A Scot to the Heart

by Caroline Linden

  Right. Excellent. Change the topic. She cleared her throat. “I’ve no idea what you mean.”

  He made an impatient noise. “I wasn’t asking. I can see it for myself. But neither he nor she will say anything about it. They glare daggers at each other’s back and get all sour-faced when you mention the other’s name in their presence. It’s bloody awkward to be around them. Why did you tell me to invite him?”

  Ilsa choked back a shaky laugh. She wouldn’t give away Agnes’s secrets—in fact, she didn’t even know this one—but he wasn’t wrong. “They’ll work it out. Or perhaps not, and it will be a feud for the ages.” Reluctantly she took another step away from him, away from temptation, and shivered as the night breeze struck her anew. “’Tis late to be out, dreaming of mad things like wings to fly or swimming with dolphins. Thank you for not being repelled by my flights of fancy.”

  He brushed back a strand of her hair fluttering on the wind. “Hardly repelled, lass,” he said in that gruff Scots tone that made her shiver again, but not from cold. “Never that.”

  She pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “It’s very kind of you to say so. And on that graceful ending, I shall go to bed.”

  “Aye,” he said, after a fraught pause.

  Come with me . . .

  “Good night, Captain,” she said briskly, gripping her shawl for strength, and stepped past him to go down the stairs, in great dignity and propriety, but filled with mad, wild unsatisfied longings.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I believe,” said Bella at breakfast the next morning, “there is a maze beyond the garden.” She paused, looking at Drew. “Isn’t there?” At his nod, she shot up straighter in her chair, eyes sparkling in anticipation. “Let’s explore it!”

  Drew said nothing as the table erupted in excited conversation. He was watching Ilsa, who sat sipping her tea in silence.

  Regret? Unease? He wished he could tell. Her expression was serene but distant. God, he hoped it wasn’t regret. Had he offended her?

  He’d kissed her again last night. He’d held her in his arms for more than a startled moment, and it had shot through his nerves like lightning, searing the feel of her into his flesh. Just the sight of her, her face turned up to the night sky with an expression of rapture, her long hair rippling behind her in the breeze, had rocked him back on his heels. No one else had ever enthralled him the way she had—even before she’d declared a desire to soar into the night, unrestrained by anything like duty or inheritance or gravity.

  He’d spent a long time thinking of that embrace, and their conversation, and what he ought to do about his growing fascination with her. At Carlyle Castle a suitable wife had been one of Her Grace’s favorite topics. She had spoken at some length on the necessity of choosing a well-born woman who would know what was expected of her and uphold her position with grace and dignity. Drew had nodded along because who was he to argue with the woman who had been the Duchess of Carlyle for over fifty years?

  And now here he sat, fascinated by a woman who was neither well-born nor English, who danced in oyster cellars and dreamt of flight. The duchess, Drew thought, would not be pleased.

  That brought him up short. Was he considering marrying Ilsa? Or was he just losing his mind over her?

  “So that’s settled.” Bella bounded out of her seat, jarring him from his thoughts. “We’ll meet in the garden in an hour.”

  Drew finished his coffee and pushed back his chair. “Not I. I’m riding out with Mr. Watkins this morning.” Ilsa’s gaze flicked his way. “No one make a map of the maze,” he added. “Don’t spoil the mystery for me.”

  “It would take more than a map,” said Alex Kincaid. “Worst sense of direction I’ve ever seen in a soldier.”

  His sisters hooted with laughter. Drew gave Kincaid an aggravated glance—his friends had seized the opportunity to make sport of him at every turn—and left to put on his boots.

  When he came back down to the hall on his way to the stables, Ilsa was pacing between the tall French windows and the hearth. She wore a scarlet riding habit and held a broad-brimmed black hat. At his entrance she spun around as if she’d been waiting for him.

  He squashed that hopeful thought. “You’re even more eager than Bella to explore the maze,” he said with a smile.

  She gave a startled laugh. “I’m not sure that’s humanly possible. She’s talked of little else since yesterday.”

  “Ghosts,” he reminded her.

  “’Tis Winnie who yearns for a ghost.” Her smile grew stronger.

