“Everyone can see that the attraction is strong on both sides,” Winnie put in. “They can hardly keep their eyes off each other, especially this week.”
Ilsa’s hand paused mid-stroke, self-conscious. “This week?”
Winnie nodded, watching her too closely for comfort. “Everyone can clearly see how much these two ought to be together—”
“Only they are both being so dense about it!” burst in Bella.
Oh Lord, what should she say? “That’s often how it goes. Attachments”—she almost choked on the word, praying desperately they were speaking of Agnes and Mr. Duncan and not her and the captain—“attachments are delicate matters. One party may not be sure their affection is returned, making them reserved, which renders the other party shy, as well.”
Winnie inched forward on her cushion. “What could we do to nudge one of them—”
“Or both of them,” said Bella.
“—to admit the depth of their feelings and proceed to the proposal and wedding?”
Ilsa blinked, and Bella choked on a giggle.
“Are you certain they care that deeply for each other?”
“Yes.” Winnie nodded confidently.
“How did you know Mr. Ramsay was the one, when you married before?” Bella asked.
Ilsa’s hand slowed and stopped, resting lightly on Cyrus’s back. When Papa told me he was. “I suspect it’s different every time,” she said, keeping her tone even. “And while it may be obvious to you, dear matchmakers, it may not be to either of them. The course of true love never does run smooth.”
She told herself they must be speaking of Agnes and Mr. Duncan. The looks those two exchanged fairly singed the air—sometimes with dislike, sometimes with longing. It was only her guilty conscience that made her even suspect Winnie and Bella might have their brother in mind. How could they have gone from witnessing one reckless kiss to maneuvering to arrange a marriage between her and Drew? Of course they had not. They wanted him to marry a sophisticated woman who would take them to London for a glorious Season. They had a book listing the most eligible women in Britain to choose from.
She ought to feel very relieved, and yet did not.
And now she’d let herself be maneuvered into offering advice on Agnes’s love life, which she had sworn to avoid. “Your best choice is to be a kind and loyal sister to this family member, and trust that they will know what’s best for their own life.”
Both of them looked let down. “But what if hardheadedness or—or hurt feelings cause the other party to walk away?” Bella exclaimed. “Most people don’t wish to pine away of love forever, you know.”
Ilsa laughed. “Of course not. I only meant that it’s not your choice to make. You would not wish them to make it for you, would you? You cannot presume to make it for either of them.”
“But our family member is being a fool!”
Ilsa raised her brows. “I’ve not met a St. James yet who was a fool.”
Bella rolled her eyes. “You have, we just see it more clearly after years of exposure to them.”
“But what can we do?” asked Winnie earnestly. “To make them see reason and—and woo the other party.”
“Woo?” Ilsa tried not to laugh.
“One of them has to say something,” said Bella wrathfully. “And we’ve already stated that our family member is being an idiot!”
Ilsa stroked Cyrus’s soft black fur. The purring had stopped; he was sound asleep in her lap, curled into a trusting little ball. She wondered if Robert would like him, and then told herself Cyrus was not her cat. He would go to England with the St. Jameses.
“When it comes to love, you cannot force it to flower,” she said, eyes on the kitten. “It is a wild plant. It will grow, or not, where it wills, often despite your best intentions. Perhaps the best you can do is beware of its thorns and do your best to prune it.”
Well did she know that. She had wanted to love her husband; for a while, she’d thought she did. Her father had arranged the marriage, but Malcolm had been handsome and eligible and Ilsa had agreed happily, eager to escape her father’s house and Jean’s strict rules and see something of the world.
It had not happened that way. Malcolm had been, like her father, a man about town, known in every tavern and public room. He had not wanted to change his bachelor ways and take her to the theater or the art galleries, as she longed to do. His friends, he claimed, were not a lady’s society, and he would neither give them up nor take her out in their company. He expected her to sit at home, quietly reading or sewing, when Ilsa had yearned to dance and host dinner parties and go see balloon ascents. Her feelings of love had not lasted long. Malcolm, of course, had never felt any to begin with.
