Page 108 of The Scottish Duke's Deal

Something about his eyes unsettled her. They were a strange shade—grey, maybe, or blue—but the color didn’t matter. It was the way he looked at her. As if he knew something she didn’t.

No bow. No name. No apology for speaking to a child uninvited. Just that quiet, smug calm.

She kept her body in front of Penelope.

“If you’re truly a friend of the Duke’s,” she said slowly, “then I imagine you wouldn’t mind telling me your name.”

The man smiled. “Names are such stiff things,” he said. “They ruin all the mystery.”

Eleanor’s heart began to beat faster with the kind of tight, prickling unease that made her skin pull too tightly over her bones.

“Penelope,” she said without turning around, “go to the house.”

“I don’t like him?—”

“Now.”

The girl hesitated. Something in Eleanor’s voice must have struck her because she mounted the pony without another word and began to ride toward the stable yard at a slow trot.

The man was watching her.

“That was very motherly,” he said.

Eleanor waited until she was halfway there before speaking again.

“You were watching her.”

“Of course, I was,” the man said, easily. “She’s lovely.”

“She is none of your concern.”

The man tilted his head. “And yet, I find myself terribly concerned.”

Eleanor’s steps slowed. The grass was damp beneath her slippers, and somewhere in the trees a bird gave a long, descending call. The world felt wrong. Tilted. Like something unseen had already broken.

“Where did you say you were from?” she asked, voice still even.

“I didn’t,” the man said. His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “But if you must know, I’ve come from the Highlands.”

“Then you must’ve traveled a long way.” She paused. “What was your business with the Duke?”

He gave a soft, mocking chuckle. “Just wanted to talk. I thought he might be… open to revisiting old acquaintances. Seems I missed him.”

“You did,” Eleanor said. “By hours.”

“Shame,” he murmured, adjusting his cuffs with care. “Though I suppose I found something better.”

Her breath caught, but she was determined not to let it show. “What is your name?”

The man looked almost entertained now. “Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” he said, giving her a shallow bow that somehow felt offensive, “in another circumstance, I might’ve introduced myself as Callum.”

Callum.

The name struck no chord in her mind, but her stomach turned. There was something theatrical about the way he said it. Something dangerous. As if she were supposed to recognize him.As if his name alone should make her flinch. And yet—nothing. But her instincts screamed.