Page 17 of A Scottish Bride for the Duke (Scottish Duchesses #1)

The lady looked at her, brows pulling together. “I say,” she said with a healthy dose of disgust. “It’s not contagious, is it? I wouldn’t like my dearest Eliza to catch anything.”

“It’s just a headache, ma’am,” Isobel said, almost wishing it was something else so she could see the fear on Lady Northley’s face.

But that wouldn’t be charitable.

She was just so tired .

The duchess took her arm and made their escape. In the carriage home, she looked at Isobel in sympathy. “That bad?”

“I just miss home.”

“I understand. And it can be difficult when you are the center of everyone’s attention, good or bad. The ton is a dangerous beast to tame.”

“Ye can say that again.” Isobel sniffed.

“No matter. Rest up tonight, and you’ll find the world looks better tomorrow.”

Isobel smiled, but although she hadn’t lied about the headache, precisely, she had no desire to go to bed and stare at the ceiling.

London held so many things, but on nights like this, when the summer seemed as though it hovered right at the back of her consciousness, she missed Scotland more than ever.

She missed the drizzle, the baleful glare of the sheep, the sharp angles of the hills, the rocky barrenness of the ground. The Highlands were beautiful in a way that felt so alien from London’s cultivated gardens and brick houses.

Her homesickness bit into her chest, and she sat in the drawing room before the embers of the past fire, the ache rising to her throat.

What she would give to have her horse and her freedom back—and to ride through the hills, through the bracken and gorse.

She missed drinking from the small lochs, missed the way her feet sank in the silt shore, missed the soaring sky, the sense that in the Highlands, she was a tiny piece of the world. Like everything around her extended forever.

The door opened. She glanced up in time to see the duke.

“Oh,” he said, sounding unsure. “I didn’t know you were in here. Are you… are you all right?”

“I—” She dabbed at her cheeks and gave her best attempt at a smile. It wobbled somewhat. “I’m all right.”

He ventured a little further into the room and held up the bottle he carried in his fist. “This might help if you’re amenable to some company.”

Company. She didn’t know if that was what she wanted, but there was no antagonism in his voice, and maybe being alone would do her more harm than good.

“Do ye have glasses?” she asked.

“I was going to drink from the bottle itself.” He settled himself into the chair beside her, close enough that she could reach out and touch him if she wanted.

He removed the cork and took a swig, handing it to her.

“A lady should never do such a thing,” she said primly, but she accepted the offered bottle.

The brandy burned her throat on the way down, and she spluttered, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Your first time?” he asked, amused.

“Yes. It’s not as pleasant as I thought it would be.”

“It grows on you.” He rested the bottle on the cushions beside them. “Why are you sitting in here alone? Is my mother in bed?”

“I asked her to come home early.”

“Why?” His voice was soft, and the hint of kindness in it made her release the last of her inhibitions.

“I got a little homesick.”

“Edinburgh?”

“No. My home in the Highlands.” She smiled as she thought. “It was a place I always felt as though I could be myself.”

“And you don’t here?”

“Surrounded by brick and stone?” She raised her gaze to him. “I grew up in an estate so far from the world, it often felt as though nothing else existed. We had local villages, I suppose, but it was truly—it was wonderful. I don’t have the words. And here is… different.”

“It’s certainly not the wilderness,” he said dryly.

“If I marry an English lord I will have to stay here.” She hadn’t meant to say the words, but they were out now, and there was no point trying to deny them.

She would have to stay. Although, hopefully, she would visit her parents in the Highlands again, she would never get to live that free, unrestrained life she’d experienced with them.

That was the pain of growing up, she supposed. No matter who she married—or where—her life would change. But the fear of having to flee for her life, and then the knowledge that she would have to marry, and her future husband was unlikely to be one whom she loved or respected, ate at her.

“You must marry an English lord?” the duke asked, but to her surprise, his voice was quiet, respectful.

“Daenae ask me for information I cannae give ye.” She winced at the sudden strength of her accent, the way it came out whenever she felt stressed.

But he merely glanced at her. “I think I know by now that you’re not going to reveal all the secrets of your past to me. It just strikes me as sad that you feel you must do something that evidently makes you unhappy.”

“I’ll adjust,” she said robustly, even if her voice cracked a little at the end.

“Yes,” he murmured. “I have no doubt you will. I just… think you should not have to. Not to this degree. I would not wish unhappiness on anyone.”

She turned to face him then, lit by the smoldering embers of the fire. Here, he appeared softened, as though the warm, red light had filed down his edges.

