Return of the Scot (Scots of Honor #1) - Eliza Knight Page 0,3

his.

But he did blame him for selling their birthright. For absconding with the ancient sword that belonged to Lorne.

Gille had always been jealous of him. Once in a fit of rage, he’d mentioned that he no longer wanted to be in Lorne’s shadow. The comment had confused Lorne, for he’d always considered his brother to be his close confidante, despite there being five years between them.

When Lorne was a wee lad, his mother passed from a fever and his father had remarried a bonny lass—Catharine. She’d been sweet and kind to him, and Lorne had loved her. But she’d died soon after birthing Gille, and their father never remarried, often lamenting that two wives gone in half a decade only meant a third would also be sent to an early grave.

Lorne walked to the window and glanced out over the back garden and the sea beyond. The beach where he’d played with his brother, taught him to swim. To skip rocks. Despite their having different mothers, Lorne had always considered Gille to be his full brother. Loved him as such.

“Thank ye, Mrs. Brody.”

“Och, but there is no need to thank me, Your Grace.”

Lorne glanced over his shoulder at the older woman, who fretted with the corner of the bedspread.

“I thank ye all the same.”

She opened her mouth and closed it several times before saying, “Well, ’tis my duty, that’s all. I’m just grateful ye’re alive and have returned.”

Lorne grinned and turned back toward the garden and the lush maze he and his brother had raced through countless times. The same maze where he’d first kissed a lass… Beside it was a graveyard full of beloved animals. Gille had begged their father to bury his favorite dog there, right beside the warhorse their father had taken into battle. The memories made his heart twinge. When at one time it had been the three of them against the world, now he was the only one left standing in this castle that was no longer his.

Where the hell are ye, Gille?

It was hard to imagine that this was what Gille wanted. That he could be so filled with hurt and anger, he would want to leave it all behind.

When their da died in a hunting accident three years prior to Lorne leaving for France, he’d asked Gille to work with him on maintaining their holdings. To be a part of the clans’ daily processes, the judgments. But Gille wanted nothing to do with any of it.

Instead, his brother became quite adept at racking up gambling debts and had a string of scorned lovers, along with their angry fathers, knocking down Lorne’s door. Lorne had done his best to keep them all appeased. Paid off debts. Got his brother out of many a scrape.

Lorne finally had to draw a line, hoped that taking Gille in hand would bring the man to some sense. But his plan backfired. When a local lord had come to claim the coin Gille lost at Edinburgh’s gambling tables, Lorne had denied the payment, and his brother had been arrested. Lorne could still hear him shouting, “I’ll never forgive ye for this. Ye’ve betrayed me. A curse on ye! Ye’re no brother of mine!”

Lorne had ignored the words of an angry lad. But perhaps he should have listened. He hoped his actions would have taught his wayward brother a lesson, that he would return to Dunrobin a new man, a matured young lord. That was not the case, it seemed.

Was this Gille’s revenge—getting rid of what he knew Lorne loved?

A bevy of servants carried in a large tub, then poured bucket upon bucket of steaming water inside. Mungo remained behind to assist in his bath, but Lorne sent him away. He wasn’t ready yet to reveal the scars on his body from his suffering. Over the weeks, the bruises had faded. His tormentors had been kind in leaving him with all his fingers, toes and teeth, but they’d not been so kind in other ways.

Lorne tossed off his clothes and climbed into the tub. He leaned his head back on the rim. The last time he had a warm bath might have been the last time he was home—two years shy of a decade, when it had felt as if his world was falling apart. The very reason he’d accepted his commission overseas. A time he preferred not to remember.

A soft knock interrupted his darkening thoughts. Mungo entered, carrying a tray of food that smelled as though it had come