And as for Drew . . . She was not going to allow herself to think of love.
Bella and Winnie were gazing at her with identical disgusted expressions. “Prune it?” echoed Winnie, as if the words were blasphemous.
“Thorns?” Bella wrinkled her nose. “Does true love have thorns?”
Ilsa couldn’t even smile at their disappointment. Not only did love have thorns, some of them were tipped with poison. “I don’t know much about love, at least in marriage. Perhaps your mother will have better suggestions.”
They exchanged glances of dismay.
Feeling awkward now, she handed the kitten back to Bella and climbed to her feet. “I do wish your family member great happiness, you know. I just believe she will work out on her own how to find it.”
Bella gave a muffled snort.
“Hopefully before we’ve left Edinburgh and it’s too late,” muttered Winnie.
“Well.” She flattened her hands on her skirt. The warm spot where Cyrus had curled felt cold now. “I will see you at dinner.”
“Thank you for your advice. And—and you won’t say anything to anyone about our questions, will you?”
Agnes would combust with fury and mortification if she knew. Ilsa shook her head and tapped her nose. “I swear not,” she said gravely. “On my very soul.”
That elicited a wan smile from Bella, and Ilsa was able to depart with a smile on her own face.
It was only in her own room that she gave in to the yawning emptiness inside her when she thought of the St. Jameses’ departure for England. She leaned against the door, shuddering, and put her face in her hands. No more of Agnes’s company. No more teasing and plotting with her sisters.
No more Drew, with his impertinent winks, saucy good humor, and incendiary kisses. In the moment when she’d thought Winnie and Bella meant Drew, and were trying to match him with her . . . Before the awkwardness had gripped her, there had been a searing burst of hope in her heart for one moment. That his sisters had sensed that he was in love with her. That he wanted to marry her. And even more, that they would all look on the match happily.
That little explosion of happiness inside her had caught her off guard. She had promised Agnes no hearts would be broken. It was just flirting. They were merely friends.
All lies.
She swiped at her burning cheeks. Stop it, she told herself. You’re being a fool.
That sort of love is a myth.
Chapter Fourteen
The visit to Stormont Palace seemed to pass in the blink of an eye, to Drew’s surprise, even though it had stretched from a week to almost a fortnight.
There was no doubt that it had been a smashing success. He’d got around to all the tenants and farms, seeing for himself that they were well-run. He saw the mill and the little village around it, the distillery, the extensive dairy operation. He had copious notes for his report to Mr. Edwards, to make his argument for keeping the estate.
Bringing his family had been a stroke of brilliance. His mother was impressed by the property and the calm efficiency of the Watkinses. Agnes had a sparkle in her eye and color in her face, even when she spoke to Felix Duncan. Drew still wasn’t sure it had been a good idea to invite the man, but both seemed to thrive on their acerbic exchanges. He had alwa
ys trusted that Bella and Winnie would be won over fairly easily, but they took to the grand old house with ebullient delight, from the maze race to telling stories in the vast, echoing cellars.
And the very best part of the trip: Ilsa Ramsay was there. She’d ridden out with him several mornings, making him laugh every time. To his regret, the first night was the only time they’d stood out on the roof together, but he’d kissed her in the maze, and twice on the ridge behind the mill during a morning ride. He felt like a boy, impatient to see her again whenever they were apart, euphoric every time he kissed her and she kissed him back, beset by vivid erotic dreams of her at night.
He had heard his mother’s caution and tried to keep it in mind, but what pulled him toward Ilsa was stronger. He didn’t know his intentions or her true feelings for him; he only knew that he liked her—very much.
With a surge of anticipation, he tapped softly at her door the night before they were to return to Edinburgh. It was late, the household having all gone to bed. He had waited until no light shone under any door, but that included Ilsa’s, and there was a chance she would be asleep—
The door opened a crack. Her eyes widened at the sight of him. “What are you doing?” she whispered.
For answer he held up a length of chain, the iron links clanking faintly.
Her eyes grew wide. “No . . .”
