Return of the Scot (Scots of Honor #1) - Eliza Knight Page 0,40
and harder to look away. “Awkward.”
“I gathered. The both of you looked extremely pained to be in each other’s company.” Beatrice pursed her lips. “So much for showing that our family rift is healed.”
“I most certainly was pained, and the rift is far from healed.”
“A shame what happened between him and Shanna. He does not strike me as such a rogue, and yet he is.”
“Aye.” Or was he? From all outward appearances and the respect he seemed to garner from everyone in his presence, which couldn’t be about his title alone, was he as bad as they’d been made to believe? “Auntie, I think I see Giselle over there. Would ye mind if I speak with her?”
“Oh, no, dear, go right ahead. I’ve a few friends I wish to catch up with as well.”
There was a small sliver of Jaime that felt bad for lying to her aunt, but a larger part of herself that didn’t. If Aunt Beatrice hadn’t decided to come to Edinburgh, then she wouldn’t have been aware of what Jaime was doing anyway. Besides, it wasn’t as if the woman married to her father’s brother had sought Jaime out in the past two years. She and Shanna were lucky for the shipping company because her uncle, who’d received her father’s title, houses and fortune, had done little to see to their comfort. Shanna had been disowned, and Jaime’s inheritance had been the company.
But bygones were bygones.
And Jaime wasn’t going to wait for her aunt to realize she hadn’t seen Giselle at all. She snuck out of the ballroom, pretending to look for the ladies’ retiring room, and finally saw Mungo lurking in the shadows by a grandfather clock.
“This way,” he murmured, leading her into the darkness past the winding staircase.
Jaime looked behind her once to make sure no roving eyes had followed them. The last thing she needed was for the morning’s society papers to light the flames of an illicit affair with the duke. Goodness, but she’d never hear the end of that, and it would likely ruin some of her business too if they thought her suddenly falling away from her practical nature.
Mungo held open a door enough distance from the ballroom that the music was barely heard, and Jaime ducked inside. There was a candle lit in a lantern at the far side of the room. Looming shapes lurched from the shadows and Jaime tried to make sense of what they were. A large beam with a ladder on each end. A massive roped-off platform that looked like a pugilist ring. Was that how Lorne kept in shape? Balancing on a beam and beating up some poor sap? She nearly tripped over a hard, metal lump on the floor. Various heavy-looking objects littered the ground. What in blazes was this stuff?
“Let’s no’ dally,” the duke said, drawing her eyes to his single lantern. She’d not seen him there, lurking in the dark. Now he was visible, the outline of his body framed by the light.
“What is all this?” She was genuinely curious.
“My gymnasium.”
“I suppose I was no’ certain what that was. We’ve no’ got one at our house, and I’ve not seen any elsewhere, either.”
“Boxing ring, fencing planche, training dumbbells.” He pointed to the ring, the beam and the lumpy metal things.
Jaime nodded, fascinated. There was a lot more to the duke than she would have guessed. And now she understood how he was so easily able to right the falling cargo box that two of her dockhands hadn’t been able to get under control. He was strong. Very strong. And filled with many talents, it would seem.
“But ye did no’ come here to admire my equipment.”
Jaime’s gaze settled on Lorne, and she stopped mid-stride, taking in the way the glow of the light made his gray eyes sparkle and how he appeared even bigger dressed in shadows. Why had his saying such made her want to admire him?
“Will ye tell me the truth?” Jaime picked her way over to him until they were only a few feet apart, the door to the massive gymnasium somewhere in the distance.
“Why?”
“Because everything seems so jumbled in my mind. Shanna’s gone missing, and I’m fairly certain ’tis because she’s…hiding from ye.”
Lorne leaned against the wall, hooking one ankle over the other, crossing his arms. He looked so casual and yet so…intense at the very same time. “Why would she need to hide from me? It is ye who stole my castle.”