Return of the Scot (Scots of Honor #1) - Eliza Knight Page 0,32

in all the world who didn’t find him attractive or interesting. More like a nuisance, a fly she wanted to squash, and he found himself drawn to her because of it. And he shouldn’t be. He had to focus on his goal—getting his castle back, either by negotiation or marriage, but neither of these things seemed to be working. Mostly because he’d yet to try to negotiate beyond demanding she return it. And secondly, because a marriage between them was supposed to be a business transaction, yet he felt more and more unbusinesslike every time he saw her.

“Can we speak in private?” he asked.

Jaime glanced at her clerk, who tried to make herself seem busy. “Anything ye have to say to me can be said before my witness.”

“Your witness?” Lorne raised a brow at her choice of words as if he were about to do her harm.

“Aye. We are at legal odds, are we no’?”

“Ah, well, that is true. But what I have to say has nothing to do with that. I’ve no intention to cause ye harm. I assure ye, this is a quite personal matter.”

Jaime’s mouth formed a little O before she clamped it shut. “In that case, I must insist that whatever it is ye want to say to me, ye say in front of my clerk. I do have a reputation to keep.”

Lorne tensed. Had she already heard the rumors of the gentlemen’s bet? “As ye wish. I came to tell ye that there is a wager going around town of a rather delicate nature, involving both of us. And I did no’ want ye to find out about it before I had a chance to tell ye that I have no intention of doing what they say and that I have put an end to the bookmaking.”

“What is it they are wagering?” She narrowed her brows at him, and once more, that ledger book came up like a shield.

“That I will…” How exactly could he put this in a delicate way? Och, the hell with it. Jaime Andrewson was no gentle miss, and she wouldn’t appreciate his gentler insinuations. “Seduce ye.”

Jaime laughed, the ledger falling as her head tilted back, and she seemed to roar with every part of her. She tossed the book onto her desk so she could wipe the tears from her eyes. Lorne wasn’t certain if he should be offended or not. He thought it was likely he should be.

“It takes two in a seduction, Your Grace.” All the laughter left her, that serious, no-nonsense expression back. Lord, but she would make a great governess, keeping all the little hellions in line. “The seducer and the seduced. And ye can trust that I have no intention of being seduced by ye. I plan to stay as far away from ye as I can. Ye’ve said what ye came to say, now leave.”

But Lorne wasn’t going to be deterred, as much as she had insulted him just now. He rather found it charming. “In that case, I suppose ye do no’ want this invitation.” He pulled the envelope from his coat pocket that he’d decided to deliver this morning personally.

“What is it for?” She put her hands behind her back as if that would somehow force herself not to reach for it.

“I’m hosting a ball.” Of all the godawful things he could have surmised in his scheme to gain her favor.

Jaime screwed up her face, peering up at him, as shocked as he felt when he’d agreed to host one—though it had been a wager gone wrong in the ring with Alec Hay. More wagers… However, the more Lorne thought about it, the more the idea had grown on him. A ball to show everyone he was well and hearty; a ball to show he was still wealthy despite his missing brother and the woman before him stealing his birthright. A ball to stop all the gossips from guessing about him and to truly see what he was about. And now, of course, a place for the two of them to be seen together and show that he was not seducing her.

“Why are ye inviting me?” She refused to take the offered envelope, folding her hands in front of her hips to keep them still.

Her question was valid, and the answers he’d run through his mind this morning while Mungo gave him a shave mostly made sense to him. Mostly.

“I thought perhaps if people were to see us avoiding each other at