Drew grinned. At dinner Winnie had lamented not hearing so much as a ghostly wail. He leaned closer and whispered, “Come be naughty with me, and give my sisters the fright they so desperately crave.”
She inhaled. He felt the rush of breath across his cheek, almost like a kiss. Her hair fell over her shoulders in inky black waves, she wore a sleeveless nightdress that made him wish he’d brought a bigger lamp, and behind her, in the shadows of her room, was a bed . . .
“Where?”
“In the attics,” he murmured, still absorbed in the smell of her hair and the warmth of her skin. The chain clanked against his knee as he forgot about ghostly pranks and thought only about her—kissing her—being wild and wicked with her—
“Let me get my slippers,” she whispered, and then she turned her head and pressed her lips to his for a heart-stopping moment.
Something happened to him every time she kissed him. The closest thing like it he’d ever experienced was when lightning struck a tree near the fort as they were returning from patrol. Every man in the regiment had been knocked off his feet by the earsplitting crack, and all scrambled back up with pulses thumping, hair standing on end, feeling like they’d just won a sudden and terrific battle.
He sagged against the door as she slipped back into her room, and tried to calm his rioting senses. Do you like this woman? his mother had asked. Mam, I’m utterly fascinated with her, he silently replied.
Ilsa returned a moment later, tying the sash on her dressing gown. Drew heaved a silent sigh of mourning for her bare shoulders. “What do you intend to do?” she whispered as they crept down the corridor toward the heavy door that led to the attics.
It was so like his mother’s query that Drew gave a start, nearly dropping his lamp. He glanced at her, and almost fumbled the lamp again at the exhilaration in her face. If not for that dratted chain hitting his knee, he could easily believe this was a rendezvous, two lovers meeting in the dark of night because they couldn’t keep away from each other a moment longer.
Unsettled, he put one finger to his lips, and only when they had gained the staircase, with the door gently closed behind them—on hinges that were blessedly oiled into silence, thanks to Mrs. Watkins—did he speak.
“They want to hear a ghost,” he said quietly. “I thought I would . . . just . . .” He rattled the chain.
She folded her arms and tapped one finger to her chin. Standing two steps above him, her bosom was right at eye level, and Drew was mesmerized by the sight. Her dressing gown was fine lawn, like her nightdress, and he could swear he spied a dusky nipple—
“You’ll have to make more noise than that,” she said thoughtfully. “These old houses have thick walls and floors. Some stomping, I think, and dragging the chain on the floor.” She turned and darted up the stairs, into the stygian darkness, without so much as a backward look. Drew started out of his daze of arousal and hurried after her, holding the lamp higher.
“Oh my,” she breathed. He could barely make her out, even in her white garments. “It’s empty.” She turned to him, a wicked smile on her face. “We can make so much noise up here.”
As it turned out, the attics were not empty. No doubt thanks to Mrs. Watkins’s efficiency, trunks and crates were stacked neatly at the far end of the room. Ghostly figures turned out to be furniture draped in dust coverings. But that left a long run of open space where they could, indeed, make an unholy racket. Ilsa located a heavy padlock on a shorter length of chain, which made a satisfying thump against the wooden planks. Drew mentally mapped out the floor beneath, and paced off where he thought his sisters’ rooms were.
“Some wailing would be enormously helpful,” she whispered.
“Wailing?” He was still thinking about the way her dressing gown shifted over her breasts as she moved.
“Remember? The stairs to the roof,” she whispered. “You said it made a howl like a banshee when the door was left open.”
The roof, where he’d kissed her and she’d kissed him and things might have reached a truly spectacular level if Felix Duncan hadn’t been wandering about sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. “Right,” said Drew, his brain too fixated on that night and what might have been to make any other sensible reply.
“There’s a window here,” she went on. “Open it, and I’ll open the door when you’re ready to give Winnie her ghost, and then—”
“The wind will howl down the stairs,” he finished. It was a wild, raw night outside. The windows had been rattling since dinnertime. He set the lamp aside and managed to pry open the rusted latch and shove open the small window.
