A Duke by Default (Reluctant Royals #2)(3)

So her hair was going to be jacked up, she was going to be depressed, and one of the two things she was trying to avoid most was going to be a constant temptation? Awesome.

She closed her eyes and inhaled, allowing herself a moment to settle as the car carried her toward her destination. She was in Scotland. She was starting a new adventure. She should be excited and ready for anything, not focusing on the negative. This was not the vibe she wanted to put out into the universe.

I am the heroine of my own story. I choose my own path . . .

Portia’s phone chimed and she jumped up in her seat, disoriented and unsure of where she was. She’d nodded off for a second. She glanced out the car window; they were on a residential street now, with rows of squat brick houses.

A message from her twin sister, Reggie, slid into view on her phone screen.

Hey. Did you arrive? Thanks for finding that information about that . . . thing.

It’d been weird when Reggie asked Portia to find one of her online friends who had disappeared, it’d been weirder when Portia had discovered the friend was a guy, and it was peak weird that Reggie was now referring to it as “that thing,” but Portia wouldn’t pry.

I did. And no prob! You know I love playing internet detective.

She saw the three dots that indicated Reggie was typing and wondered if she’d get an explanation, but apparently none was forthcoming.

Do you want to do posts for GirlsWithGlasses/Adventure while you’re there? I understand if you won’t have the time, with all your swordmaking and whatnot, but I’d love it if you could. Readers were super into the first post about the call for an apprentice and when I said you’d been chosen. Plus people like the Wonder Twins aspect of us making content together. I like it too, tbh. Later, loser.

Portia smiled. She and Reggie were still in the process of rebuilding their relationship, mostly via chatting about Reggie’s popular site, GirlsWithGlasses. It was Reggie who had forwarded Portia the link about the apprenticeship after one of her followers had sent it in for the weekly Cool Opportunities posting. Another key aspect of Project: New Portia—stop putting up roadblocks in her relationship with her sister.

I can def write posts. I’m on it! Portia replied, then decided to try to call her boss again.

“Hey, Oracle. Call Bodotria Armory, please.”

“What’s that, lass?” Kevyn asked.

“Just talking to my phone,” she responded brightly, her gaze automatically heading to the left of the car before readjusting and flicking to the right, where it landed on the back of his head. The phone kept ringing and she was sure that this time someone would answer, but then she heard the familiar click as she was transferred to voice mail.

“You say ‘please’ to your phone? I didn’t expect an American to be so polite.”

“I just want to be spared when our AI overlords take power.”

Kevyn laughed. “Did you get a hold of anyone at the armory? Not sure anyone is about now. The area is by the docks and pretty deserted this early.”

Portia shoved a hand into the Birkin and rearranged the mess so that her pepper spray sat atop all the other crap she’d stuffed into the giant bag.

“I’m texting with my boss now,” Portia lied. Kevyn didn’t need to know that she was in a strange country for the first time and that the only people who should have been expecting her likely wouldn’t notice she was missing.

“Tav knows how to send an sms? He’s finally getting it together now that he’ll have you for an apprentice, eh?” Kevyn caught her eye in the rearview mirror and Portia stiffened, though he was grinning. This had gone from friendly to stalkative way too quickly for her liking.

She was too tired and frustrated to be polite. “Am I going to have to mace you?”

He barked out a laugh and smacked the wheel. “Aye! Definitely American! Don’t stress,” he said. “I take lessons at the armory, and everyone’s been on about the American apprentice arriving this week. Cheryl said she’d stalked her InstaPhoto account and the woman was beautiful and glamorous, and seeing as how you’re going to the armory and you’re . . .”

Portia didn’t think psychopaths had the ability to blush as bright red as Kevyn was up in the driver’s seat, so she relaxed her hold on the pepper spray. Besides, anyone who would call her glamorous after the hours she’d spent in transit deserved the benefit of the doubt.

Her anxiety about her apprenticeship eased, but then ratcheted up a notch. People were discussing her and excited for her arrival?

Are they in for a disappointment.

“So people are expecting me. Mr. McKenzie forgot to pick me up at the station and I was starting to wonder if I hadn’t imagined this whole apprenticeship thing.”

“Oh, yeah. Tav is . . .” Kevyn paused, and in the rearview she could see his brow crease. “Tav is a right bawbag at times. But a bawbag who grows on you, I suppose.”

Portia pulled up her web browser and searched “bawbag scottish slang.”

The term bawbag is a Scots word for “scrotum,” which is also slang for an annoying or irritating person.

She’d had only brief contact with the man who would soon be teaching her the ins and outs of Scottish swordmaking, so she couldn’t agree or disagree with that. They’d spoken briefly on the phone, once, and he’d kept the conversation to a minimum—at the end of the call she’d realized that he’d barely spoken at all. Her other correspondence had been with someone named Jamie McKenzie, who seemed cool or, at the very least, more interested in a two-sided conversation.