by Christi Caldwell, Eva Devon, Elizabeth Essex, Anthea Lawson
“Perhaps.” She pursed her lips, then crushed them between her teeth to keep the corners of her shy smile from turning up. “A little, perhaps.”
“Enough to encourage you to do something scandalous? To leave your hidebound, little world?”
She shook her head more emphatically. “My world is neither hidebound nor small, Hamish. It is the same as everyone else’s. Only not as…extensive or exciting.”
“Your world it is not nearly as extensive as it ought to be. It is not even expansive enough for another lesson in kissing. When was the last time you were kissed, Elspeth?”
She sighed. “At exactly fourteen minutes after eleven o’clock on Tuesday evening last.”
His need struck him like a heavy wave—lust rose in him like a spring tide. He battered it back behind a dam of determination and restraint—damn flimsy materials on the best of days, but entirely permeable under the onslaught of this clever, sweet lass who looked like an angel, and left him in a hell of wanting.
The devil was surely laughing now. As was his father.
Ballocks to them both.
He would win her yet.
Chapter 16
Hamish was already at work, unloading a wagonload of bundled straw for the thatching when Elspeth slipped out of the house just as the early summer dawn brought first light.
“Where did you go last night?” she said by way of greeting. But the question had kept her up all night, tossing and turning in her narrow but comfortable bed. She hated to think of him sleeping under a damp hedgerow like a tramp, but the Aunts had forbidden her from offering him shelter within the cottage, and even overruled his sleeping in the empty barn.
“Miss Otis.” He tipped his slouchy hat, and searched behind her for her minders.
“They’re not up yet.”
“In that case, good morning, Elspeth.” He reached out to capture her hand, and bring it to his lips. “I snuck off to Cathcart Lodge. The staff know me, and are prepared to keep quiet in exchange for a rather generous consideration, which also covers Fergus there”—he indicated the lodge keeper who was already high upon Dove Cottage’s roof—“managing the actual thatching, and I get a soft, clean bed.”
As little as she had liked the thought of him in the hedgerow, she didn’t like to think of him in a soft, clean bed, either. Because an unhelpfully vivid picture rose in her mind’s eye, treating her to an absolutely spectacular vision of Hamish Cathcart half-clothed and half-naked, lying with his arm just so above the pillow…
“Elspeth? Miss Otis?”
Elspeth tethered her brain back to the present. “Do you really mean to patch the thatch yourself?”
“I do.” He settled a yelm of rolled straw onto his back and climbed up the rickety ladder as if he did it every day. “I’m a third son, Elspeth, not a pampered heir. But I’ve brought along Fergus to take me in charge. With any luck, we’ll be done before your Aunts even know he’s up there.”
An eminently practical plan. Elspeth had to admire his forethought in arranging things so neatly—amongst other things she admired, like his long, lean legs, and his well-formed shoulders, and his rangy, muscled back. But she knew better than most not to judge a person on appearance alone. But with Hamish, there was also his clever, amusing mind.
She shaded her eyes to gaze up at him, this handsome, amusing man. Whom she had thought of all the night through. “May I help, as well?”
He eyed her browned arms, and Elspeth could not keep herself from curling her calloused hands into fists to keep herself from feeling overly gauche. But they were not in a gilded mansion now, and he’d likely want calluses of his own after thatching the roof.
“No perfumed miss, you,” he observed.
Elspeth decided to take that as a compliment. “Aye, although I will have you know I do use soap.”
“Verbena.”
That unmistakable compliment warmed her more thoroughly than the rising sun.
“I suppose you could help, at that,” he agreed, as if he were doing her the grandest of favors. “If you’d pass those bundles up to me—the yelms aren’t heavy.”
Elspeth set herself to the task, mostly because it was the sensible thing to do—the sooner he was finished with the job, the sooner he’d leave—but also because she liked this strange mixture of excitement and longing that stirred her up inside in his presence. She liked the push pull of their conversations, the tart pleasure of sparring with him so pleasantly.