“Are ye never unhappy?”

His brows arched. “I? Why? Do you think I am?”

“Well, ye are a duke. And you have a duty to yer—yer world. And to yer maither. Ye do many things out of duty, I think.”

Including tolerating Eliza and accompanying her to events she doubted he would have attended otherwise.

Yet, despite his scowling, he had not uttered one word of complaint.

“Duty is a duke’s backbone. If he does not have duty, he has nothing.”

“Isn’t that lonely?”

He blinked as though surprised she had asked such a thing. But then he sighed, his shoulders loosening.

“Sometimes, I suppose,” he admitted. “I am not a man ruled by his impulses. One must find ways of overcoming them. True weakness comes from being bound to one’s baser instincts.

If I were to lose myself in loneliness, I would achieve nothing.

And if you consider my position logically, I am extremely fortunate. ”

Intrigued, she leaned in closer. “So ye allow yourself none of yer impulses?” she murmured. “That, to me, seems like a terrible life to lead.”

The corner of his mouth quirked in a wry smile. “Save for you, my lady. You have gotten under my skin since the moment you arrived.”

“Aye, and I wanted to, too.”

“I know.”

“Ye were so unwelcoming and cold,” she said, feeling the need to explain herself.

Yes, he had not behaved well, but neither had she. Looking back, she could admit that now—and admit the need to change her ways.

“And so I reacted against it. But I think maybe I shouldn’t have pushed ye.”

“Maybe not. And yet you are a thorn in my side despite it all.” His gaze passed from her eyes to fix on her mouth, and she felt the ghost of that gaze everywhere.

A touch. Her breath hitched, and she glanced away.

“Do ye often fence?”

He laughed then, a low, rough sound that scraped against her skin. “I knew you were watching me that day.”

“I never expected to find ye half naked in yer garden.”

“Is that so?” He leaned in closer, his voice dropping. “And did you like what you saw, Isobel?”

And yet—and yet she could not bring herself to deny him this liberty when she had dreamed about him taking so many more liberties with her. So, she gathered her courage and met his gaze boldly.

“I did,” she said.

“Mm.” He drew the sound out, and it felt as though it rumbled from his chest. “I like it when you’re direct with me.”

She exhaled through her nose in amusement. “I don’t know how to be anything else.”

“No. Perhaps that’s why I can’t stop thinking about you.” He reached out a hand and caressed down her jaw. “I keep thinking about that kiss,” he said, leaning closer, his eyes intent on hers. “Do you?”

“I…” Yes . Of course. “Would ye have kissed me if yer maither hadn’t returned home?” she asked instead.

A pause where she could practically see the way he weighed up his answer. “Yes,” he said eventually. “Does that alarm you?”

It should. And yet she couldn’t lie.

“No.”

He smiled. Another uncharacteristic point of softness. “I thought you didn’t like me.”

“I don’t,” she said, but she didn’t think that was the truth anymore. And maybe it never had been. “I thought ye didn’t like me.”

“Mm.” His breath danced across her face. “I thought so too.”

She didn’t want him to move away, didn’t want this oddly tender air of intimacy to end.

In this room, by the firelight’s gentle glow, they were not a duke and a Scottish lady; they were a man and a woman. When he looked at her like this, the intensity in his gaze, she felt as though he saw her, the essence of her.

And she… she thought she saw him, too. A man ruled by duty, who believed that was his higher purpose, even more his own happiness.

Perhaps he’d never sought his own happiness—perhaps he had never known what it was like to ride across the hills and by the lochs, the wind in his hair, and a song in his heart.

All the power, none of the freedom.

Abruptly, her heart ached for him.

“What’s that look for?” he murmured.

“Ye think it is sad that I must marry an English lord against my will… but I think it is sad that you prize duty beyond all other things.”

“Why?”

“Because duty can bring satisfaction, but can it bring happiness?”

His breath expelled heavily, and she was certain that this would be the moment he would retreat from her. She had pushed too hard, and he would not forgive her.

She prepared herself for it. The inevitability, and the sense of emptiness that would follow his departure from the room. The rejection.

“If anyone else had asked me that, I would have told them it was none of their business.” He caught a lock of her hair between his fingers. “But you and I are something different from the usual.”

“What are we?”

“Outside of convention,” he murmured. “At least for today.”

“At least for now,” she agreed.

She met his eyes, near black in the darkness, even if she felt as though she could read him. Then she said something she had not dreamed of saying to a man in this way.

“Kiss me.”