Return of the Scot (Scots of Honor #1) - Eliza Knight Page 0,86
duchess. Not that her misdirected anger made a difference. Jaime did not back down.
Lorne turned to Mungo. “Search their belongings for the Magnus sword.”
Mungo nodded and left the room with Gille protesting loudly, “Do no’ touch my things, ye mewling lapdog! Ye have no right—”
“Oh, brother,” Lorne said, “do shut up. Ye’re in no position to argue or negotiate. Ye’re lucky I’ve no’ had ye arrested.”
Gille whipped back around, his cheeks ruddy with anger. “Arrested? For what crime?”
Lorne ticked off the reasons casually on his fingers. “Breach of contract, theft, embezzlement—the list goes on.”
“Breach of contract?” Gille’s arms flung about wildly, in danger of knocking into Shanna or the marble bust of King Robert the Bruce. “I’ve no contract with ye. Lies!”
Och, but this was going to be exhausting. Lorne wished it were already over. “Aye, but I had a contract with your wife, Shanna, and ye aided her in breaking it.”
“All right, that is true. But nothing else. Not the castle. How can I be blamed for the theft of something that was my own?” This time the back of Gille’s hand did come into contact with Robert the Bruce’s nose, and his brother yanked his hand back, glaring at the bust as if it had bitten him on purpose.
“It was never yours.” Lorne held out his arms. “I’m no’ dead.”
“This is preposterous.” Gille rubbed his hand, a little bit of spittle flying from his mouth to land on his knuckle.
“As is your behavior,” Lorne said, trying to keep his tone bored. “Some things never change, I suppose. Were ye no’ given everything ye wanted?”
“No. I was no’ and I resent ye for that,” Gille had the audacity to say. “Even when ye had gone to war, and I was left in charge, the blasted people of this medieval clan would no’ defer to me. It was always ‘What would Lorne do? What would Lorne say? That’s no’ how Lorne does it.’” He quoted these queries in a singsong, nasally voice that made Lorne want to knock him out. “One grows rather tired of such idiotic statements.”
“Or perhaps ye were the idiot, as is evidenced now.” Lorne tried to convey his disinterest, which was an effort in willpower. Every inch of him wanted to break out into a furious diatribe. But his brother was a stubborn fool and a self-righteous one at that. Anything Lorne said, Gille would not accept. His brother only wanted to hear what he had in his own mind, and men like that could not be contended with. Best to let it lie where it was and state only the facts.
Lorne glanced down at Jaime, who had a protective arm around her nephew, and the lad looked back and forth between them all, something vulnerable in his eyes.
Mungo returned then with the sword, and without Lorne having to tell him, placed it back where it belonged.
“My duchess still holds the deed to the castle,” Lorne said. “So even as ye hoped to gain the cash and the lands, ye were gravely mistaken in that step, beyond the blatant reality that ye could no’ have legally sold my property.”
“Duchess?” Gille sputtered. “Ye married her?”
“Ye little thief,” Shanna hissed at Jaime.
This time it was Jaime who answered, sounding rather wearied herself. “Oh, Shanna, do no’ be ridiculous. I know the truth of what ye did, how ye spurned him for half a man. What was there to steal when ye’d already run off with your lover? Lorne came to me willingly. And as he stated, he was never yours.”
“Half a man?” Gille was practically purple at that insult. “I should have paid those bastards twice as much to make ye disappear,” Gille shouted, stabbing his finger toward Lorne.
Paid to make him disappear… That was a surprise. “Pardon?” Lorne blinked in shock.
Shanna’s head whipped toward her lover, and she slapped his arm. Gille blanched, clearly regretting saying those words aloud.
“What he means is, he would have paid for ye to disappear,” Shanna said. “But of course, he would never do that because it would be wrong. Right?”
“He did it,” Gordie said, his small voice steady. “I heard him say he did on the ship.”
“Ye little bastard,” Gille shouted toward the lad. Fists bunched, he marched forward.
However, Lorne need not have punched his brother in the mouth because Mungo did it for him, knocking Gille to the ground with Shanna screaming in frantic panic beside him.