She would miss that when he was gone.
She had missed it terribly, when she’d come running home, only to find Aunt Isla not nearly as ill as expected, and only taking a turn for the worse whenever a return to Edinburgh was mentioned. So Elspeth had best take advantage of Hamish’s company now, while she could.
And so, once all the bundles of straw had been passed up to him, she amused him by scrambling nimbly onto the roof, and continuing to make herself useful, twisting up the hazel sticks used to anchor the stacked straw thatch. She’d attempted to patch the thinning roof a time or two herself, and a miserable difficult job it had been. But working together with Hamish and Fergus in companionable silence, the three of them were able to make the repairs in less than half the time it might otherwise have taken.
A feeling of contentment washed of her like a balm—it was always a lovely thing to complete a task well, and a lovelier thing to know that her aunts’ roof was now sturdy enough to withstand next winter’s rains.
His work done, Fergus climbed down from the roof, but Elspeth was loath to return to earth where she would have to take up the weight of chores and care once more. Up on the roof, the summer day boded clear and fair, and the orchard was filling with birdsong. It was all as familiar and comfortable as her old, green country cloak. Why then did she miss the noisy hustle and dirty bustle of Auld Reeky?
Because that was where Hamish would be soon.
But he was here now, with her, on a roof, looking rugged and rumpled and manly with his sleeves rolled back to expose his forearms. Looking like forever.
Elspeth leaned her elbows back against the stiff prickle of the thatch, and made herself look away from him and his intriguing forearms. Over the trees and rooftops, the land stretched away in a hundred tumbled shades of green. “It’s almost as if you can see the whole of the world beyond the village from up here.”
Hamish put a bit of straw between his teeth, and looked to the east. “Can you see as far as Edinburgh?”
“No,” she sighed and changed the direction of her gaze northward, orienting herself by the hulking comfort of the Pennine Hills. “I can’t let my gaze reach quite that far.”
“Or your ambitions?” he asked casually, shading his eyes from the sun, as if he had no vested interest in the answer. As if it were not the whole of the reason he had come to find her.
“Perhaps,” she answered truthfully, for once not trying to evade the real subject that lay between them like a fish on the bank of a burn, gasping for water. The truth was she wanted both worlds—she wanted to be able to take care of the Aunts, to repay in kind the sacrifices they had made for her. But she also wanted to be with Hamish, and talk to him of books and lessons in kissing, and feel beautiful and clever and brilliant and capable of genius again. “I have been writing,” she confessed. “Or rather rewriting A Memoir of a Game Girl—secretly, of course.”
She had stuffed rags beneath her attic door so the Aunts couldn’t hear the telltale scratch of the pen against the foolscap or see the light from her candlestubs as she worked into the night.
Hamish rolled toward her, onto his side, so he could search her face. “I am glad, but you look tired.”
“I am. But not so tired or awful as I would if they found out.”
“What would happen if they did?”
“They’d be horrified.” She was sure of it. And she was just as sure that she didn’t want to horrify them. The Aunts might be strict and fussy and not nearly as much fun as Aunt Augusta, but they were her family. And the
y needed her now, the same way she had needed them as a child. Her absence had more than discommoded them—Isla had made herself ill with worry.
“Elspeth? Elspeth!”
It was as if the mere mention of the Aunts had conjured them out of the cottage. Elspeth knew she ought to call down and tell them where she was. But she didn’t. Because that would be the end of contentment and ease. So she raised her finger to her lips to signal Hamish to silence, flattened herself against the thatch, and waited until the Aunts’ fussy murmurings faded slowly into the morning’s silence.
“I’m trying to understand.” He reached idly for her work-roughened hand. “Clearly you’re not entirely happy and easy here—why would you not want to be free to return to Edinburgh with me?”
Nay, it would not, because as much as she wanted to go, she could not bear to leave the Aunts behind. And Elspeth was sure he did not mean the invitation in the same way her foolish heart had instantly taken it—literally. It was like a fever dream, the idea that she could go back to Edinburgh with him, and be with him always. In real life, earls’ sons did not marry scandalous writers’ bastard daughters.