  Drew made a face. “Ah, yes. How could I forget?”

  Still smiling, she looked down at her hands, gripping the hat, then back up at him. She opened her mouth, hesitated, then plunged on as if she’d reached some momentous decision. “I was wondering, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble or inconvenience, if I might ride out, as well.”

  He went still. “With me?”

  She blushed. “Yes. Or not, if that would disturb—”

  “Of course,” he said, mesmerized anew. Anytime.

  A glow came into her face. “Thank you!”

  “I don’t know if there’s a fit horse for you,” he said, remembering with a frown. “Allow me to ask Watkins—”

  “Oh no.” She put out her hand, then snatched it back. “That is—I asked Mr. Duncan if he would lend me his horse, and he agreed.”

  Drew wondered again if he should believe his friend’s disavowal of any interest in her but put that aside for now. If she rode Duncan’s horse, Duncan couldn’t come with them.

  “The saddle,” he said slowly.

  The familiar wild, impish smile curved her lips. She twitched up the hem of her habit to show him that she wore boots and breeches under her skirt. “I came prepared for any chance.”

  His heart thudded and soared. “Then let’s be off.”

  Watkins was waiting at the stables. Drew saddled his horse while a groom brought out Duncan’s mount and Ilsa watched with barely contained eagerness. She did indeed ride astride, mounting herself before he could help her. Drew told Watkins they wanted to have a bit of a gallop first, and they set out.

  She rode like a centauride. Her breeches and boots were dark, and when she looped up her skirts it looked for all the world like she rode sidesaddle, but she controlled her horse with the ease of a cavalry officer. Duncan’s horse was a bit frisky but performed under her hand like a lamb.

  Drew was entranced.

  “Oh, that was brilliant!” she cried when they had let the horses race across a rolling meadow, clearing a low stone wall, and now had settled back into a cooling walk toward the path where Watkins was to meet Drew. “I’ve not ridden like that in years!”

  He pulled up beside her, laughing. “Why not?” There were plenty of places for a good gallop near Edinburgh.

  Her face froze. “My husband didn’t approve.”

  “What?” he exclaimed in astonishment. “Why not?”

  “He—” She brushed a wisp of hair from her face with one gloved hand. “He didn’t think it decorous behavior. Proper ladies ride in carriages.” She leaned down to pat the horse’s neck, hiding her expression. “But that was worth the wait! I feared I’d forgotten how.”

  Drew was intensely curious about her husband. Duncan had said Ramsay was a hotheaded fool who got himself killed. He wanted to ask, but checked himself. “Where did you learn to ride astride?” he asked instead.

  “My father.” She smiled again, the moment of tension and anxiety gone. “He decided any child of his must be a bruising rider, and I was the only one, so I received excellent lessons.”

  He grinned in memory. “My father also taught me. Put me on a pony when I wasn’t quite three, to my mother’s alarm.”

  “Oh, Papa didn’t teach me himself. He was much too busy. I had a riding instructor from the time I was five.”

  Ah yes; Drew remembered that her father was a successful merchant. “He’s Deacon of the Wrights, aye?”

  “And a
town councilor,” she said somberly, before wrinkling her nose and laughing. “Yes. He wasn’t at the time, though. My grandfather, his father, was the deacon then. Papa was learning his tradecraft, working long hours. And when my mother died . . .” She sighed. “I suppose he thought I would miss Mama less if I were kept busy all day with lessons.”

  Drew heard the thread of sadness in her voice, but her expression was calm. “I hear Deacon Fletcher is the finest cabinet-maker in Edinburgh.”

  “As his daughter, I must tell you he is the best cabinet-maker in all of Scotland, and therefore the world, thank you kindly,” she returned pertly. “And if you’ll be wanting a set of furnishings for your new domain, you’d better place your order now, for he won’t jump for any man, not even a duke.”

  He laughed. “I’m not a duke, and it may be decades before I can afford so much as a footstool from the finest cabinet-maker in Scotland.”

  She tilted her head thoughtfully. “How strange that must be, knowing immense wealth and power await one, yet possessed of none of it now and completely in the dark as to when one might be.”

