by Julia Kelly
“What?” he asked, trying to work out why his best friend’s wife was glowering in front of him.
“You heard me,” she said.
He leaned a little to the right and addressed Gavin over Ina’s shoulder. “What’s going on?”
“Don’t speak to him, speak to me,” said Ina, bracing her hands against his desk. “You are going to kill yourself if you don’t slow down and take a day off from these papers.”
“But these papers have to be written and edited and printed,” he said. “That’s how this works. Ask your husband. News happens. We cover it. More news happens. We cover that.”
“Not today you don’t,” she said. “I know for a fact that you have deputies who can run this paper for one day without you.”
His eyes slid over to Eva who, exhausted as he knew she was, was grinning with delight at the fact that someone he couldn’t push back against was taking him to task.
“Eva’s been here just as many hours as I have,” he said, feeling a bit like a schoolboy pointing the finger to land everyone else in trouble too and not caring a whit about it.
“I know that,” said Ina, whirling around on her heel. “That’s why I’m also banishing Eva from this office for the day.”
“What?” Eva squeaked. “Gavin, tell her that she can’t do that.”
Gavin shrugged. “She’s right. If you both keep working at this pace, it’s going to break you.”
“And who’s going to put out the paper if we’re not here?” Moray asked suspiciously.
“I am,” said Gavin. “At least, I will with the help of your other section editors. We’re more than capable of taking over the work from time to time, and now is one of those times.”
“You want to?” Moray asked.
When he’d given Gavin a role the previous year, Moray had been pleased to see his friend’s investment in the paper he loved. Over the past six months, he’d pulled Gavin in for more and more editing responsibilities and asked him to help manage reporters’ pitches and assign stories. Now Gavin managed all arts and culture content and had acquired something of Moray’s love for the business. However, Moray hadn’t realized that Gavin would be willing to step in when needed.
“I do,” said Gavin.
“Then it’s settled,” said Ina. “Eva, I’m taking you for tea at the Thistle Down Hotel because Catriona warned me that you don’t eat enough in this dreadful office, and then I’m going to send you home to her. I have no doubt she’ll be delighted to have you at home for the day.”
Gavin’s spitfire wife rounded on Moray. “And you.”
“I’m almost afraid,” he tried to bluster through his exhaustion.
Her eyes narrowed, but there was no mistaking the indulgence in her smile. “There’s a horse waiting at our stable for you. Go ride, exercise some to wind down, and then go home and sleep in a real bed for once.”
“How do you know where I’ve been sleeping?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes. “You have your informants, and I have mine. Now, if you’re not both out of this office in ten seconds I’ll walk into the print room and start overturning trays of type.”
“You wouldn’t,” he said, sitting up abruptly.
“Do you really want to test her?” asked Gavin.
Moray was up like a shot, shouting the day’s plans at Gavin, grabbing his coat, and pulling Eva by the arm.
Forty minutes later he was atop a lively horse that practically hummed with energy. They’d just crossed through the gates of Holyrood Park, and he nudged the horse from a walk to a trot. Ina, he had to admit, had been right. He did need some exercise, and she was probably right about him needing his bed too. She was a damned meddling woman, but he couldn’t pretend to feel anything but adoration for the brilliant sculptor who’d made his best friend so happy.
Sleep would come soon, but for now the flow of adrenaline through his veins had him soaring. He urged the horse into a full-on canter, letting it focus all its nervous energy into streaking across the long stretches of lawn. The pounding of the horse’s hooves filling his ears and the brilliant sun warming his back as the wind whipped through his hair felt incredible.
The only thing better would be tasting Caroline.
It was thoughts like that that had been pestering him even as he threw himself into his work. He’d been unable to shake her from his mind, so he’d been indulging, letting the images linger as he wondered about the weight of her breasts in his hands, the softness of her belly, and the saltiness of her skin under his tongue. How would she kiss? What would her arousal taste like? How would it feel to sink into her?
He still wanted her story. It would send papers flying out of paperboys’ hands and frustrate his competitors, and yet he couldn’t stop his baser nature, which wanted to claim that smart mouth and soften those flashing eyes until she was moaning in his arms.
He crested a gentle hill and spotted a carriage in the distance. He pulled to the side of the park’s dirt road, thinking to overtake the slower-moving vehicle, but as he thundered closer he realized that the small vehicle wasn’t moving and was, in fact, listed at an angle.
He pulled gently on the reins, slowing his mount. He’d check on the carriage’s driver and passenger and make sure they weren’t in need of assistance. Then he could finish his ride and fall into bed.
As the carriage came into view, he saw it was one of those fast, light phaetons favored by a certain class of gentlemen who preferred showing off his skill with the traces rather than providing for the comfort of whoever was unfortunate enough to be seated next to him. In all likelihood a rock or some other obstacle had struck one of the wheels and a natural weakness in the axle had caused it to snap.
He slowed as he approached the vehicle, and a man sitting next to a woman in pale yellow with a hat obscuring her face looked up. Trevlan. Of course he’d be the sort of man to own a frivolous carriage as this one.
“In need of assistance?” Moray asked, more than a little smug at having caught the pompous ass in a vulnerable moment.