For despite Aunt Augusta’s kind claim to the contrary, the sisters Murray had explained that there was simply no evidence—no documents or witnesses—to prove that her parents had ever been married. Elspeth was as she had always been, illegitimate. And that, more than the caps or the quiet life in a forgotten village, was what made her an unmarriageable spinster.
For her foolish heart’s sake, it were best if she kept her distance. “Hamish—”
“But what about our lessons in kissing?” He drew her hand to his mouth, and suited words to deed, brushing her knuckles against his lips. “I, for one, was rather looking forward to more tuition.”
Elspeth felt the scorching heat burn up her cheeks and sweep to the roots of her hair. Oh, to kiss him again. To feel wanted and desirable. To feel such pleasure. But then where would she be? Rolling about a roof with a man who could not marry her.
It was an exquisite torture to have him so near—and yet so very, very far. “I am sorry, Hamish. Really I am. I wish I could be different, really I do.”
He let go of her hand, and looked away into the middle distance. “If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride, isn’t that what they say?”
The quiet regret in his voice made her own throat hot and dry. “They say a lot of things.”
“They say you should meet me tonight.” His tone was urgent, more determinedly charming. “One last time. A walk, a cup of tea, a chance to talk privately. At nightfall, when your Aunts seek their beds. They won’t even know you’re gone,” he promised. “Live a little, Elspeth Otis, just this once, before you pack yourself away on the shelf.”
He saw too much, and not enough, her Hamish. “And then will you go home to Edinburgh, and leave me in peace?”
“I will.”
The relief she ought to have felt was hollow—empty and unhappy. As if she’d made a bad bargain.
Hamish pressed his advantage. “Tonight.” He stroked the backs of his fingers along the high arc of her cheekbones, and slowly but purposefully pulled her to him for a long, lingering, incendiary kiss that filled her to the brim with longing. “At nightfall. Meet me in the orchard for one last lesson in kissing.”
Yes, she would meet him. Yes, she wanted one last lesson in kissing. And by nightfall she might want something more. “Aye, I—”
That was when she heard it—the distant toll of the church bell calling the village to worship.
“Oh, no.” Elspeth felt all the last of her comfort and ease drain away, to be replaced with cold, sickening dread. “Oh, Hamish, I’d completely forgotten it was Sunday.”
Chapter 17
Never having been much of a churchgoing sort of fellow, Hamish didn’t share her dread, but he did understand family obligations. “I shouldn’t have kept you. But I won’t regret it. Not for a moment. In fact, why don’t we make the most of the moment—why wait until tonight? It is a perfect morning for fishing, and we can make up for the sin of missing kirk by getting fresh fish for breakfast.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Hamish,” she havered. “This is already a disaster.”
“Only if you let it be.” He did not wait for her to agree, but seized the day, and took her by the hand. “Come. We’ll head down to the burn. I brought my gear from Cathcart Lodge, and I saw some old fishing tackle in your shed that I’m sure will do the trick.”
“Is there a trick to catching fish?”
“Oh, aye. Fear not, I’ll teach you everything you need to know,” he promised, lest she be put off. “You won’t even have to get your feet wet.”
She held on to whatever objections she might have had, allowed him the pleasure of taking her by the hand and leading her down the ladder, and followed him along the rocky burn to a still pool, from whence he might instruct her.
“We’ll start with the grip. Thumb on top, like so.” He moved nearer, all but embracing her from behind, to demonstrate the motion of casting. It was all just an excuse to get close to her, to inhale the soothing scent of her skin, and a fishing lesson provided a practical excuse.
He positioned himself as close against her back as instruction, if not good sense, allowed. She smelled of the garden she tended so meticulously—of lemon, verbena, and mint. Of sunshine and warmth on such a blessedly bright summer morning. “You’ll want to hold it thusly, Elspeth.”
