Page 1 of Return of the Scot
1
August 1816
Scottish Highlands
Despite exhaustion racking his body in aching shudders, Lorne Gordon, Duke of Sutherland and Chief of the Sutherlands, forced his spine to straighten as he sat in the saddle. A bone-deep weariness left him in desperate need of a respite he was certain not to receive. But he could not miss a single familiar tree or boulder as his mind sifted through years of growth to uncover what he’d once known.
Dawn had come and gone over three thousand times since Lorne had stepped foot in his own country. Nearly a third of those days, he’d wondered if he’d ever see home again. While the road from London had been long, the journey from France felt like a lifetime.
Thick layers of dust coated his skin and clothes. No doubt anyone that saw him would mistake him for a lowly beggar, rather than the powerful man he’d once been.
To say the last two years had been a living hell would be an understatement. Every day had been torment, and if Lorne never had to think of those harrowing moments again, he’d be a happy man. Unfortunately, every time he shut his eyes, night terrors consumed him, disallowing him the freedom to forget.
And neither would the War Office, who sought to press charges against someone, anyone, for Lorne’s unlawful imprisonment abroad after the Peninsular War. The War Office had kept him for days, questioning him until he was hoarse, more concerned with their enemies than with his welfare, which he understood. This was the way of things with war, but he’d wanted to get the hell out of there.
Lorne crested another hill, drawing in a deep lungful of crisp Highland air and letting it out in a long whoosh, driving some of his angst away with it. Beneath him, his mount shuddered, as tired as him. They’d ridden hard the last few days once they’d reached the Highlands.
His journey home had been a little longer because of his refusal to trade out his mount, but he couldn’t imagine parting with the animal. The horse had been given to him by the War Office a scant week ago, but…it had been so long since he’d had any sort of connection with anyone—human or beast alike—that he couldn’t let the animal go. The steed was the first personal possession he’d had in nigh unto two years.
If they weren’t so close to home, if he weren’t so desperate for familiar walls and people, he would have set up camp and resumed again in the morning. But the turrets of his magnificent Dunrobin Castle came into view, beckoning him to make the last couple of miles home.
Home.
Finally.
Lorne dismounted, coming to his knees upon the grass he’d tramped as a child. He pressed his palms flat to the ground. Softer, warmer than he remembered. The sweet scents of heather and grass. He touched the soft strands of the meadow, threading his fingers through it, and bent to kiss the earth with grasses tickling his lips, breathing in the clean scent of the Highlands. As his eyes closed against the sting, emotions welled in his chest.
No gunpowder residue or the stench of blood. No dank, stale air. No death. This was his place. His heaven.
He could have stretched out flat, sunk into this earth and thanked every deity known to man for being here again. For he’d not thought it possible. Not when he was chained to a wall…or strapped to a chair while they…Lorne shuddered. For as long as he lived, France would be synonymous with the devil.
He cleared his throat and pushed back onto his aching feet. The boots he wore were much too tight. Lorne was not a small man, and none of the extra boots at the War Office had come close to his size.
As much as he wanted to continue to enjoy this moment, it was time to finish his journey. Time to close the gap of time that had passed since he’d left nearly eight years before.
Giving his horse a break from carrying his weight, Lorne walked the rest of the way, until he came to the gate at the head of the long road leading toward the castle. He touched the cool wrought iron metal with his gilded crest in the middle, still disbelieving that he’d made it. The castle turrets rose high in the sky, and even from here, he could make out the fleur-de-lis and carved knights in the stone.
“Lo, there!” the gatekeeper called.
Lorne jerked his gaze up, forcing himself not to cower at the sharp surprise of the man’s shout. A head poked out from the top of the tower gate.
Then a curse escaped the man’s lips as he tossed off his feathered woolen cap, revealing ginger hair and thrust himself over the parapet so hard Lorne feared he’d dive right off. “Your Grace! Is it ye? Do my eyes deceive me?” The guard made the sign of the cross.
Lorne could have cried at hearing the familiar voice of his childhood friend, to have recognized a much beloved face. “Mungo, ’tis I. Open the gate for me.”
Mungo let out a lengthy tirade of mumbled Gaelic Lorne couldn’t discern, but the gate did open, and kilt-clad clansmen rushed through beside Mungo, their swords clinking against their boot spurs, each of them muttering prayers and crossing themselves.
“How is this possible?” Mungo said, reaching out to touch him and then yanking back as though he might be burned. “We were told ye were dead.”
Having been warned of this in London, Lorne was not surprised at the news. He gripped his old friend on the shoulder and squeezed, a smile stretching wide across his face. “I assure ye I’m verra much alive and in need of a bath, a bed and a hot meal.”
“Aye, Your Grace.” Mungo glanced at the other men, and a silent message passed between them. “Come, we’ll get ye settled.” He signaled for the gates to close and called up for another man to take watch as they led Lorne down the road.
One of them tried to take the reins from Lorne, but he held them tight, barely suppressing a growl. At the man’s startled expression, Lorne laughed it off and reluctantly let go. He was home. His men could be trusted.
Mungo let out a tirade of queries, which Lorne barely answered. Instead, he picked up his speed, questioning what the men would think if he tore off his boots and ran inside. But he didn’t want his homecoming to be any more awkward than it already would be, so he remained walking at a steady pace and ignored the increasing pinches in his toes.
As people came out to see who walked with Mungo, a whisper like the buzz of bees passed over the wind. Mungo waved away anyone who came near, thank goodness, and the men rushed ahead to open the wide, arched door. When they entered the castle, hurried footsteps sounded in the corridor from the left and then Mrs. Blair, not looking a day older than when he’d left, burst into the entryway. His housekeeper took one glance of him, blanched as white as a sheet and then dropped in a heavy faint to the floor.
