Page 19 of Return of the Scot
She looked so resolute that he almost didn’t have the heart to tell her that she didn’t have a choice. “Ye’re verra stubborn,” he said softly.
“I am determined. There is a difference.”
“I recognize and admire that, for I’m the same way. But I have to ask, why?”
Jaime’s chin lifted, her mouth clamped as tightly closed as an oyster. He waited a few moments, but she didn’t answer him, and he guessed at this rate she wouldn’t.
“J, ye’d be the last man on the battlefield, fighting against enemies quickly closing in. Except too late, ye’d find out the ones ye were fighting against weren’t your enemies and that ye’d been stabbing a comrade in the back.”
With those words and his irritation slowly boiling over, Lorne turned on his heel. This morning had not worked out the way he’d planned at all. Perhaps it would behoove him to pay her off and accept the loss. He’d find his brother eventually and squeeze out of the sapskull whatever remained from the sale.
* * *
Mouth agape,Jaime watched the duke stride away, his shoulders broad and square, confidence oozing from every limb.
What could he possibly mean that she’d stabbed a comrade in the back? As if they were friends. As if they should have been fighting a common enemy. He was not her comrade. He was mad. Touched in the head.
But as she checked on her various ships and cargo, her mind kept drifting back to what Lorne had said. There had been real anger in his words and flashing in his soulful gray eyes. No. Not soulful. The man didn’t have a soul because he had sold it to the devil.
Jaime instead rearranged her way of thinking and chalked up his reaction to being frustrated that she wouldn’t agree to give him back his precious castle.
The more she thought of it, the more her mind, however, took wild turns. What if that weren’t the only reason he was so irate? Maybe it was because he already knew that Shanna was living in the castle. He’d not mentioned her when he came to her house the day before, but if his first stop after London had been Dunrobin, then surely, he would have run into her sister.
Shanna, who had still not sent Jaime word.
The messenger that Jaime had sent north should be returning in the next few days, and then she could rest easy that her sister was all right.
Or she could ask Lorne if he’d seen her and settle her mind now that Shanna hadn’t been set upon by highway thieves.
A prickle of nerves made her antsy on her feet. Maybe before returning to her house in Charlotte Square, she should first go to the duke’s residence and ask him.
But would he even give her an answer after their latest encounter—probably not. She’d been rude to him since she’d set eyes on him the day before, and just as rude this morning. He owed her nothing, and from the interactions they’d been having, she wouldn’t be surprised if he would only give her the information she sought for a price.
A price she wasn’t willing to pay.
Under normal circumstances.
But it wasn’t like Shanna not to send word, especially when Gordie was involved. And with such an extravagant gift given to her by Jaime. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Jaime’s sister had always been spoiled and not necessarily thankful when she thought she was owed something simply for being who she was.
And in this case, Shanna would feel that way about Dunrobin. Which was probably why she’d not said thank you to Jaime, but she’d been appreciative in her way. Shanna had been through a lot over the last decade. It wasn’t easy to be shunned from society and bear the fruit of a man’s transgression.
Father nearly had a heart attack when he’d found out—only a heavy dose of laudanum and twenty-four hours of sleep had ceased his shouting. Mother tried to get Shanna to have the child discreetly and give it away, but her sister had refused. In the end, the late Viscount and Viscountess Whittleburn, their parents, had shunned Shanna and her unborn child. She’d been sent away from the houses they occupied, allowed only to remain on a remote Irish property they owned, well away from both London and Edinburgh courts. Few servants had been there, and Shanna had been cut out of the will when their parents passed. It was only Jaime’s kindness that had kept Shanna from the poorhouse. And her child from starvation.
Shanna had been disowned and essentially alone until their parents died not a year apart, her father from a heart condition, and her mother seemingly following in his footsteps. Jaime had immediately welcomed Shanna home and rejected the whispers of the women in high society. Though her father’s title and the family home had been passed on to her uncle, the shipping company had remained in Jaime’s hands, and she vowed to do right by her sister.
Jaime bid her dockworkers farewell and headed back to her office to let Emilia know that she would be leaving for the day. Though the argument had slung itself back and forth in her mind, she’d finally settled on going to speak with the duke. To alleviate her nerves as far as Shanna’s whereabouts. It wouldn’t hurt. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. It was the same motto she used in her business. And she wasn’t about to let his overbearingness get in her way.
A short time later, Jaime sat in her carriage, staring out the window at the vast brick manse before her. The wrought iron gates with gilded spires. The Sutherland crest gleaned in the sun that peaked through the clouds.
The duke’s house was every bit as grand as she remembered. She’d not been there since the night of the engagement ball, when she’d been on the cusp of her sixteenth birthday.
Out the window of the carriage, she spied her groom shifting on his feet. Already, he’d tried to open the carriage door once, and she’d slammed it back shut. She wasn’t ready. But would she ever be?
Likely not.
Her fingers sweated in her gloves, and from all the work she’d been doing, she must look a mess. Wisps of her hair had come loose from her bun and were tickling her cheeks, no matter how many times she swiped them away. And now she’d sat there long enough that her carriage had drawn the eye of every passerby, as well as those who stared out their townhome windows watching every move on the street, especially where the duke was concerned.
She could see what the papers would say now: Sister of Spurned Fiancée Stalks Duke.