Her smile was as shy and luminous as it had been the first time he had seen her in Fowl’s Close. “Thank you, Hamish. I’ll see if I can muster…”
“A firm wrist,” he advised, “you’ll want to bend the rod, and sling the line like…”—he demonstrated proper motion—“this.”
The line cast somewhat heavily into the pool on the far side of the burn, but he accomplished his goal—she was nodding, looking suitably impressed with his casting prowess. Which allowed him to move on to the next lesson.
His first kiss he placed at the side of her neck, just above the collarbone where her skin was soft and fine and sensitive. He nipped lightly, kissing his way up to her jaw. Her head fell gently to the side, silently acquiescing to his plans for a different sort of demonstration than mere fishing.
In fact, all thought of fishing was forgotten when she arched back to meet his lips with hers. He angled his head to gently suck her bottom lip until she opened her mouth to him, unfurling like a spring flower, soft and sweet. So sweet he was unprepared for her to turn within his arms, fitting herself flush against him, kissing him back, tasting him with hungry little nips and tentatively questing tongue. His chest expanded with heat and need and a desperation to keep her by his side, in his arms. To convince her that she ought to come with him.
His arms tightened around her, pulling her closer still, drawing her down into deeper intimacy. “Darling lass,” he encouraged. “How can you want to stay when you could have kisses always.”
She stilled, her hands going taut on his shoulders. “Always?”
“Aye. I would come to your Aunt Augusta’s house every day so we could work on the book together.” The idea was like an intoxicant. With the completion of the second book he would be assured of success. He would be free of his father’s threats, free to choose as he pleased. “Think of it, Elspeth. We could—”
But she did not want to hear his plans and possibilities. She turned away, slowly shaking her head. “Hamish. What you want is impossible for me.”
He refused to hear it. “It is not impossible. It is the easiest thing.”
She shook her head, and said nothing more, while she picked up the abandoned fishing rod. “I’d best get us breakfast.”
He was about to instruct her on how to gather the line, but the damned clever lass looped her line and let loose an effortlessly flawless cast that landed like the merest breath of a breeze on the surface of the dark, glassy water, and with one subtle draw, she had a fish on the hook and was smoothly reeling it in.
Humility—an emotion he rarely felt—tipped him right off his rock pedestal and into the ankle-deep water. “Well, damn me for an ass. You’re nothing short of an expert, you faker.”
“I never had to pretend. You were too busy instructing to ask if I’d ever fished before. And me, a country lass who’s lived along this burn all my life.”
He waded his way to the bank to contemplate his idiocy and his admiration for the graceful strength of her casts. Which were so quietly efficient, it was only a matter of a half hour before she had put another two fish in the creel.
“Is there nothing you can’t do?” he asked with a laugh. “Care for auld ladies, write books, thatch roofs, catch fish?”
“Make satisfactory jam.” Her smile was a little sad and bittersweet. “The Aunts say I haven’t the patience.”
“Ballocks.” How he loved her ability to banter, her cleverly sweet mind. “You’re exhibiting a fine amount of patience and finesse with that fly rod.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere.”
“Will it? Will it get you to Edinburgh.”
“Hamish.” Her answer was only slightly more forthcoming than silence, but just as noncommittal. She looked up at the morning sky, as if only just realizing what time it must be getting on to be. “Has it gone as late as that? I really ought to get back—the Aunts will wonder and worry even more if I am not there when they get back from kirk.”
He curbed his instinct to talk her into staying and shirking her duties, and, instead, walked her back to the orchard gate. “Even if you are late, you’ll bring them a tasty breakfast.”
“I will. But here”—she scooped one of the trout out of the wicker creel, and handed it to him—“You’ll need one for your breakfast as well.”
“I do, thank you.” He tried to prolong the contact as long as he might—made sure to brush his hand along her wrist, and his fingers lingered just long enough so she might understand the pleasure he took from her touch. “I won’t try and keep you. I know I told you I would go today, but there is still work that could be done. I could have a go at shoring up those rotting eaves. The timbers—”