  He cleared his throat. “I’ve been given an income from the estate. Nothing to the duke’s, of course, but generous for a humble captain.” He paused. “The duchess his mother has run the estate for years, and I believe she was utterly appalled by the quality of the prospective heirs, once she located us.”

  “There’s more than one?”

  “My cousin. I’ve given up trying to remember what degree, but I never met the fellow before Her Grace summoned us both to the castle and said we must make ourselves worthy of her son’s title.”

  “Or else . . . what?” She gave him that mischievous little smile.

  “Or else we’d be flayed alive by her tongue, I suppose,” said Drew with a curt laugh. “In all honesty, it never crossed my mind to defy her. I’d sooner tell my colonel to kiss his own arse, and that would earn me a flogging.” He shuddered. “The duchess would be worse.”

  She laughed. “I know that type of woman well.” They had come to a fence and turned to walk along it. “But only one of you can inherit. What will happen to the other?”

  “Well, neither my cousin nor I have married or had a son yet. Until then, he’s my heir.” A frown touched Drew’s brow at the memory of Maximilian St. James, with his polished, cynical smile and calculating eyes.

  “You don’t look pleased by the prospect,” she remarked.

  “I don’t think my cousin took it seriously. He’s a rogue and a gambler, and Her Grace is resigned to him frittering away her money and help.” The duchess had never said Maximilian’s name after he departed the castle, but every day some passing comment or other would make clear her despair over him. “She strongly encouraged me to marry and secure the succession—” Drew broke off in chagrin. He’d felt so comfortable talking to Ilsa, he’d let his tongue run wild. “Forgive me.”

  “No, I’d already heard that.”

  Drew started. Here he thought he’d spilled his secrets, and she already knew? “Did you?”

  “Oh yes.” She gave him a sympathetic look. “I heard far more than I should have, no doubt.”

  Drew closed his eyes for a moment. “Bella or Winnie?”

  “Both.”

  He pressed his knuckles to his brow. He could only imagine what his sisters would have said. “Dare I hope you might forget every word of it?”

  “Captain,” she said with a small laugh, “you need have no worry about my remembering any of it. You should be far more interested in who else they’re telling.”

  They had come to a gate. Drew leaned down to open it, thinking hard. It didn’t take long. The dance at the Edinburgh Assembly Rooms, when he’d been forcibly introduced to at least five or six ladies and maneuvered into dancing with all of them. He’d thought his sisters were just being excessively sociable. Merciful saints above.

  He motioned Ilsa to ride through the gate. Mr. Watkins awaited them ahead, his placid horse grazing on the tall grass by the end of the path. “They’ll be the death of me,” he muttered as he rode past Ilsa, the gate securely closed again.

  “On the contrary, sir,” she said. “They mean to help you.”

  He glanced back sharply, but she gave him a jaunty wave and put her heels to her horse, cantering off down the path. This time Drew only admired her form for a moment before urging his own horse toward Watkins.

  Today he wanted to see the scope of the estate, not dig deeply into the details, so Watkins led him around the property without stopping to inspect anything. He pointed out the small village, the road to the farms, the mineral springs, and the stream that fed the mill. He showed Drew the distillery and the dairy, where Stormont produced whisky and cheese famed throughout Perthshire.

  “Proud we are to have Stormont sustain itself, and not be a drag on His Grace’s purse,” Watkins assured him. “Mr. MacGill was quite clear that we were not to request funds, and we haven’t, not since the spring floods six years ago. And that was just a small amount, mind, to repair the mill,” he added quickly. “’Twas soon repaid.”

  Drew nodded, a thin frown on his face. He had no experience of managing an estate, but surely it was odd to tell an estate steward he shouldn’t ask for funds from the owner if they were needed. “So you’ve had no communication with Mr. Edwards, the duke’s solicitor?”

  “Nay, sir. Only with Mr. MacGill.”

  “And why is the house kept in readiness at all times?” That, Drew knew, was a considerable expense.

  “Mr. MacGill’s orders, sir. He does come here for a month every summer, to see that all is well.”