“Moray, glad you came across us,” said Trevlan, but whatever the man said after that was lost on Moray, for the lady looked up from under the brim of her hat and he realized she was Caroline. It was as though his lascivious thoughts had manifested her in the park before him, except, unlike in his fantasies, she looked furious.
Just my luck.
He swallowed hard and forced himself to listen to what Trevlan was going on about.
“. . . stay here, and then I can bring my man out and have this all fixed in no time.”
“What was that again?” he asked with a frown.
Trevlan looked at him as though he were an imbecile. “I said I’d ride into town, but there isn’t a saddle for the horses, so if you were to lend me your mount I could ride in to collect my man.”
Moray’s frown deepened. “But surely any good carriage maker can replace an axle.”
Trevlan drew himself up to his full height, but as Moray was mounted on horseback and therefore sat taller it rather ruined the effect.
“This model was built especially for me, and I can’t have just anyone working on it,” Trevlan said.
“I could go for you,” Moray offered, his eyes sliding over to Caroline. Surely if Trevlan had been driving out with her it would be more appropriate for Moray to go and Trevlan to stay with her. The phaeton was open-topped, so there was little scandalous about the arrangement, but her chaperone had approved an outing with Trevlan. Not him.
“It’ll be faster. I know exactly where his shop is,” said Trevlan.
“And I should stay here with Miss Burkett?” Moray asked, once again giving the man an opportunity to revise his plan.
Trevlan nodded. “That’s right. I’ll just be gone twenty minutes. Maybe a half hour.”
Moray’s eyes flicked over to Caroline. “Are you comfortable with such an arrangement?”
Her lips twisted and she waved a hand. “Oh, don’t mind me at all,” she said i
n that way that meant they should both be minding her. Very much.
“Then it’s settled,” said Trevlan, either not catching her tone or choosing to ignore it. He hopped down from the phaeton’s box. “I’ll be back soon.”
Moray swung his leg over the horse’s back and dismounted, keeping his gaze on Caroline even as she refused to look his way. He handed the reins to Trevlan, who checked the horse, swung up into the saddle, and rode off to leave Moray all alone with the one woman who probably wanted to see him least in this world.
He leaned a shoulder against the carriage and peered up at her. “Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?”
“Stop publishing articles about me in your horrid paper?” she asked hopefully.
“I’m not the only one you need to be concerned with. I’ll have you know that my name ended up in the paper this week,” he said darkly, recalling Ross and the Standard.
She tilted her head. “That article about Mrs. Sullivan’s party?”
“Yes.”
She waved a hand. “That was nothing.”
“I beg your pardon.” It hadn’t been nothing to him. Not with what was at stake.
“It was hardly anything. Just a line or two with your name redacted,” she said.
“Any mention in the newspapers is too much.”
She stared at him with wide eyes and then began to laugh. “You’re really put out by that article, aren’t you?”
He shifted from foot to foot. He was. Why else would he have gone crashing into Ross’s office, demanding that the man never write about him again? There were rules—unwritten ones, yes, but rules nonetheless.
“Surely you can see the irony of this, Mr. Moray,” said Caroline through her laughter.
He didn’t see anything ironic about it at all.
“And I’ll have you know that I saw the Tattler wrote about me again today,” she added.
“It was about apple cake,” he protested.
“Lady Donaghue’s carriage is rather ostentatious, so it was hardly a surprise that one of your reporters would have spotted that if they were watching the house, but I did wonder how you found out about the apple cake,” she said.
“The flavor of cake that’s served when ladies call on one another is innocent. Mucking about with the personal life of a fellow businessman—in the same field, I might add—is an entirely different matter.”
Her eyes shone, and though she was no longer laughing, he knew that she was struggling to restrain herself.
“You’ve had only a tiny taste of what it must be like for one of the people you and your staff write about every day. I can imagine most people enjoy ending up in one of your papers about as much as you do,” she said.
He huffed, removed his hat, and shoved a hand through his hair. She was right. Of course she was right.
“Ah well, the damage is done now,” she said. “Your sterling reputation as an unimpeachable citizen in Edinburgh is tarnished and shall never be clean again.”
She watched him from under the thick fringe of her eyelashes, a little smile tilting the corners of her generous mouth. Something had shifted. This was no longer laughter at his expense. Now she was teasing him, engaging in an entirely more intimate activity requiring enough knowledge of the other person to know where to poke and prod to provoke a reaction without going too far in the process. And what’s more, he liked that she was doing it.
She wasn’t defensive and spiky—or rather, she was, only less so—but now he could detect a warmth about her. It drew him in, making him wonder all sorts of things, like what she was like at home and in the company of friends. What happened when her guard was completely down? When she was stripped of all of the armor she wore every day to face off with men like him? What would it be like if, instead of a newspaperman, he was someone else and she could look at him without the immediate disdain she had for his profession coloring each interaction?
Those were dangerous thoughts, he knew, but he couldn’t stop them.
“I reiterate my earlier offer to make you more comfortable if it’s in my power to do so,” he said.
