research into herbs and herbal remedies.”
“And took you with him?”
She nodded. “Sometimes, we would spend months at one location. But more often it was only weeks. My father had been a professor and believed that education was the greatest gift he could give to me, but that it wasn’t always found in books.”
Perhaps that’s why she was who she was, a woman with many layers of complexity. Just when he thought he was able to put her in a certain category, she said something that made him realize she wouldn’t fit there at all.
“It was the best kind of education,” she said. “He spoke with people all over Scotland: elderly men and women, young girls who’d learned everything at their grandmother’s knee. He found old books and writings. Once he even copied some pictures in a cave.
“He was fond of saying that he’d not devised any of the cures himself. He had simply collected them from the people of Scotland.”
“Not unlike how I collect fingerprints,” he said.
“You took my fingerprints once,” she said, staring down at her hands.