The breeze that rushed in was cold and damp and raised the hair on his arms. Ilsa leaned near it and breathed deeply. “It smells of the sea,” she whispered.
It smells of home, he thought. The briny tang of the North Sea was in the air, along with heather and peat. And there was a note of something else, something softer and warmer . . .
She leaned farther toward the window and inhaled. The soft warm scent tugged at him, and Drew realized that was her, her perfume, her skin, her hair. Unconsciously he leaned toward her, breathing deeply—
He stopped. Perhaps this had been a mistake. He’d thought it the perfect way to end the visit, this caper to make Winnie laugh and steal a few more minutes with Ilsa at the same time, and instead he’d fallen into a bottomless pool of desire. He wanted to kick the chains into the shadows and make love to Ilsa on the bare attic floor, never mind ghostly pranks.
“I’ll open the door at the bottom of the stairs,” he said to distract himself from that, but was unable to resist sneaking one more look at her as he turned away.
She stood in front of the window, her arms braced on the sides, face lifted in ecstasy to the night sky. Her hair and dressing gown billowed in the stiff breeze. She was the spirit haunting him and tormenting him, and Drew cursed at himself as he nearly fell headfirst down the dark stairs in his distraction.
“All in readiness,” he said when he rejoined her, having propped open the door with a stray bit of wood and got himself under better control.
Her face was pale and eager in the lamplight. “For Winnie’s sake, be terrifying.”
He led the way, clanking the chain and dragging his footsteps along the floor. Ilsa followed, dragging the padlock and periodically banging it on the floor. “We should moan,” she whispered at one point, and Drew had to stop and collect himself for a moment, until she let out a wail that sounded not like the passionate utterance his fevered brain had conjured, but more like a banshee foretelling death and suffering.
“That was you, aye?” he whispered over hi
s shoulder.
“Of course! Who else?”
“I took a moment’s fright that we’d unleashed the spirits of the house in truth.”
She choked on a giggle, which made him smile, and then the two of them could barely carry out their spectral prank for laughing so hard.
Drew paused when he heard a door slam. It was impossible to hear voices over the keening breeze, but he tossed aside the chains and caught Ilsa’s hand, tugging her toward the stairs. At the last moment he blew out the lamp, and they huddled behind an armoire under Holland covers.
“Surely ’tis naught but a stray animal,” came Felix Duncan’s voice, along with the glow of a lamp. A moment later his head and shoulders appeared at the top of the stairs, and he took a sweeping look around. “I see nothing,” he reported over his shoulder.
“Go up, man, be bold,” cried another voice—Adam Monteith, who pushed past Duncan to jog up the stairs and pose there, fists on hips, feet spread. “Show yourself, foul spirits,” he boomed.
Beside him Ilsa was shaking with silent laughter. Unthinking, Drew put an arm around her, grinning, and then stilled as she pressed closer to his side.
Mam, I think I’m falling in love with her, he thought.
“Let me see!” Winnie hurried up, Bella close on her heels. They clutched each other but peered around eagerly. “Was anyone murdered up here? Is that why the ghost is in the attics?”
“No, you goose, spirits obviously need space to do their haunting,” was Bella’s retort.
To Drew’s surprise, his mother and Agnes appeared next. His sister looked skeptical, and his mother wore an expression that made him think she knew exactly what had gone on and found it amusing against her will. Looking distinctly grumpy and still half-asleep, Alex Kincaid brought up the rear, holding another lamp aloft.
“I see nothing,” said Duncan again. He yawned behind one hand. “No headless Highland chieftain, no lady who threw herself from the battlements in heartbreak. Not even the spirit of a badger who got trapped in the—Argh!”
As he spoke, Drew had silently tugged one of the Holland covers down over himself. Eyes shining with glee, Ilsa had pressed back into the shadows while Drew stepped forward, hunched over with his arms upraised. Everyone else was facing the opposite way, so when he lurched toward them and let out a long, low moan, it caused a moment of pandemonium.
A Scot to the Heart Page 16