Page 61 of The Scottish Duke
“Why is it important to take people’s prints?” she asked. “Are there that many broken jars at Blackhall?”
“There are other thefts,” he said. “Other crimes. What about if one man kills another?”
“Could you really find a murderer?”
“If the cataloging system is good enough,” he said. “That’s what I’m working on now. I’ve listed people by location and occupation for future reference. I want to come up with a way to categorize their prints, too.”
She smiled in approval, or at least that’s what it felt like to him.
“Are they truly all different?”
He nodded. “Not only among people,” he said, reaching out for her hand. “But even on your own hand. That’s why we take prints of all ten fingers.”
Spreading out her fingers, he tapped the forefinger. “This one is different from your thumb, for example.”
“Truly?”
Her eyes widened and a smile curved her lips. He suddenly wanted to thank her for that, for not being bored, and for allowing him to explain. If she were indulging in pretense, she did it well enough that he was fooled. Or maybe he wanted to be.
In a very real sense, despite the number of people at Blackhall, he was isolated. He’d created a moat around himself and he was beginning to be aware of it. When he was younger, he had counted quite a few men as friends. As time went on, however, he found he had less and less in common with them. He didn’t particularly care for horse racing, gambling, or the company of women who were bored in their marriage and wanted a liaison. He was interested in more than what he saw or experienced, ideas that frankly bored others when he expounded on them. Consequently, his friends had dropped away or become acquaintances only.
He’d admired those men he met at the Scottish Society meetings. They’d seen him as more than his title. Nor were they a bunch of fawning sycophants. Instead, they challenged his ideas and made him work for recognition. Perhaps that’s why he felt their rebuff of him so keenly.
What had she said? Something about not knowing him. He didn’t know her, either, except physically. He knew that she had a mole near her shoulder blade, that when he kissed the side of her breast near her underarm, she was ticklish. He knew, in a way that surprised him to realize it, more about her reactions to passion than he had his own wife. His couplings with Ruth had been done in polite silence, with deference to her innocence and genteel nature.
She’d obviously not retained any innocence or gentility.
Lorna had kissed him without reservation, had been as carnal as he. Even as a virgin she’d been open and willing and passionate and courageous in revealing everything she felt.
She’d sketched him. He recognized his own eyes, his face turned away, his profile, and his frown. In one caricatured sketch, she had drawn him with a crown on his head and an ermine robe. Had he acted regal in some way, enough that she saw him as a king?
Perhaps he didn’t know her, but he wanted to. The interest was a dangerous sign. He’d find himself confiding even more in her. Beyond that, he might tell her about his days, share his thoughts with her.
She already occupied too much of his thoughts.
If he wasn’t careful, she would come to mean too much. She would become important to him. That shouldn’t happen.
He’d avoided personal entanglements for years, enough that his mother had lectured him about his duty to the dukedom. Lorna was an entanglement he’d brought on himself, and if he didn’t keep her at arm’s length she might prove to be a complication.
He didn’t want her that close. Emotions lurked just beyond the horizon, emotions he didn’t want to have, feelings that would be difficult.
No, she mustn’t be allowed to get that close. He would be pleasant, but nothing more. He’d allow himself a cursory interest in her, but that was all. He would be a polite stranger and only that.
“Why?” he asked, turning the tables on her. When she glanced at him, he continued. “I can understand how you would draw your father’s herbs, but how did you go from that to making teas and balms and lotions?”
“At first it was a way of testing the recipes he’d been given. Then I realized it was something I enjoyed, something of my own,” she added, using his own words. “I modified some recipes because the herbs weren’t available year round, or they were too hard to find.”
She fell silent for a moment, and when she spoke, she once again surprised him.
“Thank you for giving me a home here,” she said. She fiddled with the fabric of her skirt before glancing up. “Thank you for allowing me the freedom to say what I feel.”
“I apologize for not seeing you,” he said. “I tried to find you. I just didn’t think that you would be at Blackhall.”
She looked taken aback. Did she think that he never regretted what he said or did?
“Your apology is accepted, Your Grace,” she said, giving him a bright smile.
He sat and watched her for a moment, unwillingly captivated. He’d never considered the matter, but perhaps a woman with child was naturally beautiful. He didn’t know. All he knew for certain was that Lorna was. The sun bathed her face, giving her a radiance. Her brown eyes sparkled at him as her lips curved into an enchanting smile.
