Page 44 of Return of the Scot
“What is it?” Lorne’s brows knitted together with concern.
It was incredibly hard to meet his gaze. She didn’t want to see the pain that her revelation would no doubt cause him. How had her sister ever found him lacking? The very idea that Shanna had not been head over heels in love with the Duke of Sutherland was not only news to Jaime but shocking, too. For she had found him captivating from the moment he’d first come to their parent’s townhome to call on her sister.
But this wasn’t about Jaime or Shanna’s desire for the duke, but rather the mutual subject Jaime and Lorne shared—her nephew’s parentage.
“’Tis about the lad,” she finally managed to say.
“Shanna’s bairn?”
“He’s no’ so much a bairn anymore.” Jaime held up her hand near her shoulder. “He’s almost as tall as me now, even at barely eight years old.”
The duke’s face had hardened, and she couldn’t read the thoughts that were hidden behind his stare. “What about him?”
“He…” Jaime swallowed. She needed to spit it out and be done with it. “He looks just like ye, Lorne. Everyone thinks so.”
Lorne blanched, sucking his lips back against his teeth. He let out a curse under his breath. Hands fisted at his side, he whirled from her. Walked a few paces away before turning back around, eyes blazing with expected anger—and unexpected resignation. What did he know that he hadn’t shared with her?
“Ye do no’ seem as surprised as I thought ye’d be,” she said. Jaime discarded her coffee cup onto the desk and walked a little closer to him, wanting to impart comfort, and not knowing how—or at least not in the way she suspected he would like.
Lorne exhaled loudly and ran his hand through his hair. “I did no’ suspect anything between the two of them until last night.”
“Last night?” Jaime’s brows raised in question. “What happened last night?”
Lorne grinned at her, and she could tell he was making an effort toss aside the major realizations they’d both had—and keep her from knowing what he’d discovered.
“I kissed ye.” And his words were confirmation of what she’d thought.
“No’ that, ye buffoon. Ye know what I mean.”
“Buffoon or nay, I’d much rather talk about kissing.”
Jaime crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot, trying to give him the look that made men leap to do her bidding on the docks. “Ye’d like to distract me.”
He shrugged. “Beats the unpleasantness. And I’ve had about enough distasteful, obnoxious torments in the past decade to last me a lifetime.”
She was about to beg him to explain it to her—all of it. His time away, the relationship he’d had with Shanna, the lies, the things he suspected, what he’d discovered last night. But there was a loud knock at her office door, followed by it bursting open, which stilled the words on her tongue.
Jaime leapt nearly six inches at the sudden intrusion, not understanding at first as three men bustled in that they weren’t being attacked. She reached for the first thing she could grab, which was a coffee pot, ready to launch it at their heads. Lorne must have been striving to discover the same thing as he stood in a fighting stance, fists out, like a professional pugilist.
The lead man cleared his throat, and then Jaime recognized him as the magistrate for the wharf. He stood there, a frown on his face, his two deputies beside him.
Jaime lowered the coffee pot and told Lorne it was all right. While the duke lowered his fists, he did not look ready to give up the fight.
“Good morning, sir,” Jaime said. “What can we do for ye?”
He handed her a folded piece of paper. “We’ve a need to search your ships, Miss Andrewson.”
“By what requirement?” Lorne demanded with all the authority of a duke.
“And who are ye?” the magistrate asked, eyeing Lorne up and down, not recognizing him since he’d been away so long.
“I’m the Duke of Sutherland.” The way he said it had both the deputies cringing and the magistrate shrinking a fraction of an inch.
“Apologies, Your Grace. I did no’ mean to interrupt the business ye have with Miss Andrewson, but we’ve a need to search the ships,” he explained. “There’s been an anonymous tip—”
Jaime interrupted the magistrate. “Sir, ye may address me as they are my ships, and the duke is but my guest.”
The magistrate looked shocked she would speak to him with such firmness, likely because she was a woman and also because she’d just discredited Lorne’s position of authority. But this was her company and damned if she was going to let two men discuss it when neither had a vested interest.