  And have a holiday at the duke’s expense, thought Drew in irritation. “It was suggested that I should consider selling the property when I inherit,” he said. “What do you think of that?”

  Watkins hesitated. “It is a very fine estate, Captain. I’m sure it would bring a handsome sum.”

  Drew nodded. He knew the dukedom came with a Scottish title: Earl of Crieff. Surely a Scottish earl should hold property in Scotland. He wondered again why Edwards was so keen to sell the estate. He thanked Mr. Watkins, told him he’d seen enough for one day, and headed after Ilsa.

  She had ranged off on her own, but he found her on a hill overlooking the river that wound past the palace and into the village through the mill. She had dismounted and was walking Duncan’s gelding, who looked well exercised. He swung off his own horse and joined her.

  She shaded her eyes as he came up beside her. “Is this all your property?”

  Over ten thousand acres belonged to Stormont Palace; the answer was almost surely yes. “It’s not mine, but I believe this is all Stormont. It’s a question for Watkins.” She glanced past him, and Drew made a vague gesture. “I saw what I needed to see today. He’s gone back to . . . whatever he does all day.”

  Her lips twitched. “Running your estate?”

  “It’s not mine,” he said again. “And he’s doing a far better job than I would, so it’s for the best.” She grinned, and he shook his head. “I do intend to tell Mr. Edwards he ought to find a new solicitor, though. It appears Mr. MacGill tells Watkins to keep the estate ready for guests at all times, at great expense, yet the only guest who comes is MacGill himself.” He smiled tightly. “To see that all is in order, conveniently enough for a month in the summer.”

  “I sacked Mr. MacGill,” Ilsa said with obvious pleasure.

  “I am consumed with envy.” They shared a gleaming glance of amusement. God, he loved talking to her. “I apologize for not riding with you.”

  “Oh no, you mustn’t,” she cried. “I fully expected to go on my own. If anything I should apologize to you, for imposing on you when you meant to see to business.”

  “Imposing?” he echoed, startled. As a guest, at a strange estate, on a borrowed horse? Any host would have offered to accompany her, even if that host hadn’t also been eager to seize any chance of her company.

  She seemed to misunderstand, hastening to
assure him. “Oh yes. I hope I didn’t keep you too long. I’m quite used to doing on my own, since I was a child.” The glance she gave him from under her eyelashes was oddly shy. “But it was lovely to have company.”

  He looked at her. A child without a mother, and a father too busy at work to be with her. A steady stream of tutors and instructors. An invitation to Agnes to stay with her, even before there was any crowding at his mother’s house. And the vision of her alone on the roof last night, gazing wistfully into the night sky and dreaming of flying like a hawk.

  “I hope my company wasn’t dull.”

  Her eyes opened wide. “Not at all!”

  Drew grimaced. “My sisters tell me I am. Dreadfully Dreary Drew, Bella used to call me.”

  She choked on a laugh. “That’s decidedly untrue.”

  He knotted the reins and let his horse wander. “It must be said that I’ve had more . . . excitement with you than with my sisters.”

  “Have you?” she murmured, one dark brow arching.

  “Far more,” he averred in a low voice. “And I hope to continue.”

  She turned and strolled away, her gloved hand brushing the tall grass beside the path. “Plans are the antithesis of excitement. None of us knows what the future holds anyway.”

  Drew went still. Was he being brushed off? He took a step after her. “If anything I did last night caused offense—”

  “No.” She put up her hand. “Nothing you did was wrong. It was my fault.” Her fingers curled into a fist. “All my fault. I don’t wish to cause complications for you, and yet I keep forgetting myself . . .”

  He snorted. “It was not all your fault. If it had been anyone else on the rooftop, I would have gone back down without a word, aye?” He walked after her. “And who said you’re causing complications? My sisters?”

  “The duchess, I imagine.” She raised her chin. “She encouraged you to marry. I daresay she didn’t expect you to run wild with some mad Scotswoman.”

  He stood beside her. She was right, of course, about the duchess. But when he’d invited Her Grace’s help in finding a bride, he’d never once imagined that a woman like Ilsa would whirl into his life in an Edinburgh oyster cellar and capture his attention so completely.