She sighed and leaned her chin in her hand. “I’m growing rather hungry, but unless you have a full luncheon hidden under your jacket, I suspect your efforts will be for naught.”
He fought to hold back a smile and answered in his gravest tone. “I’m afraid not.”
“Alas.”
They fell into silence, and he watched her in quiet contemplation as she stared off at Arthur’s Seat.
“Tell me, Mr. Moray, have you read Madame Bovary?” she asked rather abruptly.
He looked up at the randomness of the question. “Of course. ‘She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris.’ ”
She sighed. “I suspected as much.”
“Why do you ask?”
“What are your thoughts on ladies reading such novels?” she asked, ignoring his question.
“I think ladies should read whatever they choose. I imagine quite a few of them would come to their wedding night far less traumatized than they might now if they did.”
It was her turn to laugh, but then she settled her chin in her hand with a sigh.
“Do you know, Madame Bovary was one of the first books I ever stole,” he said.
That got her attention. “Stole?”
He nodded. “My father had a shop and didn’t have much money for things like books. He left when I was eleven, and my mother only just managed to apprentice me to a printer when I was twelve. His name was Mr. Woods. Compared to my father, he was a strict but generous man, and he let me read any book in the house once he realized I had a taste for doing so.”
“Then why did you steal a book?” she asked.
He grinned. “Because I’d read all of Mr. Woods’s and needed new material. I went into a bookshop two neighborhoods over from my own and walked out with Flaubert under my coat. And don’t worry—I’ve since paid for my misbegotten books. With interest.”
She laughed, and something around his heart melted. She had a good laugh, deep and throaty and genuine. There was nothing practiced about it. It wasn’t meant to please anyone, but hearing it pleased him.
“May I make a confession?” he asked.
Her brow arched. “Another one?”
“If I don’t walk or move around, it’s quite possible I’ll fall asleep on my feet. Would you care to join me?”
Unlike when he’d escorted her into dinner, this time there was no hesitation when she put her hand in his.
Chapter Ten
WALKING WITH CAROLINE’S hand on his arm felt good, and this time Moray was too tired to push away the thoughts he knew he shouldn’t be having. Instead he closed his eyes and let the spiced scent of her hair waft around him, wrapping him up in a blanket of warmth. If he hadn’t thought she’d snap at him or slap him, he’d have pulled her into the little copse of trees a few yards away, found a soft spot, and wrapped himself around her just to luxuriate in the privilege of holding her. He wanted to pet and stroke until he held in his arms a purring, satisfied woman. And then he wanted to fall asleep with her next to him.
Wisely, he declined to mention this fantasy.
“What are you doing away from your newspapers?” she asked.
“There was a hostile takeover by my closest friend and his wife. A coup of sorts.”
She laughed. “I thought coups usually only happened within governments.”
“They do.”
“Then does that make you the dictator of your papers?” she asked.
“I’m a benevolent dictator at worst, and a caring monarch at best,” he said.
“Then why would anyone want to usurp you?” she asked.
“Sleep.”
Her lips twitched. “Sleep?”
“Apparently I don’t do enough of it.”
“According to whom?” Then she blushed a furious shade of pink, no doubt catching herself in the inappropriate question. “That’s not to say—”<
br />
“No one shares my bed, Miss Burkett, but I’m glad you’re curious enough to wonder.”
She narrowed her eyes. “That wasn’t the intention behind my question and you know it. Besides, it’s hardly an appropriate topic of conversation between a gentleman and a lady.”
“I’m not at all convinced that you’re that interested in appropriate conversation,” he said with a laugh, “but just to put your mind at ease, it was my friends Ina and Gavin Barrett.”
“Lady Barrett and Sir Gavin?” she asked.
“The very same. Have you been introduced?”
She shook her head.
“That’s a situation that should be remedied as soon as possible. You and Ina would become fast friends, which could be dangerous for the male population of Edinburgh,” he said.
“Why would they be aware of your sleeping habits?”
He scrubbed his free hand over his face, realizing that he had at least one day’s growth of stubble covering his chin. Damn. He really must be tired if he hadn’t even remembered to shave that morning.
“I have a nasty habit of sleeping in my office,” he said. “I find myself caught up in the work, and by the time I realize how late it is, it doesn’t make sense to leave only to come back a few hours later.”
He didn’t mention that several of those long nights hadn’t technically been necessary, that his encounters with her had knocked him off his equilibrium—that he retreated to the sanctuary of his office to mull over the problem of her, Ross, the circulation battle being waged through subscriptions and by paperboys across the city, and his next scoop.
“My father was the same,” Caroline said as she tilted her head back and let the April sun fall on her face.
“He was a solicitor?” he asked.
One corner of her mouth crooked. “You needn’t pretend you don’t know everything that’s been printed about me, Mr. Moray.”
“There’s quite a bit I don’t know about you,” he said. “Like why you’re spending so much time with a man like Trevlan.”
“So much time?” she asked with a laugh. “I met him at the theater—the same night I met you, I’ll remind you—and then he sat next to me at dinner. You were also there, as you’ll recall. He took me on a drive this morning, and once again you’re here. I’ve seen Mr. Trevlan as often as I’ve seen you.”