the shores of Dunrobin, with the castle looming toward the sky as if some merry fortress out of a fairytale. “It’s lovely.” Jaime stood beside Lorne at the ship’s helm, the closest they’d been in hours, now that Alison and Mungo saw they were ending their journey.
“There’s nothing quite like the feeling of coming home.” There was a great depth of emotion in his words.
That feeling he spoke of—a sensation she was certain he must sense more acutely after having been gone from it for so long. She slipped her hand in his, entwining their fingers.
“I have to apologize,” she said. “Before we get off this ship.” Jaime turned to face him.
“For what?” He looked puzzled.
“For the first thing ye realized when ye got home to Dunrobin was that ye’d been robbed—and I the thief.”
He smiled down at her, affectionately squeezed her hand and tucked an errant hair behind her ear. “That was no’ the first thing I realized, lass,” he teased.
“The second, then.”
“Something like that.” He winked.
“I know ye jest, but I am serious. It is inexcusable, and I am sorry from the bottom of my heart that I placed such hurt on ye. I…”
He stroked her cheek, ignoring the clearing throat of her maid a few feet away. “If ye had no’, would we be where we are today?”
“I’m no’ certain.”
“Me either. Why would I have had a reason to ride to Edinburgh, to burst in on ye at your flat or your place of business? I would no’. So I’d no’ change it. No more feeling guilty, soon-to-be Duchess of Sutherland. I will no’ allow it.”
Duchess… When he’d asked her to marry him over the last couple of weeks, and even when she’d agreed hours ago, never had it crossed her mind that she’d be a duchess. It had only been that she was going to be Lorne’s wife, his lover. The protector of his heart, and he hers. But duchess... The word was grand. The responsibility, grander.
“I can see your face is paling. What is it?” Lorne looked down at her, concern etched between his brows.
“Only that I had no’ thought much of being a duchess.”
“There’s nothing to it. I promise.” He raised her hand to his mouth, kissing her knuckles.
“Says a man born and bred to be a duke.”
He grinned. “To a woman who runs a thriving empire. Being a duchess is much the same, only ye have more servants.”
Jaime laughed. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“I would never steer ye wrong.”
She felt his promise all the way to her marrow. Oh, how she wanted to shoo away her maid and plant her lips on his. To kiss him hard as they weighed anchor at the single dock on his shores.
Soon, the crew was ready for them to debark.
“After ye, Miss Andrewson,” Lorne said.
“’Tis only fitting that ye should be first on the dock,” she said.
Lorne shrugged. “Why? It is your castle.”
“And I’m giving it back to ye.” She planted her leather boots right where they were and was not going to budge.
“And I’m giving it to ye. So ye see, ye first.” Lorne held out his arm, indicating she should go before him.
“Seems I’m not the only hardheaded person on the ship,” she muttered. “If ye insist.”
“If ye do no’ go quick, I’m liable to toss ye over my shoulder and take ye down myself. But I think doing that would scandalize Alison even more than we already have.”
Jaime laughed. “She’s going to need a strong cup of tea when we get inside.”
“I’ll make certain Mrs. Blair takes care of her.”
“Your housekeeper?”
“Aye, she’s like MacInnes to me.”
Jaime knew exactly what he meant by that. MacInnes was like a father or grandfather to her. There since she’d been a lass and with only her best interests at heart.
“I can no’ wait to meet her, then. She sounds divine.” With that, Jaime climbed the few steps to the rail and balanced herself on the gangplank all the way to the dock, with Lorne following behind her. They walked over the beach to the grand gate that led into a massive walled garden with so many different encompassing parts that Jaime thought for certain it would take her days to explore it all.
That was one thing she’d not done after purchasing Dunrobin—visit it. Some part of her simply couldn’t do it. The guilty part, she was sure. That little voice inside her said she’d done the wrong thing. Even if she’d thought Lorne dead, it had felt