8. Rory
RORY
This has to be a fucking joke.
The door slams, rattling in the frame. I hear her footsteps marching across the library, and a moment later, there’s another bang. Christ.
I rub a hand over my jaw. The stubble is rough. I should have shaved before the flight this morning, but I got caught on the phone to the New York office. If I’d known I was going to walk into this, I’d have?—
My phone rings.
“Kinnaird.”
“Rory, just checking in to make sure you’ve taken delivery of Miss Jones.” Hugh Cresswell, Executive Director of the Kinnaird Foundation. “Trevor spoke highly of her after the contracts were signed, and I gather Annabel has been singing her praises.”
I grit my teeth. “She’s here.”
“Everything alright?” I can hear him typing at the same time. “I know it’s not ideal, but let’s get this squared away first, and then we can start—” He pauses, choosing his words with care. Hugh was a high-ranking barrister for years. “—on putting things right, shall we say.”
He’s too polite to spell it out, but we both know exactly what’s on the line: money, reputation, and the last scrap of goodwill he hasn’t already burned.
I grunt an acknowledgement. For centuries, the Duke of Kinnaird has added to the family archives – a carefully curated legacy of power, wealth, duty and influence.
Until now, that is. I look around the shitshow of my father’s study.
His diaries are a chaos of half-baked anecdotes, conflicting accounts and whisky-stained ramblings.
As if I don’t have enough to deal with trying to pull the estate, the foundation, and the whole bloody house of cards back into order before it all collapses.
“You know this is the only way to get on top of things.” Hugh has an uncanny ability to read my mind.
“I know.” How the hell am I supposed to tell him that the idea of bringing in a writer was great in theory, but the reality was a disturbingly sexy redhead I never expected to see again?
I walk across to the window, raking a hand through my hair.
I focus on the foundation reports, the financial projections, the estate liabilities – anything but the memory of Edie lying against crisp white sheets, her mouth swollen from my kiss, the way she’d arched up to me when I…
For fuck’s sake.
“Right,” says Hugh, still rattling on his keyboard. “I’ll send over that report in a sec. We need to finalize the next round of grants by month’s end.”
I hear the crunch of tyres on gravel and look outside to see my fucking brother. Jamie’s tearing down the drive in his convertible, two blondes beside him, a champagne bottle in one hand and his dogs hanging out of the backseat .
“Phoebe’s pushing for a meeting about the Palo Alto school project as well,” Hugh says. “Ideally, we could do with you over there to show face. You know the Americans love a duke; you’re practically royalty to them.”
I snort, shaking my head. “Hardly.” The irony is that when I’m over there I can fly under the radar, live a normal life.
Or I could. That’s what got me into this fucking mess in the first place.
At least I stuck to my golden rule and didn’t take Edie back to the flat overlooking Central Park.
I’ve been burned before by women who’re more interested in my net worth than who I am.
Bartender. I shake my head again, half smiling despite myself.
“We need you over in Inverness for a meeting on Friday. That’s not going to be a problem? Do you want us to come to you?”
“I’ll come over. But I’m going to have to stay put for a couple of months, keep an eye on things from up here.”
“Understandable.” Hugh thinks I’m talking about getting the estate under control. He’s no idea I’m not letting Edie Jones out of my sights while she’s working on my father’s memoir.
“And there’s?—”
I don’t need to hear it. Hugh’s too circumspect to say it outright, but we both know the truth. If we don’t shore up the foundation and get the estate back under control, there won’t be a legacy left. After everything my father squandered, I refuse to be the one who loses it all.
I cut him off midsentence. “I’ll catch up with you tomorrow. I’ve got something on right now.” I hang up before he can argue.
Fuck it .
“Come on, you two.”
My father’s study still holds the faint scent of the pipe he used to smoke – just one of those quirks that either charmed or repelled, depending on your opinion of him.
The air inside remains thick and heavy, so it’s a relief to step out into the crisp bite of a late autumn afternoon.
Bramble and Tilly dart into the trees, noses to the ground, plumed tails wagging with glee.
