Page 2 of Return of the Scot
“Blimey!” Lorne jerked forward to check on her. White wisps of hair framed her face, and on closer look, the lines beside her eyes and mouth had deepened.
“’Tis like she saw a ghost,” Mungo jested beside him.
Lorne gave him a wry glance and lifted his housekeeper into his arms. “Carry her to the drawing room,” he said to the two men who’d accompanied them.
“There is something ye should know, my laird.” Mungo avoided his gaze, watching the men take the woman from Lorne’s arms, having to share the weight, where he had strength enough yet to hold her himself.
“Aye?”
Mungo looked as though he’d eaten a pot of spoiled mutton. “As I mentioned afore, the clan, they thought ye were dead.”
Lorne ignored the painful prick in his heart. He removed his cap, sat down on the stairs and started to pluck at his boot laces—to hell with waiting for his chamber.
“Lord Gille, he assumed the role as duke and chief.”
“Naturally,” Lorne said tightly, tugging off one boot and biting his cheek to keep from moaning at the uncomfortable restriction being removed. He glanced around the grand entrance to the castle, searching out his half-brother Gille and not seeing him. ‘Haps he was visiting a crofter or working in the fields as Lorne had often done.
“Well, he…” But Mungo didn’t continue. He pinched his cap and twirled it round and round while his gaze landed anywhere but on Lorne.
Mungo’s gaze shifted warily to the place above Lorne’s head. Forgetting his other boot, Lorne followed Mungo’s line of vision to the place behind him. He gaped at the empty spot on the wall where the sword of his ancestor, who had fought beside William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, used to hang. The artifact had been there so long that there was still an outline of its placement, a faint shadow shouting of something being amiss. “Out with it, Mungo.” His voice shook.
“The castle…Gille…he took it, and—” Mungo sounded as if he were suffering an apoplectic fit.
Lorne suppressed the urge to smack the words out of Mungo’s mouth and instead tore off his second boot.
Finally, his old mate spoke, “He sold the castle. And the property surrounding it.”
Lorne snorted and plucked off his sock, wriggling his toes, reddened from the tightness of his boots. “That is a cruel jest, Mungo. If ye’re attempting to make me laugh, ye might want to try a little harder.”
Mungo stopped twirling the hat. “I assure ye, Your Grace, I am no’ jesting, and it is the verra last thing I want to tell ye upon your homecoming, but it had to be done before ye settled in.”
Lorne felt his throat close up tight as the truth of what Mungo was saying sunk in. Gille had sold the castle? Sold his land? The very stairs he was sitting on right at that moment were not his own?
It was an effort to speak, and when he did, his voice came out sounding strangled, far-off. “Where is Gille?”
“We do no’ know.”
“How long has he been gone?” Lorne stood, tossing his hose aside and placing his hands on his hips, so he didn’t grab Mungo by his shirt.
“A few weeks now. Since the sale.”
“Has anyone attempted to locate him?”
Mungo shook his head. “Nay, Your Grace, as we thought he’d abandoned us…”
Lorne nodded, speechless. The castle, the lands—all of which had been in his family for generations dating back to Scotland’s first kings—were no longer his. No longer a Sutherland holding. He was the bloody Duke of Sutherland and didn’t have a castle?
Was he a pauper now, too? What other reason could Gille have had to sell the property than for want of money? A vein pulsed in his temple as he wondered about the fate of his other properties and the fortune he’d left behind. Lorne closed his eyes to breathe in deep. This was not the homecoming he’d expected, not by half.
But at least he was in his home country. As bad as this news was, it didn’t compare to the hell of France. And he had the freedom to undo what his idiot half-brother had wrecked.
“We’ll fix this.” Lorne gritted his teeth. “I’ll fix this. Send for my solicitor in Edinburgh. Immediately.”
“Aye, Your Grace. Right away.”
“And ready a bath in my chamber. Or is that also no longer mine? Dear God, is the new owner here?”
Mungo thankfully shook his head.