Spaniels make everything better – and after the day I’ve had, I’m bloody grateful for them.
I wander down toward the loch, feet crunching on the gravel.
Tilly barks and I hear the clucking of a pheasant and the flap of wings as it makes an escape.
On the other side of the water, the purple shoulders of the hills touch the pink-streaked evening sky.
I feel my shoulders drop as I walk. Funny to think how many times before my ancestors must have trodden the same path, letting the beauty of the estate we call home, work its magic.
It’s better than any therapy, and right now, it’s just as well I have it because I am royally fucked.
It serves me right for leaving it to Hugh – telling him he could handle the hiring and firing while I tried to get a grip on the million other moving parts of running the estate after my father died.
I’d say it was unexpected, but let’s be honest – anyone that pickled in whisky and nicotine was never going to make old bones.
And no, I wasn’t drowning in grief. None of us were. Which, I imagine, would have devastated the egotistical old bastard. But you reap what you sow, and scandal or not, I wasn’t surprised when Finn didn’t show up to the funeral.
To my father, it was all just a game – a roll of the dice, a bluff at the table.
The staff, the foundation, even the land itself – just pieces on the board of his grand performance.
And now it’s on me to fix the mess he left behind.
To make sure his recklessness doesn’t cost the people who actually depend on this place.
The worst thing is I care about it all. I can’t just let it crumble like my father intended to.
Finn washed his hands of all of it, took himself off to the island of Benruar to run his whisky distillery and make his fortune independent of the estate.
Jamie, on the other hand, is large as life.
If it wasn’t for his charm, I’d kill him with my bare hands.
He might be the Highlands’ answer to Daniel Cleaver from the Bridget Jones movies, but I can’t argue with the work he’s doing here rewilding the estate and working with the community.
You need to have some fun, darling, let yourself go.
Duty isn’t everything. I can hear Annabel’s crisp tones ringing in my head.
I tried that in Manhattan and look where we are now.
I’ve got ninety-nine problems, and most of them are wrapped up in a curvy redheaded package that I never thought I’d set eyes on again.
That, and what she might uncover when she starts digging through the shitshow that is my father’s study.
I climb over the gate and head down the tree-lined path that leads to the forest.
The first problem is – she shouldn’t be here.
And that’s on me for taking my eye off the ball.
If I’d been paying attention, I might have taken a closer look at whoever it was Annabel was quietly recommending.
One glance at the paperwork, a quick online search, and I’d have put two and two together – nipped it in the bud before we got to this point. But I didn’t.
I try to recall what Hugh said on the phone.
I’m fairly sure she’s got a first in English Literature and History, and Annabel’s glowing reference sealed the deal.
I can’t even deny she did a solid job on the memoir – what I read was sharp, witty, and well written.
And that’s coming from someone who’s very much not the target audience.
That night in New York was a mistake. She doesn’t belong in my world, but for the next few months, she’s in it. I can’t trust her. But I can’t stop thinking about her, and that’s almost worse.
The light has shifted, and the loch stretches out before me, the darkening water shifting under the early evening sky.
The air is sharp, a reminder that the season is changing and I need to be ready.
This place is mine to protect. Not just the land, the buildings, or the money, but the people who work here, who rely on Loch Morven for their families and their livelihood.
The foundation, the estate, the countless jobs tied to the landholdings and the businesses – I don’t have the luxury of making mistakes.
It’s my duty to make good everything that’s been screwed up in the past.
Someone has to step up and take on the mantle of Duke of Kinnaird, even if…
Even if the bloodline isn’t as clean as everyone thinks. But that secret stays buried. It has to. I shake my head. There’s no time for doubts right now.
That night in New York the week before he died, I let myself slip, allowed myself the luxury of pretending I wasn’t this.
And now she’s here, and I can’t figure out if I’m angrier with myself for taking my eye off the ball or for the way I reacted when she walked into my father’s study this afternoon.
I can’t afford distractions, and Edie Jones is nothing if not a distraction.